The Wilderness Alert !!!!

[Busterbuttonboy]

Re: The Wilderness Alert !!!!

Fellas
Is there any update to this situation? I have combed the meeting minutes online this morning and have not found anything of interest. I know we all get excited about something once it creeps up-but I think its best if we keep on top of them as they develop.
Drew Gruber

[Dignann]

Re: The Wilderness Alert !!!!

Drew,

You can stay informed and up-to-date via the CWPT's website: http://www.civilwar.org/walmart08/

Eric

[Mudslinger]

Re: The Wilderness Alert !!!!

"The importance of this development is that it's the first major attempt to rectify the imbalance in the tax base in Orange County," he said. "This will allow the rest of the county to remain rural."

Oh..the sacrifice they must make to keep the REST of the county rural? What a crock of bullbutter! Mr. King should consider another career, and relocate to South America. Sign me, my family, our mess, and a great many others to that petition, brother.

Capt. Nick Miller
33rd O.V.I., Co. F
"The Acorn Boys"
Western Federal Blues

[Dignann]

Re: The Wilderness Alert !!!!

BATTLE BREWING OVER WAL-MART

Battle lines firm up as Wal-Mart finalizes plans for store at Civil War's Wilderness battlefield site

By RUSTY DENNEN

The Free Lance-Star [Fredericksburg, Va.]
December 2, 2008

In a new online video, Gens. Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee appear together, able to finally agree on one thing: Wal-Mart's plan to build a Supercenter on a portion of the Wilderness battlefield is preposterous.

The re-enactors' point is also driven home in a mass mailer sent by another group last week to 16,000 Orange County households.

As the world's largest retailer prepares an application for a special-use permit for a store at the intersection of State Routes 3 and 20, battle lines are being drawn.

The video was produced by Wal-MartWatch.com, an anti-Wal-Mart Web site, based in Washington, D.C. It is linked to anti-sprawl activist Al Norman, whom Fortune Magazine once labeled "Wal-Mart's enemy No. 1."

The four-page, full-color Orange mailer was sent out by the Warrenton-based Piedmont Environmental Council, which opposes the plan as much for its potential traffic impact as its effect on the historic setting. The PEC says there's a more suitable site closer to Lake of the Woods and away from the battlefield.

"I think everybody is waiting to see when the application is filed. Until then, we're not sure what's going to be in it," said Jim Campi, spokesman for the D.C.-based Civil War Preservation Trust, which fired the first salvo in opposition when the project was announced in July. Campi said the national group does not oppose a Wal-Mart per se, just the proposed location.

This much is known: The Arkansas-based retailer wants to build a 145,000-square-foot store on 55 acres north of Routes 3 and 20. The developer is JDC Ventures of Vienna.

Wal-Mart maintains that, since the tract is zoned for commercial use, a store there would be appropriate. And it has said it would modify the building design, set it back on the property, and add historical markers explaining the significance of the tract.

"We looked at a long list of available sites and ultimately settled on this particular location, said Wal-Mart spokesman Keith Morris.

"For us, it came down to the fact that it's zoned for this use and has been for some time."

He said the company understands opponents' concerns about the site, "but one thing that concerns us is that so many people expressed concerns when they never saw a sketch of what's proposed. I think a lot of the initial fears have been put to rest."

However, details of the plan have not been filed. Orange County Planner Kevin McMahan said, "I've heard rumblings from consultants that they are on the cusp" of filing an application. An initial site plan was rejected because it was not complete, and then the county Board of Supervisors adopted a "big-box" store ordinance, requiring a special-use permit for stores larger than 60,000 square feet.

ALTERNATE SITE?

Craig Rains of the Friends of Wilderness Battlefield said preservation groups are working on the assumption that Wal-Mart won't back down. The company has five stores in the area: two in Stafford, and one each in Fredericksburg, Spotsylvania and Culpeper.

