Tweet
Grants enable site interpretation
By Hannah Wever
Orange County Review [Orange, Va.]
July 24, 2008
Civil War-era history in Orange County recently got a leg up on restoration, research and preservation.
A project to develop an interpretive plan at Mine Run Battlefield now has $50,000 to use in building trails and signs to tell the story of the site’s role in history. At a series of upcoming public meetings, Civil War Preservation Trust, a not-for-profit preservation group, will gather suggestions for the battlefield’s interpretation.
National Park Service Historian Greg Mertz said Mine Run was the site of a major Civil War battle in November 1863.
“It was an attempt after the battle of Gettysburg by the Union Army to defeat the Confederates before going into winter encampment,” Mertz explained.
But Union generals’ plans were foiled by heavy rains and a swollen Rapidan River, he continued. Once armies were in place for the attack, Union Army leaders reconsidered and called off the battle.
“It was the battle that never took place,” Mertz said.
Additionally, the Montpelier Foundation received $35,000 to further a current archaeological survey project on the grounds of James Madison’s Montpelier. Researchers will continue the archaeology of Confederate General Samuel McGowan’s winter encampment. Both grants were awarded by the National Park Service’s American Battlefield Protection Program.
With survey work already underway, Montpelier Director of Archaeology Matt Reeves has been able to determine the encampment sites were occupied during the winter of 1863-1864, when Civil War troops are known to have been at Montpelier. Historical records indicate that the sites were occupied by General Samuel McGowan’s South Carolina brigade.
Reeves said the grant will help archeologists survey additional sites near the troop encampments.
“We’ll try to locate some of the support sites that have been associated with the regimental camps,” he explained. The support sites would have been where blacksmiths and tradesmen worked and lived, a short distance from the regimental camps.
“Now we’ll have the money to look at those support camps,” Reeves said. Reeves and his staff will use metal detectors and other methods of intensive testing on a number of depressions and mounds on the site.
The grants awarded to the Civil War Preservation Trust and the Montpelier Foundation by the American Battlefield Protection Program were two of 32 grants totaling $1,367,144.
Funded projects in other localities include battlefield surveys, site mapping, National Register of Historic Places nominations, preservation and management plans, cultural landscape inventories, educational materials, archeological surveys, and interpretation.
Eric
By Hannah Wever
Orange County Review [Orange, Va.]
July 24, 2008
Civil War-era history in Orange County recently got a leg up on restoration, research and preservation.
A project to develop an interpretive plan at Mine Run Battlefield now has $50,000 to use in building trails and signs to tell the story of the site’s role in history. At a series of upcoming public meetings, Civil War Preservation Trust, a not-for-profit preservation group, will gather suggestions for the battlefield’s interpretation.
National Park Service Historian Greg Mertz said Mine Run was the site of a major Civil War battle in November 1863.
“It was an attempt after the battle of Gettysburg by the Union Army to defeat the Confederates before going into winter encampment,” Mertz explained.
But Union generals’ plans were foiled by heavy rains and a swollen Rapidan River, he continued. Once armies were in place for the attack, Union Army leaders reconsidered and called off the battle.
“It was the battle that never took place,” Mertz said.
Additionally, the Montpelier Foundation received $35,000 to further a current archaeological survey project on the grounds of James Madison’s Montpelier. Researchers will continue the archaeology of Confederate General Samuel McGowan’s winter encampment. Both grants were awarded by the National Park Service’s American Battlefield Protection Program.
With survey work already underway, Montpelier Director of Archaeology Matt Reeves has been able to determine the encampment sites were occupied during the winter of 1863-1864, when Civil War troops are known to have been at Montpelier. Historical records indicate that the sites were occupied by General Samuel McGowan’s South Carolina brigade.
Reeves said the grant will help archeologists survey additional sites near the troop encampments.
“We’ll try to locate some of the support sites that have been associated with the regimental camps,” he explained. The support sites would have been where blacksmiths and tradesmen worked and lived, a short distance from the regimental camps.
“Now we’ll have the money to look at those support camps,” Reeves said. Reeves and his staff will use metal detectors and other methods of intensive testing on a number of depressions and mounds on the site.
The grants awarded to the Civil War Preservation Trust and the Montpelier Foundation by the American Battlefield Protection Program were two of 32 grants totaling $1,367,144.
Funded projects in other localities include battlefield surveys, site mapping, National Register of Historic Places nominations, preservation and management plans, cultural landscape inventories, educational materials, archeological surveys, and interpretation.
Eric