Announcement

**Dignann** · 09-01-2006, 07:28 AM

Re: Vermont Monument to be Dedicated - Wilderness Battlefield

Remembering the Battle at Wilderness

By Jessica Abo

WCAX-TV
Montpelier, Vermont
August 30, 2006

The Civil War Battle of the Wilderness is one of the most significant in Vermont's history.

Vermont lost more than 1,000 men in the two day fight in Virginia. In two weeks the state of Vermont will dedicate a 20-ton granite monument to the Park Service in Virginia in memory of those who fought and those who died. The ceremony will take place at the Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park. Howard Coffin of Montpelier will be the keynote speaker. Coffin encourages Vermonters to attend the ceremony.

"It's the most important thing that Vermonters did in the civil war and Vermont soldiers were some of the best in the civil war. At his particular time in May 5th and 6th 1864 we literally saved the army of the Potomac -- the union army that would go on a year later to force Robert E. Lee to surrender at Appomattox effectively ending the war," Coffin said.

He hopes there is enough interest to have buses leave from Vermont to attend the ceremony in Virginia. If you are interested in going to the ceremony call 802-223-1909.

Eric

**Dignann** · 09-12-2006, 07:17 AM

Re: Vermont Monument to be Dedicated - Wilderness Battlefield

Vermonters honored on Civil War battlefield

By Louis Porter

The Barre Montpelier Times Argus
September 11, 2006

MONTPELIER � The Battle of the Wilderness was one of the bloodiest of the Civil War, and one in which Vermonters played a pivotal role by preventing the Union army from being chopped in two by the Confederate army.

The site has since grown up into a mature forest, but when the Vermont soldiers stood their ground there against a tremendous assault the wilderness was a dense tangle of undergrowth running along the Rapidan River just west of Fredericksburg in Northern Virginia.

"The country in which the battle was fought was almost an impenetrable thicket through which it was impossible to see for more than a few yards. The weather being very dry and hot, the woods soon took fire and many of our poor wounded were burned to death," one Union officer reported later.

In all, 1,234 Vermonters were killed, wounded or went missing during the two-day battle in May, 1864."This was the most important battle for Vermont in the Civil War," said Howard Coffin, a Civil War historian and Vermonter. "There has never been anything on the battlefield to indicate that Vermonters fought there, despite the fact that they saved the army."

After Sept. 16 that will not be true any longer. In large part through the effort of U.S. Sen. James Jeffords, who is retiring after the fall's election, the battlefield will now be marked with a massive marker of Vermont granite.

"This monument will give the Vermonters who fought on those hallowed grounds the recognition they deserve," Jeffords said last fall when that monument was completed. "This solid chunk of Vermont granite will continue to tell their story for many generations to come."

The 12-foot by 9-foot granite monument � which weights 20 tons and is carved into the shape of Camel's Hump � was made of granite from the Rock-of-Ages quarry. Jeffords, Coffin, Lt. Gov. Brian Dubie and others will be at its dedication next weekend.

Coffin said other Vermonters should also attend the weekend-long dedication ceremony.

"We were outnumbered by the Confederates in 1864, I would like to see us outnumber them this time," he said. The dedication will not only commemorate the role of Vermonters in the crucial battle, but the work of Jeffords has done in preserving such sites, said Coffin, a one-time member of Jeffords' staff.

"Jeffords joins the ranks of the state's Civil War heroes," he said.

Among other work Jeffords secured more than $200,000 for a parking site near the wilderness battlefield, long a problem at the site.

"Sen. Jeffords has been involved for many years in Civil War battlefield preservation," said Tom Berry, natural resource coordinator for Jeffords. "There is a really strong interest by Vermonters to visit that battlefield and stand on the spot where their ancestors fought. Sen. Jeffords really sees it as hallowed ground in the history of the country and for Vermonters."

In addition to the money Jeffords has secured for the site the state of Vermont put more than $40,000 towards the building of the monument, Berry said.

Open graves where soldiers of the battle were buried until they were moved to the national cemetery at Fredericksburg are still visible at the wilderness site, Coffin said.

"You can still see the graves, you can still see the breastworks," he said, adding that the site is one of the most important un-interpreted Civil War battlefields in the country. "The landscape is exactly as it was. It is unspoiled."

As for Jeffords, he said last fall that visiting the site at the junction of the Brock and Orange Plank roads made it east to imagine the conflict in which his small state played such an important role.