"Our people are calling their supervisors and telling them to have them look at someplace else," Rains said. One suggestion is that Wal-Mart find a site several miles to the west on Route 3 near Lake of the Woods.

Rains, who lives in that gated community, was among the opponents who met with Wal-Mart's Richmond attorney and the Vienna developer last week to talk about the application. He said they heard the same presentation Wal-Mart gave to the Lake of the Woods Civic Club weeks ago.

"Nothing has changed," Rains said. "We're thinking that even if Wal-Mart does submit a plan, it will be after the first of the year."

An umbrella group formed to fight the big-box store, the Wilderness Battlefield Coalition includes Friends of Wilderness Battlefield, the Civil War Preservation Trust, National Trust for Historic Preservation, National Parks Conservation Association, Piedmont Environmental Council and Friends of Fredericksburg Area Battlefields.

The National Park Service, which owns the historic Ellwood house and other land near Wilderness Corner, has also weighed in against the proposal, saying it's the site, not the store, that's wrong.

"We're not against Wal-Mart. We'd like to see them down the road somewhere," said Russ Smith, superintendent of Fredericksburg & Spotsylvania National Military Park.

"Wal-Mart's answer seems to be: It's zoned commercial, so we have no responsibility."

Barbara Bannar, executive director of the Orange County Chamber of Commerce, said the organization has not taken an official position on the store, but that both commerce and tourism are important.

Still, "it would be logical for commercial growth to go on that property," she said. And with buffers in place, "it should not adversely affect the battlefield."

Bannar said local residents need such a place to shop, "and to keep tax dollars local, and the jobs."

MORE THAN A STORE

Dan Holmes, the Piedmont Environmental Council's director of state policy, said the issues go beyond Wal-Mart.

Wilderness Crossing, a much larger development on a 1,000-acre tract surrounding the Wal-Mart site, is also on the drawing board.

"It's a matter of the county putting a huge amount of land on the table for development," Holmes said.

Development attracts more development, and with it, traffic issues that must be addressed, he said.

The Wilderness battlefield, Holmes said, "was the first meeting [in battle] of Grant and Lee in what historians refer to as the beginning of the end of the Civil War. The next time they met was to sign a piece of paper in Appomattox. Do we want to do this" on significant sites around the region?

Eric Bull, a spokesman for Wal-MartWatch.com, said the company has built stores near other historic or cultural areas. For example, a Bodega Aurrera store, owned by a Latin America subsidiary, sits next to an Aztec site in Mexico City.

Al Norman, a longtime anti-Wal-Mart activist and the founder of Sprawl-Busters, is against the proposed Wilderness store and has been through a similar fight here before.

He was among those who successfully fought Wal-Mart's plan in the mid-1990s to build a store adjacent to Ferry Farm, George Washington's boyhood home off Route 3 in southern Stafford County.

Under intense public pressure, the retail giant opted for another site farther east on Route 3.

"Wal-Mart has a nasty habit of colliding with history," Norman said. "They did it at Ferry Farm, they're doing it again at the Wilderness battlefield. The only history Wal-Mart cares about is that day's gross receipts at its stores.

"History can't be bought and sold, so it's not a commodity Wal-Mart understands or cares about. Our American heritage has no economic value to them."

http://www.fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2008/122008/12022008/427869/index_html?page=1

Eric

[Johnny Lloyd]

Re: The Wilderness Alert !!!!

"Our American heritage has no economic value to them."

Therein lies the key to why our heritage is in-danger all over America...

...and how it can also be saved.

All the best -Johnny Lloyd

[Mudslinger]

Re: The Wilderness Alert !!!!

Bully for the PEC & CWPT! I've already sent my letters directly. I agree Johnny, Wal-Mart cares for nothing of history.

"Eric Bull, a spokesman for Wal-MartWatch.com, said the company has built stores near other historic or cultural areas."

We fought them in WV for building on the Fayetteville battlefield. We were routed though.

