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The Free-Lance Star / Fredricksburg.com
Tour set for seldom-seen battle sites
June 17, 2004 1:14 am
By GEORGE WHITEHURST
Local Civil War buffs can help preserve a piece of area history while learning from one of the nation's premier historians.
Ed Bearss, the National Park Service's historian emeritus, will spend July 2 guiding more than 40 people along the paths that led to the Battle of the Wilderness.
It's a great treat for anyone who cares about the events that swept over Spotsylvania County, according to Frank Walker, a member of the Friends of the Wilderness Battlefield.
"[Bearss] is the pinnacle of Civil War historical presenters, and it's always nice to do a tour with the absolute headliner," he said.
The $100-a-head fee for the event will help finance the restoration of the interior of Ellwood, a historic house on the edge of the Wilderness battlefield. The house site straddles the Orange-Spotsylvania line.
Bearss' special tour will focus on important but seldom-seen sites, according to Doug Mottet, president of the Friends.
A prime example is an unfinished railroad bed that stretches between Fredericksburg and the town of Orange.
Confederate troops under Gen. James Longstreet launched a surprise attack from that rail bed against the left flank of U.S. Gen. Winfield Scott Hancock's corps during the Battle of the Wilderness.
Such now-obscure sights are jewels to history buffs ever-hungry for more details of the Civil War.
"That tends to interest people who already know a fair amount about the subject," Walker said. "And Ed knows where they are and how to present them."
During the Battle of the Wilderness, which raged around Ellwood on May 5-7, 1864, about 30,000 men were killed, wounded or went missing in action.
Many of the casualties occurred when the unrelenting gunfire set the area's dense forest and undergrowth ablaze, trapping thousands of soldiers.
Union Gens. Gouverneur K. Warren and Ambrose Burnside used Ellwood as their headquarters during the battle. A year earlier, the cemetery on the farm's grounds had received the amputated arm of Confederate Lt. Gen. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson.
The National Park Service owns Ellwood and has restored the exterior of the house.
Mottet said Friends of the Wilderness has raised $83,000 to restore two large rooms on the house's first floor.
The group wants to refurbish the first-floor parlor to its appearance during the days of Burnside and Warren.
An adjoining hallway, where the when the Marquis de Lafayette breakfasted, would return to its antebellum appearance.
"Those two rooms, at least, we want to restore to their prominence and appearance in the 1860s," Mottet said. "If we're lucky, we'll get to go further."
To make a reservation for the July 2 battlefield tour, call 540/972-3204.
To reach GEORGE WHITEHURST: 540/374-5438 gwhitehurst@freelancestar.com