"One can almost hear the shots, and smell the smoke of one of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War," Jeffords said. "The Vermont Brigade held its ground in the battle, but took enormous casualties."

http://www.timesargus.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060911/NEWS/609110321/1003/NEWS02

Eric

**Dignann** · 09-18-2006, 01:48 PM

Re: Vermont Monument to be Dedicated - Wilderness Battlefield

It was nice to see Charles Heath, Jeff Johannes and a few others involved in the dedication on Saturday.

Civil War monument honors Vermont Brigade

By Erin Kelly

Burlington Free Press
September 17, 2006

WASHINGTON -- More than 140 years ago, a brigade of 2,800 Vermonters fought off the Confederate Army in the dense forest of northern Virginia in a bloody struggle to prevent the rebels from capturing key ground and dividing the Union Army.

When the Battle of the Wilderness was over, nearly half of the Vermont Brigade were dead, wounded or missing.

The first day of that two-day battle in May of 1864 was the single worst day of casualties for the Green Mountain Boys in the entire Civil War. But they won their struggle to beat back the Army of Northern Virginia, allowing Gen. Ulysses Grant to head south in his quest to destroy the Confederate Army.

The memory of those soldiers was honored Saturday with a granite monument made in the quarries of Barre, Vt. The monument was unveiled on the edge of the woods in the Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park, about an hour and half outside of Washington, D.C.

"Standing here, with the woods largely unchanged, it is easy to imagine the thick underbrush and dense trees, the closeness of the two armies, the heat and heavy smoke conditions that faced the Vermont Brigade," Sen. Jim Jeffords, I-Vt., said in prepared remarks at the unveiling. "This magnificent monument will be a lasting tribute to the Vermont Brigade and its personal sacrifices for many generations to come."

The 17-ton granite monument, made by Rock of Ages in Barre, is 8 feet long and 2 feet high. Sculptor Walt Celley chiseled the shape of Vermont's landmark Camels Hump on top of the monument, which also is engraved with the words "The Vermont Brigade" and a brief description of the battle.

Jeffords, a history buff, pushed for five years to win approval for the monument and secure $200,000 for the National Park Service to use to create trails, signs, parking and access to the monument. The Vermont Legislature provided $40,000 for the monument's construction.

More than 5,200 Vermonters died fighting for the Union in the Civil War.

For Vermont, May 5, 1864, was the bloodiest day in the state's history, said John Hennessy, chief historian of the national military park where the monument has been erected. Soldiers had to fight for hours in dense woods where they could barely see where they were shooting, he said.

"The losses that the Vermont Brigade suffered were just staggering," Hennessy said. "That one brigade suffered nearly 10 percent of the federal army's total casualties. It reverberated in the living room parlors across Vermont in a huge, huge way. If you were to canvass the ghosts of the Army of the Potomac as to the horrors they endured, the Battle of the Wilderness would be very high on everybody's list."

http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060917/NEWS02/609170308/1007

Attached is a picture of the monument that accompanied the above article. The photo was taken about a month ago, immediately following its installation and prior to landscaping being completed.

Eric

**Miss L** · 09-20-2006, 09:45 AM

Re: Vermont Monument to be Dedicated - Wilderness Battlefield

Eric,

I was at a LH at the MoC and a dedication at Hollywood on Saturday, so I didn't get to the monument until Sunday. The tent and chairs were still in place, and the cut flowers were still strewn around the base of the monument. The NPS ranger on site gave us a brief rundown on the ceremony, and took our picture beside the monument. It looks great, and sounds like the event went well. Congratulations.

**Dignann** · 09-21-2006, 07:30 AM

Re: Vermont Monument to be Dedicated - Wilderness Battlefield

Monument to heroism

Vermont revives tradition of state-sponsored memorials with monument to Union brigade.

By ROBIN KNEPPER

Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star
September 21, 2006

THANKS TO the state of Vermont, a granite monument now marks the site of a heroic stand by Union soldiers from that state at the Battle of the Wilderness.

The state spent $40,000 on a memorial to the 2,800-man Vermont Brigade, which suffered more than 1,200 casualties in fighting on May 5 and 6, 1864.

"This was one of the most famous brigades of the Army of the Potomac," said Russ Smith, superintendent of the Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park. "Vermont suffered terribly during the Civil War. There were at least 5,000 Vermont soldiers killed in the war."

