Photo credit: Tom Van Winkle
CVBT Newsletter, January 2025
Preservation Updates and News
From the President's Desk
Well, here we are, it’s a new year and January is half over already. Our Fredericksburg region has been pounded by snow and ice storms, with frigid temperatures far below our average. Before all the arctic weather, CVBT began prepping some of our preserved battlefield properties for interpretive wayside signage and walking trails. Once the ground thaws out we can return to these projects.
In the meantime, much is going on from the relative warmth of the CVBT office.
Our very popular Spring Seminar, which is set for March 15, 2025, is almost sold out with just a few tickets left. If you've not signed up, please see our website and scroll down to CVBT Spring Seminar to grab the last remaining seats!
The 2025 Annual Conference, September 12th -14th, is taking shape with keynote speakers already signed up and the tours taking shape as well. This year we are revisiting the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House. We will again look for innovative ways to offer our guests exciting and different approaches to this battle. Registration and information are coming very soon.
Our Chief Administrative Officer, Tim Talbott, has been working hard on his “History Wire” emails and social media posts. They have become very popular and have recently propelled a milestone for CVBT. We have hit 15,000 Facebook followers! Not bad for a small organization like CVBT. Great work Tim!
We are also well into creating a new and exciting CVBT website. More information, quicker and more user-friendly navigation are all part of this refresh. We look to have it completed soon.
And of course, we are working on more endangered battlefields to preserve. Terry and I walked a somewhat unknown set of unique earthworks a couple of weeks ago and are still researching them. We have had conversations with other landowners and have begun long range plans to save properties from development while still fighting the good fight against potential immediate development on the Chancellorsville battlefield; specifically, the developer who wants to create a gas station, convenience store, and professional offices project just yards from the old Chancellor House ruins.
The Wilderness Crossing legal battle still occupies much of our time and is costly. Orange County and the Wilderness Crossing Coalition are still at odds over this massive 2,600-acre development next to the Wilderness battlefield. The litigation continues.
Let’s hope for success in these above-mentioned tasks and all we do in the new year. I have a short saying on our CVBT Board of Directors meeting agendas. “CVBT, Thrive in 25”. And we intend to do just that.
Tom Van Winkle
Most Read "History Wire" Posts of 2024
In case you missed, or were not aware of, CVBT's monthly History Wire emails and posts, now is your chance to see what you have missed.
The Top 5 read History Wire posts on our website in 2024 were:
2. “A Man Could Have Got Almost Anything He Wanted:” Soldier Pickups on Central Virginia Battlefields, Part I (May 2024)
3. Artillery: The King of Battle - Part I (Dec 2023)
4. Civil War Soldiers and Weather (Sept 2022)
5. Close Calls, Near Misses, and Spent Bullets on Central Virginia's Battlefields - Part I (July 2024)
2025 Spring Seminar
Almost Sold Out!
The 2025 CVBT Spring Seminar is almost sold out. We have less than ten tickets left! This year's 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.
CVBT Legacy Society
Planning your estate gives you the opportunity to benefit some of the institutions and organizations you have supported during your life. In fact, many significant gifts that nonprofits receive come from the estates of regular contributors.
We hope that you will consider including a gift to CVBT in your estate plans. Your gift will help ensure a vibrant future for battlefield preservation in Central Virginia. CVBT’s long-term stability is based on solid planning, which will ensure that we are here in the future to take the lead in the preservation of these battlefields. Your thoughtful choice to include CVBT in your estate plans would go a long way toward helping make this future a reality.
If you choose to remember CVBT in your plans, we hope you will let us know so we may acknowledge your gift. Of course, if you prefer, we will keep your intention confidential.
Contact CVBT for an information kit and FAQ guide.
There are many ways to plan special gifts for CVBT and your other charitable interests—a bequest through your will is just one. Whatever your plans may be, we encourage you to call or write for more information, without obligation.
You may reach us at:
Terry Rensel, CVBT Executive Director
540-374-0900
Or visit us at cvbt.org/legacysociety
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.
CVBT Out and About
CVBT members and volunteers, Lisa Van Winkle and Katrina Bavone, participated in “Wreaths Across America” on December 14, 2024, at the Culpeper National Cemetery by laying wreaths to remember the veterans that have passed. Culpeper National Cemetery has participated in this tradition for the last 19 years, honoring the more than 9,600 soldiers who rest in peace there. Wreaths Across America occurs at cemeteries all over the United States each year on the same day. The wreaths are all made and trucked from Maine and distributed throughout the country.
Witness Trees - Sentinels of the Battlefield
Tim Talbott talking about the Battle of Chancellorsville during the recent Youth Community Service Day event under one of the witness trees on a CVBT Chancellorsville Flank Attack property.
Photo: Terry Rensel
Almost 60% 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. Periodic checkups for tree health, nutrition treatments, and preventive maintenance trimming, along with lightning prevention apparatus and other care measures by professional arborists cost 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.
Park Day - Save the Date
Park Day is Saturday, April 26, 2025. This year, CVBT will be working on our Nine Mile Run property, as we continue our efforts to create public access and interpretation. We will be putting out a call for volunteers to help us with this project in the near future. Please save the date, and join us in helping to tell the story of our shared history.
Historic Quote
“The men were all eager for fight and sanguine of success. But the Pontoons sticking fast in the mud rendered the construction of Bridges impossible. So we were ordered to return to our old camp. This order was received in stern silence-every face expressing chagrin and disappointment."
Maj. William Watson, 105th Pennsylvania Infantry, in a letter to his sister, Emma Watson from camp near Fredericksburg, January 27, 1863.
Photo credit: Terry Rensel
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