145th Wilderness Anniversary Plans
(April 2009 Civil War News)

SPOTSYLVANIA COUNTY, Va. — Friends of Wilderness Battlefield (FoWB) and Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park (FSNMP) will host special activities over the May 2-3 weekend commemorating the 145th anniversary of the Battle of the Wilderness.

The FoWB will open Ellwood Manor, the restored home used as Union corps headquarters, for the season on Saturday, hold a fundraising dinner and auction that night and put on a special program at Ellwood Sunday with the theme “Uncommon Hardship: Soldier and Civilian in the Wilderness.”

The park will host special programs and ranger-led walking tours throughout Wilderness Battlefield Park, including at Saunders Field, Higgerson Farm, Chewning Farm and Tapp Farm. Artillery demonstrations will be given on Saturday at the Widow Tapp Field, Tour Stop 6, at 11, 1 and 3 p.m.

The seventh annual dinner, program and auction to benefit the Ellwood Restoration Project will be held Saturday from 6 to 10 p.m. at the Daniel Technology Center, Germanna Community College, Culpeper. The evening will include a four-course meal, auction, prizes and a program of historic vignettes.

The public is invited to Ellwood on Sunday for a living history program, “Life in the Civil War Era,” sponsored by FoWB and FSNMP from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Demonstrations will include cannon and musket firing, soldiers’ accoutrements, blacksmithing, cooking at home and on the front, religion in camp, Civil War medicine and vignettes portraying civilian hardship.

As last year’s program examined generals and presidents, this year’s will feature common folks, soldier and civilian, who experienced the trials and hardships of four years of war. Letters, diaries and memoirs, some of them unpublished and little-known until this program, will explore the themes.

At 2:30 p.m. The Joysong Chorale will give a one-hour concert of secular and sacred music appropriate to the history of Ellwood and the Wilderness Battlefield.

Ellwood, also known as the Lacy House, was built in the 1790s. During the 1863 battle of Chancellorsville it served as a Confederate hospital. Gen. Stonewall Jackson's amputated arm is buried in its family cemetery. Two Federal corps commanders used Ellwood as headquarters during the battle of the Wilderness.

The events sponsored by the park are open to the public at no charge. Donations are encouraged at Ellwood. Reservations are required for the dinner and auction.

Details about park plans will be posted at www.nps.gov/frsp.

Friends of Wilderness Battlefield information will be at www.fowb.org.