The monument was crafted in Vermont at Rock of Ages, the largest monument manufacturing quarry in the country. It is topped by the image of Camel's Hump, a mountain in central Vermont that would have been familiar to every soldier from that state.

The memorial was installed last month in Hamilton's Thicket near the intersection of Brock and Plank roads (State Routes 613 and 621, respectively). It was dedicated Saturday in a ceremony that included Sen. Jim Jeffords, I-Vt., and other officials from that state and the National Park Service.

Jeffords also sponsored legislation that is providing $200,000 for improvements to the park in Spotsylvania and Orange counties.

According to Smith, the improvements will include a pull-off at the site of Confederate Gen. James Longstreet's surprise flank attack at Wilderness, a parking area at Brock and Orange Plank roads for eight cars and two buses, and a quarter-mile trail with wayside improvements.

According to John Hennessy, chief historian and chief of interpretation at Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park, the monument is the first honoring individual state forces in the park since the Texas Brigade monument in 1963.

"It use to be that the states would mark and memorialize their forces' participation," he said. "Federal legislation stipulated that the Congress would acquire the battlefields and the states would come in and mark the land.

Most battlefield monuments were produced from the end of the Civil War until about 1920, he said. But as Civil War vets died off, so did that practice.

"The state of Vermont has resurrected a largely vanished tradition," Hennessy said. "For a state government to commemorate its citizens of 140 years ago is pretty exciting. This was a passionate effort on the part of the people of Vermont."

Article and accompanying photos can be found at: http://www.fredericksburg.com/News/F...9212006/223264

Eric

**Dignann** · 09-24-2006, 06:52 PM

Re: Vermont Monument to be Dedicated - Wilderness Battlefield

Lasting tribute for the fallen

By Allison Brophy Champion

Culpeper Star-Exponent
September 24, 2006

WILDERNESS - One Union officer described the two days of bloody fighting in the dense woods at Wilderness as �Hell itself.�

�Brave men were falling like autumn leaves and death was holding high carnival in our ranks,� Lt. Robert Robertson said of the battle May 5-6, 1864, in Spotsylvania County.

The 2,800-strong Green Mountain Men of Vermont marched into the center of that inferno, defending the key intersection at Orange Plank and Brock roads and preventing the Army of the Potomac from being cut in half.

But in the thick and tangled forest just a short walk away, the Old Vermont Brigade clashed with Culpeper General A.P. Hill�s entrenched line of Confederates, losing roughly 1,000 men that first afternoon and evening. In all, 1,234 Vermonters were killed, injured or captured at the Battle of the Wilderness, but they held strong and were cheered by their Union comrades for it.

�It was a rare tribute,� Vermont historian and author Howard Coffin said of the reception the Brigade received a day later at Spotsylvania Courthouse. �Soldiers are soldiers, war is war; it goes on day after day, you�re tired and just trying to stay alive. It is not usual for soldiers to cheer. Apparently, word had spread through the army about how many casualties they suffered, about what the Vermonters had done.�

Honored today
More than 140 years later, northerners and southerners joined to recognize the tenacity and sacrifice of the Green Mountain Men - so named for the Vermont mountain range, as well as the state�s Revolutionary War unit - at a ceremony last Saturday in the woods where they fought and died.

To mark the spot, the state of Vermont funded a 17-ton, $40,000 granite monument - crafted by Vermont-based Rock of Ages with rock from the quarries of Barre, Vt. The top of the monument rolls in the shape of a Vermont mountain, the Camel Hump - a terrain feature frequently mentioned in letters home from soldiers.

In addition, U.S. Sen. James Jeffords of Vermont secured $200,000 in federal funding to create a quarter-mile loop trail in the Virginia woods with six interpretative markers, as well as a new parking area at the Orange Plank/Brock roads intersection.

�Standing here, with the woods largely unchanged, it is easy to imagine the thick underbrush and dense trees, the closeness of the two armies, the heat and heavy smoke conditions that faced the Vermont Brigade,� Jeffords said at the dedication ceremony Sept. 16. �This magnificent monument will be a lasting tribute to the Vermont Brigade and its personal sacrifices for many generations to come.�

Stark contrast
Lines of sunshine lit up the now easily traversable woods at Wilderness on a recent Tuesday, and it was mostly quiet except for the constant stream of cars and trucks stopping and going through the busy, modern-day crossroads. A bird called urgently in the forest and in the distance, the Vermont monument looked like an oversized tombstone.

