Central Virginia Battlefields Trust — June 2020

Originally published June 2020 · p. 17

Chris Mackowski serves on Central Virginia Battlefields Trust (CVBT) Board of Directors, and today he answers some questions about his role with this grassroots organization.

Chris Mackowski serves on CVBT’s Board of Directors. 1. Why is Central Virginia battlefield preservation important to you? Preservation in general is important to me because I see battlefields as an irreplaceable resource for understanding history. I also see them as hallowed ground—a phrase that has perhaps become trite because it gets so overused. But come walk with me through the Wilderness near the Brock Road/Plank Road intersection, and I can show you dozens of shallow gravesites speckled through those woods. These are places where American history was written in the blood of people just like me and you, and we should not forget that sacrifice. CVBT focuses on the battlefields most important to me. We all have our favorite battlefields; these four: Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Wilderness, and Spotsylvania (and Mine Run, too, if we can add that in), are the ones I’m most connected with, for a variety of reasons. These are the battlefields where I learned to become a historian. Before that, I spent a lot of quality time on them with my young kids, even though we lived in western N.Y. Now, they’re in my backyard, and in the case of Chancellorsville, literally my front yard. On May 1, 1863, E.P. Alexander had his guns along the ridge I live on. 2. What expertise do you bring to CVBT? Most people know me as a writer and historian, and those are skills I certainly bring to the board, although CVBT is lucky to have several fantastic historians on the board and in close consultation, so I’m just one of several folks in that regard. I think my real value to the board is my publications and communications experience, which I’ve done professionally for thirty years. I’ve been a professor for twenty, but prior to that, I worked in journalism and public relations; during my time in academe, I’ve also written and published professionally; for mass audiences, not other scholars, and I’ve continued to do professional marketing and branding. In fact, that’s what most of my work with Emerging Civil War entails. I think that’s been a useful skill set to bring to the table for CVBT. I also hope I’m good for a little comic relief now and then, too! 3. You’ve written books about Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, The Wilderness, and Spotsylvania. Could you share a “research moment” (or two) from the fields? Gosh, I think all of my best “research moments” spring from the fields. Nothing beats being out on the field. I always try to walk the ground before I write about it, not only to understand the landscape and its impact on events, but also as a way to think things through before I start to write. If I have to pick a single instance where walking the ground directly led to an insight that helped me solve a conundrum, it would be Longstreet’s wounding. The primary accounts, trajectory of the wound, the relative position of the Confederate troops involved, and proximity of Federals all created a puzzle that didn’t really add up. I walked the ground with Kris White, who’s always been the best battlefield buddy I’ve had, and we realized that the topography there explains everything. There’s a dip in the road that let the 12th Virginia cross unseen by anyone even though they were under everyone’s noses. Then, the way they wheeled back up and around put them on sloping ground opposite the 41st Virginia, and that all explains the otherwise incongruous trajectory of Longstreet’s wound. It was a real “ah-ha!” experience for us. We co-wrote an article about it for Civil War Times, and that research later appeared in my book Hell Itself.

4. As a researcher, can you recommend some primary sources related to these four battlefields that provide unique or exceptional insight? I love The Life and Letters of George Gordon Meade; it is mostly a collection of his wartime correspondence. He’s primarily writing to his wife, so he’s unguarded and honest, with nothing to prove to anyone. It’s a great side of him to see. Complementing that well is General Meade’s Army by Theodore Lyman. Lyman was a volunteer member of Meade’s staff. He writes well and turns a great phrase, and he’s fiercely loyal to Meade, which is something particularly interesting to see once Grant shows up on the scene. I recommend Campaigning with Grant by his staffer, Horace Porter. He is to Grant what Lyman is to Meade. 5. Since you live in the Fredericksburg area, what do you see as a “lost opportunity” for preservation and how this is a lesson for the future? The loss of Salem Church remains the poster child for lost preservation opportunities. In 1977, the Park Service had the chance to buy the property but couldn’t bridge a $25,000 gap between what it would pay and

what the landowner wanted for it. Instead, within a few years, commercial development started in the area, and it ballooned so fast that the entire Salem Church battlefield was paved over with strip malls and parking lots. The Park Service protects just under three acres around the church itself; that’s all that remains. If there’s any silver lining, it’s that the modern preservation movement was born as a result of this episode. Tens of thousands of battlefield acres have been saved as a result. 6. Do you have a favorite preservation success story for the area? Gosh, there are so many. McLaws Wedge at Chancellorsville really helped put CVBT on the map. The Slaughter Pen at Fredericksburg was a really huge, huge deal as far as the riskiness of the venture and the impact it had on the battlefield’s integrity. Myer’s Hill at Spotsylvania is near and dear to my heart. I think my favorite preservation story is the first day’s battlefield at Chancellorsville. That was such a contentious, drawn-out, difficult acquisition, frustrating on so many levels for many people. The rhetoric had become so heated that people were describing it as the “Second Battle of

Chancellorsville,” using phrases like “preservation fight,” and other charged, combative language. Then Dr. Mike Stevens exhibited extraordinary leadership by essentially hitting “reset” on the whole thing. He suggested everyone back away from that kind of attitude and really look for a way to reopen dialogue in a more constructive way. He knew everyone wanted a “win,” so he opened the way to try and find an approach that would let everyone get one. There were a lot of players involved, and it took a lot of people to come together to make that all happen, but I credit Dr. Mike with really having the leadership skills to make it all work. I didn’t know him at the time, but I developed tremendous respect for him out of that episode—a respect that has only grown once I finally had the privilege to meet him. Central Virginia Battlefields Trust saves Civil War battleground to preserve the memory and meaning, sacrifices and stories of the men who fought at Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, The Wilderness, and Spotsylvania. Learn more: www.cvbt.org