What is the big deal that they cannot move the location? That's what I wanna know....


Nick Miller
33rd O.V.I., Co. F
"The Acorn Boys" Mess
Western Federal Blues



"Perryville was the hardest and most evenly contested battle that was ever fought during the war, or even any war, and there was a greater mortality in killed and wounded than any other battle on both sides in proportion to the number engaged."-Sam R. Watkins

[Dignann]

Re: The Wilderness Alert !!!!

Opponents: Supercenter in wrong spot

National Park Service, preservation groups dismayed Wal-Mart is going ahead with retail complex at The Wilderness

By CLINT SCHEMMER

The Free Lance-Star [Fredericksburg, Va.]
December 10, 2008

Critics of Wal-Mart's proposed development at The Wilderness had hoped the world's largest retailer would move its project to avoid a clash with preservationists.

Now, they're preparing for a full-scale battle over a planned Supercenter less than a quarter-mile from the Civil War battlefield.

Russ Smith, superintendent of Fredericksburg & Spotsylvania National Military Park, said yesterday that he is frustrated that Wal-Mart stuck with its Wilderness Corner site.

"I am very disappointed they didn't consider other sites and didn't listen to the feedback they got that this site is too close to the Wilderness battlefield."

Smith met with Wal-Mart officials about the project last summer, and expressed the National Park Service's opposition to its proposal.

In July, the Wilderness Battlefield Coalition wrote Wal-Mart CEO H. Lee Scott Jr., expressing its concerns that the Supercenter "would pave the way for desecration of the Wilderness with unnecessary commercial growth."

Other partners in the coalition--which includes the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the National Parks Conservation Association and the Friends of Wilderness Battlefield--met two weeks ago with Wal-Mart's Richmond lawyer and the tract's Vienna developer, reiterating their opposition.

"We're greatly concerned about the visual impact of what intensive commercial development will do to the entrance to this national park," Smith said, "the traffic that it will generate, the pressure it will bring to widen Route 20, and the precedent Wal-Mart will set for other development in that area of Orange County."

He said the developer's plan shows four pad sites for additional stores on the tract.

Smith said the tract is part of the battlefield, as defined by a congressional blue-ribbon panel. The Wilderness is one of the nation's most historically significant battlegrounds, the Civil War Sites Advisory Commission said, giving its the highest designation for preservation.

The Wal-Mart tract was directly behind the last line of Federal earthworks that extended across the Germanna Turnpike (now State Route 3). The Union Army's 6th Corps had field hospitals in the vicinity, said Eric Mink the park's cultural resources officer.

Daniel Holmes, state policy director with the Piedmont Environmental Council, said coalition members believe Wal-Mart will anchor other high-traffic retail stores, all of them "pouring more traffic onto Route 20, which is the heart of the battlefield."

Holmes said Orange County should evaluate the development proposed near the Route 3/Route 20 crossroad as a whole, not piecemeal.

"When you combine Wal-Mart's plan and the Wilderness Crossing scheme, you're looking at roughly 2.8 million square feet under roof," he said. "Central Park in Fredericksburg is zoned for 2.4 million square feet, and currently has 2.2 million square feet. These two developments would be about a half-million square feet larger than Central Park."

Jim Campi, policy director for the Civil War Preservation Trust, said that group continues to believe the Wilderness Corner tract is "extremely inappropriate for any kind of big-box commercial, especially a Wal-Mart.

"We're not telling Wal-Mart 'No way.' We're just telling them, 'Not here,'" Campi said.

Efforts to reach Wal-Mart and its Virginia attorney for comment yesterday were unsuccessful.

http://fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2008/122008/12102008/431031

Eric

[Emmanuel Dabney]

Re: The Wilderness Alert !!!!

Orange wants 3-D look at impact of proposed Wal-Mart


Developer files special-use permit request for Orange County Wal-Mart

BY ROBIN KNEPPER


Date published: 12/10/2008

BY ROBIN KNEPPER


An Orange County official has asked a developer to use 3-D computer imagery to show the impact a proposed Wal-Mart will have on the scenery in the Wilderness Battlefield area.

Community Development Director David Grover said he has asked JDC Ventures of Vienna for a "computerized view-shed analysis" to supplement its request for a special-use permit to build the Wal-Mart Supercenter.

Grover said the application filed with his office Friday "appears to be largely complete."

The Wal-Mart would cover 19.5 acres of a 51.5-acre commercially zoned tract a quarter-mile off State Route 3 just inside the border of Orange and Spotsylvania counties.

The slightly revised site plan shows the store's indoor retail area would cover 133,481 square feet, with a 4,748-square-foot outdoor garden center. It would not offer auto repair or sell fuel.

In addition to Wal-Mart, the developer's plan includes three out-parcels totaling 14.5 acres for retail development. The rest of the tract, adjacent to Wilderness Run, is in a 100-year flood plain and can't be developed.

A special-use permit is required by the county's ordinance for retail stores of more than 60,000 square feet. Supervisors passed the big-box ordinance in June in anticipation of the Wal-Mart proposal.

Although it is not required by the big-box ordinance, Grover said he has asked the developer to prepare a visual-impact analysis of the proposed development.

Historical preservation groups say the Supercenter is a bad fit with the nearby Wilderness Civil War battlefield and have asked Wal-Mart to seek another site in the county. And some in the county have raised concerns about development's impact on the Route 3 area, separate from the battlefield issue.

Grover said a visual-impact assessment "can superimpose the building on the site and create 3-D views from that site."

"It allows you to show what it's going to look like from different points. I'm concerned about how it's going to look from Route 3 and approaching Orange County from the east," he said.

While the Wal-Mart plan has remained essentially the same as the preliminary site plan submitted in the spring, some changes have been made.

Included in the application is a traffic-impact analysis that puts one entrance to the retail area on a road to be built opposite State Route 20. It would run between an existing 7-Eleven and Wachovia Bank and wind behind an existing strip mall.

The new road would cross adjacent parcels to get to the Wal-Mart parking lot. According to Grover, the developer has not yet included these parcels in the application.

"The [permit] has to cover all the parcels," Grover said, "because I have to be able to propose conditions that would deal with the entire property.

"Our biggest concern is the visual impact of all development on this property," he added. "There are three parcels between Route 3 and the Wal-Mart parking lot that have been identified for future retail use and we want to be able to include buffering for all the pad sites."

A second proposed access road from Route 3 involves a right turns only in and out of the retail center. It would be approximately 870 feet west of the entrance road opposite Route 20 and would connect with a crossover leading to McDonald's, Sheetz, a strip mall and a used-car lot on Route 3.

The north side of Route 3, where the Wal-Mart is planned, is designated an economic-development area in the county's comprehensive plan. A separate 900-acre mixed-use retail, office and commercial development called Wilderness Crossing has been proposed for the area around the Wal-Mart site.

In addition to the traffic analysis, the permit application for Wal-Mart also includes a cultural-resources study that found nothing of historical significance on the property.

Grover said the report by Dovetail Cultural Resource Group of Fredericksburg found a small portion of a Civil War trench line on the Wilderness Crossing property and a possible overnight campsite near Wilderness Run, but nothing that "rises to the level of being included on the National Register of Historic Places."

"We're pretty sure not much was going on on this land," he said.

An environmental analysis requested by Grover also found no significant impact to be expected by the development.

The application will be reviewed in January, and Grover expects to submit it to the county Planning Commission in late February.

Public hearings must be held by the Planning Commission and the Board of Supervisors, which has final say on the permit.

Robin Knepper: 540/972-5701
Email: rknepper@earthlink.net

Online at: http://fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2...2102008/430948

[Stonewall_Greyfox]

Re: The Wilderness Alert !!!!