The almost-too-peaceful scene rendered the telling of the horrors of battle difficult to grasp. But in reality, the nontraditional battle site, in just two days, claimed more than 28,000 casualties - some 17,600 from the Union side and another 11,000 Confederates. It is one of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War.

�Fires broke out and the wounded would have burned in the woods,� said Russ Smith, superintendent of the Fredericksburg & Spotsylvania National Military Park, of the �running grass fires� at the Battle of the Wilderness.

Still standing
For the men standing in the thick and smoke-filled woods, including the Vermont Brigade, it was almost impossible to see.

�At 4 p.m. on May 5, they are ordered to advance through the tangled jungle,� said Coffin, whose ancestors fought for Vermont in the Civil War. �It was so thick that they could only see yards in front of them.�

Because of the poor visibility, accounts differ among the Vermont soldiers as to how far they advanced before hitting the Confederate line, he said. Some say they went 200 yards, others only 50.

�And then everything exploded in front of them - tremendous volleys. That first volley was lethal,� said Coffin, author of several books on Vermont�s involvement in the Civil War.

The veteran soldiers - mostly farmers - that weren�t struck knew what to do: hit the dirt. Many of the brigade�s officers, on the other hand, faced a different fate.

�They remained on their feet because they had been taught to inspire their men by showing courage,� Coffin said of the heavy casualties suffered among officers leading the Green Mountain Men.

No going back
Fighting continued for hours and beyond dark May 5, spilling over into the next day. The Vermont Brigade pushed a mile beyond where its monument sits today before retreating, under attack, by the Confederate corps of Gen. James Longstreet.

�The Vermonters are suddenly in danger of being cut off from the rest of the army and so what do they do? They turn around and run like hell all the way back to Brock Road,� said Coffin.

By the end of the second day, said Superintendent Smith, �The armies had pretty much reached a stalemate.�

Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee �half-expected� Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant to pull back out of the south, he said, like they had at other battles, but it didn�t happen after the Wilderness.

�Grant decided to push on and his men, who had been through hell for two days, when they saw him come to this intersection and continue in the direction of Spotsylvania Courthouse, they cheered him because they knew this time, they weren�t going back,� Smith said.

�And even though they probably would have rather gone home or across the Rapidan, they wanted to get this war over, and they knew the only way to do that was to get to Richmond and destroy Lee�s army.�

The other Grant
The Vermont Brigade stayed in position an extra day at the Wilderness intersection, continuing to protect it, and also, likely, for some rest, Coffin said.

Col. Lewis A. Grant of Vermont - the War�s �other Grant� - reported a few days later of the fighting at the Wilderness.

�The brigade has met the enemy in his strongholds, attacked him under murderous fire and in the very face of death has repulsed with great slaughter repeated and vigorous attacks on our lines, and on no occasion has it disgracefully turned its back on the foe,� he said. �The flag of each regiment, though pierced and tattered, still flaunts in the face of the foe��

Face to the Wilderness
For Howard Coffin, who, along with Sen. Jeffords, led the effort for the Vermont Brigade monument, saving the battlefield from development back in 2000 would have been enough. However, he said, the fact that his Vermonters were not mentioned anywhere on the nearly 3,000-acre military park didn�t seem right.

�I had not seen the monument in the Wilderness until I walked in there that day to participate in the ceremony, and it was draped in the Vermont flag,� Coffin said. �When the flag came off, I was astonished because it looked as if it had always been there.�

The new area provides �a focal point here in the Wilderness,� added Smith.

�I think it helps give a face to the Wilderness,� he said. �And it reminds people that this is a battlefield. It�s not a recreational park; it�s a special place - hallowed ground.

�People died here, people bled on this ground in buckets of blood, and we don�t want to forget that.�

http://www.starexponent.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=CSE/MGArticle/CSE_MGArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1149190798709

Eric

**Charles Heath** · 09-25-2006, 07:38 PM

Re: Vermont Monument to be Dedicated - Wilderness Battlefield

Somewhat related:

Howard Coffin's Vermont CW Tour

Announcement

Announcement

Vermont Monument to be Dedicated - Wilderness Battlefield

Vermont Monument to be Dedicated - Wilderness Battlefield

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment