Virginia Group Seeks Support For
Park To Protect U.S. Army Sites
By Scott C. Boyd
(November 2008 Civil War News)

STAFFORD, Va. — “It was from these camps that the army emerged that won at Gettysburg,” said Glenn Trimmer about several Union Army campsites and fortifications in Stafford County, north of Fredericksburg.

These sites on 25 acres of county-owned land are now two steps closer to being preserved in a park thanks to a presentation Trimmer made before the Stafford County Board of Supervisors on Oct. 7. He is director of the local preservation group Friends of Stafford Civil War Sites (FSCWS).

Trimmer proposed a partnership with the county where the FSCWS would raise money to fund a one-way road, interpretive signs, footpaths and a small family picnic area in the new historic park.

According to the proposal, all the county would have to do is to permanently set aside the land and pay for an engineering study to evaluate the feasibility and cost of various options for the road and footpaths connecting the individual sites in the park.

The engineering study would be funded from the Landfill Dividend, Trimmer suggested. This is money the county and City of Fredericksburg earn at the jointly owned landfill adjacent to the proposed historic park.

Trimmer later reported there was some resistance to this funding idea when he met with the board.

He estimates the study could cost as low as $10,000 or up to $50,000. He said in an interview that the county might look at funding the study as a small price to pay to end up with a new historic park, since the FSCWS would cover all the other costs of putting in the road, footpaths, signs and picnic tables.

The FSCWS plan includes a pledge to raise all the money for the project within three years. If they fail, the county may withdraw from the agreement and is under no further obligation.

The Supervisors advanced Trimmer’s proposal with unanimous votes on two measures. First, to forward the proposal to the County Historical Commission for a 30-day review. Second, to request the County Planning Commission amend the Land Use Plan to designate the 25-acre site a public park.

The 25 acres include four fortifications, a campsite and a bridge abutment across nearby Accokeek Creek. There is also a section of a corduroy road, still buried under the anaerobic dirt that preserves the wooden logs from decomposition.

“Soldiers on both sides spent far more time in such camps and fortifications than they ever did in combat, and yet preservation of such areas which contain both is extremely rare,” Trimmer said in a March public presentation.

The Union Army occupied camps like the one Trimmer is fighting to preserve over the winter of 1862-63, licking its wounds after the bloody disaster it faced at the Battle of Fredericksburg on Dec. 13, 1862.

“There are very real parallels between the Valley Forge camps of the Revolution and the Stafford camps of 1862-63,” according to Trimmer.

“What I think is important is to now make these sites available to average citizens so that they can understand the history of this county and understand the immensity of what actually occurred in Stafford County during the Civil War.”

He acknowledges there were no major battles in Stafford, “but there were horrendous numbers of deaths and horrendous sacrifice in Stafford County that nobody ever thinks about,” he said, referring to the many deaths from disease that claimed the lives of Civil War soldiers.

For now, Trimmer said, the 25-acre site is well-marked with signs prohibiting any looting. “Anyone relic hunting on this property will be prosecuted for a first offense,” he warns.

Readers wishing to contact the Stafford County Board of Supervisors about saving the Union fortifications and camp site may email Wendy Malloy at wmallow@co.stafford.va.us. The Supervisors’ mailing address is P.O. Box 339, Stafford, VA 22555.