CVBT Newsletter, December 2024
Preservation Updates and News
From the President's Desk
Well, it’s Christmas time and all that the holidays bring with it. I hope you will all spend this time with family and friends, enjoy this special season, and begin to think about the new year. 2025, can you believe it? CVBT will become 29 years old this year!
Normally, I would go on and write all about CVBT’s recent successes and challenges. However, I will spare you all that in this dispatch. Below you will find a new video, one that I believe is so impactful it needs no other description. It is our new fight, an enormous battle taking on a persona of its own. This is a clash we all should be very aware of, not simply for battlefield preservation, but for our own quality of life. The video is also on our CVBT website.
So, I wish you all a very happy holiday season, a terrific new year, and as always, thank you all for your support of CVBT.
Tom Van Winkle
Make Your End-of-Year Gift
As 2024 comes to an end and we look ahead to 2025, our work continues.
Besides the ongoing development challenges, including the proposed Wilderness Crossing project that we are actively fighting, CVBT continues our work reclaiming the Beckham tract property by returning it to its natural state. We also continue working on interpretive projects along the Jackson Flank Attack at Chancellorsville, as well as planning future interpretive projects at our Nine Mile Run tract, which is located on the east side of the Chancellorsville battlefield, and at Myer's Hill at Spotsylvania.
There are ongoing conversations with landowners about properties on multiple battlefields, and we are always exploring ways that we can work together to preserve more of our shared history and beautiful greenspaces.
If you have not made a year-end gift to CVBT, please consider doing so, and thank you for your support of our mission.
The first 50 online donations of $100, or more, will receive a signed copy of Don Pfanz's new book, Crossroads of Conflict.
Battle of Fredericksburg 162nd Anniversary Events
Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park have free public events planned for Friday, December 13th, and Saturday, December 14th, for the Battle of Fredericksburg's 162nd anniversary.
These events include a Sunken Road walking tour at 2:00 p.m. Friday, and events at the Innis House, Bernard's Cabins, and the Sunken Road on Saturday. More information can be found on their website.
Tickets are Going Fast!
The 2025 CVBT Spring Seminar is set, and almost 70% of the tickets have already been sold! The 2025 Seminar will be held at the Tabernacle United Methodist Church's multipurpose space on the Old Plank Road in Fredericksburg. This year's topic is The Road to Fredericksburg and will feature historians Dennis Frye, Jim Broomall, Greg Mertz, Frank O'Reilly, and John Hennessy. Lunch is included in the $50 ticket price. For more information and to register, click here.
Rare Copy of Volume One of Fredericksburg History and Biography Available
We recently discovered a copy of Volume One of our Fredericksburg History and Biography journal. It includes articles by Frank O'Reilly, Erik Nelson, and Eric Mink, among others. This issue is hard to come by and highly sought after.
We are auctioning it off to help forward our mission. To learn more, click here.
Friends of CVBT Volunteers Needed!
As you know, CVBT is a land trust. We focus primarily on purchasing endangered battlefield properties. However, we also host a large three-day annual conference, standalone events, and we interpret and maintain our lands. We need help in all of these areas.
In the past, CVBT has often relied on individuals from organizations to assist us, and for their help we are extremely grateful. But now we are in the process of recruiting CVBT's own official volunteer corps.
We have created “The Friends of CVBT." The purpose for this all-volunteer group is to be the “on call” corps of CVBT’s volunteers, serving the organization by assisting with events and battlefield related needs. Active volunteer members will have the unique opportunity to be involved with events hosted by nationally acclaimed historians, assist in tours, and work on preserved battlefields. Participating volunteers will also be enrolled in the membership ranks of CVBT every year that they contribute.
CVBT will provide each Friend of CVBT with an official volunteer staff shirt and CVBT cap to wear at events, or wherever wanted. We will be limiting this group to 18 volunteers.
CVBT is now beginning its 28th year of preserving our local battlefields; the very battlefields that you study and trek across. We would be honored to have you join the ranks of CVBT volunteers and help us further our mission of preserving our nation’s history.
If you are interested in being a part of our volunteer corps, please email executivedirector@cvbt.org.
Witness Trees - Sentinels of the Battlefield
Almost 50% toward the goal!
Witness trees are a living connection to the people and momentous events of the American past. They stand as mute observers of enormous change over time, linking numerous generations through their continued existence.
People have recognized and respected the enduring nature of trees for centuries. However, of particular interest to modern Americans are those rather rare trees that have survived droughts, storms, fires, lightning strikes, insects, diseases, and the ax and chainsaw and that are located where particularly significant historical events occurred. If nothing else, their survival through the years is a testament to their durability and a lesson in enduring the challenges of life.
Recently, an oak tree on one of CVBT’s Chancellorsville Flank Attack battlefield properties—estimated by arborists to be over 200 years old—fell victim to a powerful windstorm. While it is tragic to lose such a treasured veteran tree that witnessed the pivotal events of May 2, 1863, it also serves as a call to action.
On the same piece of preserved CVBT battlefield, there are other Civil War witness trees, possibly up to eleven, which is an extremely rare amount in one location. Imagine what those trees saw while standing near the Orange Turnpike during that one day alone. Gen. Joseph Hooker rode by them to check on XI Corps troops and their line early that morning. That evening, as the attack commenced, some Federal soldiers fled precipitously, while others attempted to stem the power of the assault, including Medal of Honor recipient Capt. Hubert Dilger and his Ohio artillerists. Gen. Thomas Jonathan “Stonewall” Jackson also passed these trees, twice; once going east among the flow of his massive assault force, and later, after being wounded by his own troops going west to receive medical attention near Wilderness Tavern. These trees witnessed it all and should receive all the protection and care they can to help them survive and thrive as living connections to these momentous events. Witness trees are truly living Civil War relics.
Caring for witness trees does not come without expense. Periotic checkups for tree health, nutrition treatments, and preventive maintenance trimming, along with lightning prevention apparatus and other care measures by professional arborists costs thousands of dollars to do properly and have a continuous annual cost as well. Will you help us ensure the health of our surviving Chancellorsville Flank Attack witness trees so that they remain on the historic landscape for future generations? We also plan to install markers designating each tree and what they witnessed.
CVBT is currently raising $20,000 to begin the process of protecting the first two of what may be many more witness trees on our property on Jackson's Flank Attack. Learn more, and how you can help here.
Beckham Tract Landscape Restoration
CVBT is beginning the preliminary work to remove the modern structures on the Beckham Tract in order to return the land to its natural appearance. We are currently about 70% of the way toward our $35,000 goal to make this happen. You can learn more at our website.
Historic Quote
“Then it was that those men who had never seen a battle before . . . raised that Confederate yell that seemed to be part of the nature of the Confederate troops. There was a sudden dash forward into the thunder and smoke and guns, and the Fifty-Seventh was at the railroad with their guns loaded, and those of the enemy who had not fled were captured then and there.”
Lt. Col. Hamilton C. Jones, 57th North Carolina Infantry, remembering the fighting at the Slaughter Pen Farm on December 13, 1862.
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