When will we learn to say NO...Man I wish we had politicians like Teddy Roosevelt still.

Paul B.

[csabugler]

Re: The Wilderness Alert !!!!

When will we learn to say NO...Man I wish we had politicians like Teddy Roosevelt still.


What good would that do? in this political environment they would rip him to shreads for "incorrectness". It's up to people like to us preserve any hope for our history.

[Dignann]

Re: The Wilderness Alert !!!!

Historians attack Wilderness Wal-Mart

By CLINT SCHEMMER

The Free Lance-Star [Fredericksburg, Va.]
December 11, 2008

America's historians are coming out full force against Wal-Mart's proposed retail center in the Wilderness battlefield area.

In a letter faxed yesterday to the retail giant, 253 historians urged the Bentonville, Ark., retailer to scrap its plan to build a 138,000-square-foot Supercenter at Wilderness Corner in Orange County.

Among the signers are many of the nation's top historians including Virginia professors William C. Davis, Gary Gallagher and James I. Robertson, the authors of dozens of Civil War titles; two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner David M. McCullough; James McPherson, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning "Battle Cry of Freedom"; Emmy-winning documentary filmmaker Ken Burns; and Edwin C. Bearss, chief historian emeritus of the National Park Service.

Lee White, executive director of the National Coalition for History, said the action of such a large and diverse group shows how important the Wilderness site is to American heritage. NCH is one of the eight national and regional groups in the Wilderness Battlefield Coalition, which circulated the letter. "No one has a deeper, more abiding respect for all that this ground symbolizes than the men and women who make it their lives' work to study historic sites and events. And clearly, they understand the irreparable damage that this would do to a tangible piece of our history."

Jim Lighthizer, president of the Civil War Preservation Trust, said the response illustrates the near-universal opposition to Wal-Mart's proposal in the Civil War and historic-preservation communities. In their letter, the historians call the Wilderness a "unique historical and cultural treasure deserving careful stewardship," declaring it "an indelible part of our history" made sacred by the blood shed there.

Nearly 29,000 Federal and Confederate soldiers were killed, wounded or captured in the intense fighting on May 5-6, 1863. The Battle of the Wilderness began the Union Army's Overland Campaign, which ended with Gen. Robert E. Lee's surrender at Appomattox. It marked the first time Gens. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant faced each other in battle.

Addressing Wal-Mart President and CEO H. Lee Scott Jr., the historians ask the company to "identify a site that would meet its needs without changing the very character of the battlefield" and move its 53-acre Supercenter and retail complex farther away from Fredericksburg & Spotsylvania National Military Park. The store site is off State Route 3 and State Route 20, within a quarter-mile of the park.

The growing controversy in Orange is similar to a 1996 battle in southern Stafford, where critics fought plans for a Wal-Mart near Ferry Farm, George Washington's boyhood home. The retailer eventually moved its store a short distance. The chain now has five stores here, including one in Culpeper.

Gordon Rhea, author of "The Battle of the Wilderness" and "In the Footsteps of Grant and Lee: The Wilderness through Cold Harbor" disputed a cultural-resource study's claim that the Wal-Mart tract lacks historic significance. "The proposed Wal-Mart site lies near the intersection of the wartime Germanna Plank Road and the Orange Turnpike. This was the nerve center of the Union army. This land served as the heart of the Union Fifth Corps' encampments and lies within the shadow of Grant's and [Gen. George Gordon] Meade's headquarters. It is truly hallowed ground."

Historians and preservationists fear that if the Wal-Mart is built, it will greatly increase traffic through the national park and encourage intensive commercial development at the Wilderness.

"The Wilderness battlefield is the biggest tourist destination in Orange County," said Craig Rains of the Friends of the Wilderness Battlefield. "A store this large, set amid a nearly pristine rural landscape, threatens to overshadow the experience of the tens of thousands of visitors who come to the battlefield each year. Moving the store, even just a short distance, can prevent that."

Bearss, who is considered the dean of Civil War historians, agreed, saying, "There are plenty of other places to build a Wal-Mart."

Read the letter here:

Read the cover letter here:

http://fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2008/122008/12112008/431201/index_html?page=1

Eric

[Dignann]

Re: The Wilderness Alert !!!!

Preservation leader assails Wal-Mart plan

Head of nation's biggest preservation organization comes out against Wal-Mart proposal in Orange County

BY CLINT SCHEMMER

The Free Lance-Star [Fredericksburg, Va.]
December 25, 2008

Richard Moe just waded into the Wilderness Wal-Mart controversy.

Moe, president of America's largest preservation organization, has come out guns blazing against the retailer's proposed big-box retail center and the adjacent Wilderness Crossing mixed-use development near the Civil War battlefield in eastern Orange County.

In his blog at preserva tionnation.org and in a Sunday op-ed piece in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, the National Trust for Historic Preservation's leader draws attention to what he calls "an issue that should concern all Virginians."

Moe decries "commercial real estate speculators now pressuring elected officials in rural Orange County to approve plans for a bland but mammoth 145,000-square-foot Wal-Mart, a sea of parking, and a 900-acre business park and retail center with three more big-box stores.

"This cookie-cutter behemoth will sit just one-quarter mile from the main entrance to a unique treasure, the Wilderness battlefield," he wrote. " The proposed Wal-Mart Supercenter would severely degrade its historic wooded setting, drastically increase traffic through the heart of the national park, and promote additional commercial development."

Moe's comments are the first public remarks by a National Trust official on the issue, although the trust has for months been a member of the Wilderness Battlefield Coalition, the umbrella group leading opposition to major development at the gateway to Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park.

Moe, the trust's chief since 1993, is a veteran of many preservation efforts, including a hard-fought Virginia campaign that garnered international attention. In that mid-1990s battle, Moe and his coalition partners eventually persuaded The Walt Disney Co. not to build its Disney's America theme park near Haymarket in western Prince William County.

More recently, he worked with philanthropist Paul Mellon and his estate to fund a $24 million restoration of Montpelier, President Madison's estate in Orange County. Earlier this year, Moe opened the newly restored Lincoln's Cottage in Washington, the summer home of the late president and his family.

CONCERN ABOUT TRAFFIC

Moe expressed alarm that traffic congestion generated by Wilderness Crossing and Wal-Mart's retail center may prompt the Virginia Department of Transportation to dust off a previously rejected plan to widen State Route 20 from two to four lanes through the park.

The National Trust and other preservation groups strongly oppose the road project. Moe noted that Orange Turnpike (now Route 20) was the scene of fierce fighting during the 1864 Battle of the Wilderness.

The Wilderness, where forces led by Gens. Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant first met in combat, was one of the Civil War's largest and most strategically significant battles. The Union and Confederate armies suffered 29,000 casualties. The engagement began Grant's Overland Campaign, which ended with Lee's surrender at Appomattox.

Moe said the battlefield park is a prime destination in the Journey Through Hallowed Ground, which Congress designated a National Heritage Area this year and the National Trust named one of America's 11 Most Endangered Historic Places in 2005.

Speaking for the trust and its allies, Moe urged Orange County's elected officials to reject current plans for the Wal-Mart and neighboring business park.

The interlocking, 2.6 million-square-foot developments would "undermine local efforts to generate much-needed revenue from tourism," which benefits county businesses, he said.

The battlefield is Orange County's most popular tourism site, drawing more than 100,000 visitors a year. Montpelier, owned by the National Trust, is the second most visited site.

"Oversized commercial growth adjacent to a unique and irreplaceable preserved landscape risks the authenticity of the battlefield viewshed and erodes the experience of those visiting the historic site," Moe said.

URGING ANOTHER SITE

Earlier this month, 253 historians--including David McCullough, James McPherson, Edwin Bearss and Ken Burns--implored Wal-Mart to move its retail center farther away from The Wilderness.

Moe noted that Orange's land-use plan states the importance of conserving the county's rural character by limiting sprawl and preserving historic areas. Last year, the Board of Supervisors revised the plan to discourage development necessitating "construction of a four-lane highway over any portion of Route 20 in Orange County."

Preservationists say they are not opposed to commercial growth in the area, but contend the Wilderness Corner projects threaten the nation's heritage. "There are many other potential sites for Wal-Mart to develop, but only one Wilderness battlefield," the trust's Web site asserts.

Wal-Mart spokesman Keith Morris said earlier this month that the company recognizes the battlefield's significance and agrees that it should be preserved. But he noted that two convenience stores and a McDonald's restaurant are already situated near the park at the Wilderness Corner junction.

http://www.fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2008/122008/12252008/434532/index_html?page=1

Eric

[Johnny Lloyd]

Re: The Wilderness Alert !!!!

Good news, ya'll... FOXNEWS is in on the fight...

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,475294,00.html

All the best- Johnny Lloyd:wink_smil

[brown]

Re: The Wilderness Alert !!!!

As is the Atlanta Journal Constitution:

http://www.ajc.com/business/content/business/stories/2009/01/02/wal_mart_civil_war.html?cxntlid=homepage_tab_newstab

[Mbond057]

Re: The Wilderness Alert !!!!

Wal-Mart, Historians Battle Over Building Store Near Civil War Site

Friday , January 02, 2009

LOCUST GROVE, Va. —
Wal-Mart wants to build a Supercenter within a cannonshot of where Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant first fought, a proposal that has preservationists rallying to protect the key Civil War site.

A who's who of historians including filmmaker Ken Burns and Pulitzer Prize winner David McCullough sent a letter last month to H. Lee Scott, president and CEO of Wal-Mart Stores Inc., urging the company to build somewhere farther from the Wilderness Battlefield.

"The Wilderness is an indelible part of our history, its very ground hallowed by the American blood spilled there, and it cannot be moved," said the letter from 253 scholars and others.

Wal-Mart and its supporters point out that the 138,000-square-foot store would be right behind a bank and a small strip mall, a full mile from entrance to the site of the 1864 clash that left thousands dead and hastened the war's end.

Local leaders also want the $500,000 in tax revenue they estimate the big box store will generate for rural Orange County, a gradually growing area about 60 miles southwest of Washington.

"In these economic times, the fact that Wal-Mart wants to come into the county is an economic plus," said R. Mark Johnson, a tire shop owner and chairman of the county's board of supervisors. "This is hardly pristine wilderness we're talking about."

Grant's Union troops were headed to Richmond on May 4, 1864, when they confronted Lee's Confederate Army of Northern Virginia. The Battle of the Wilderness involved more than 100,000 Union troops and 61,000 Confederates. The fighting, according to National Park Service estimates, left more than 4,000 dead and 20,000 wounded.

Some 2,700 acres of the Wilderness Battlefield are protected as part of the Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park.

Preservationists regularly square off against developers in Virginia, where much of the Civil War was fought.
This dispute, however, has stirred an outcry similar to the one in 1994 over The Walt Disney Co.'s plans to build a $650 million theme park within miles of the Manassas Battlefield. The entertainment giant bowed to public pressure and abandoned the project.

Bentonville, Ark.-based Wal-Mart, which opened nearly 200 stores in the U.S. in 2007, said it studied a lengthy list of sites in Orange County before settling on the spot near the battlefield and its gentle hills dissected by neat footpaths.

"We recognize the significance of the Wilderness Battlefield, but we are not building on the battlefield," said Keith Morris, a spokesman for the world's largest retailer.
Preservationists argue the store site is still significant because it was used as a staging area by Union troops.