Press Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Date: December 10, 2006
Contact: Garry Adelman
E-mail: gadelman@historyassociates.com
Telephone: (301) 279-9697

CWPT Contact: Jim Campi
E-mail: jcampi@civilwar.org
Telephone: (202) 367-1861

Preservation Victory Spurs More Interpretation

On Tuesday, November 14, the Spotsylvania County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to support preservation of an additional seventy-four acres of the First Day at Chancellorsville Battlefield. The vote marks the end of a four-and-a-half-year struggle by the Civil War Preservation Trust (CWPT) and its partners in the Spotsylvania Battlefields Coalition to rescue this endangered battlefield from imminent development.

For more than a year, History Associates Incorporated (HAI) has been drafting the interpretive plan for the original 140 adjacent acres saved by CWPT. With this latest victory, however, HAI will have more acreage to interpret. "The addition of this key parcel," says HAI's History Division deputy director Garry Adelman, "not only saved important historical features from certain destruction, but it will allow for an extra mile of walking trails and additional interpretive media on the site."

The vote was the result of a compromise plan between national developer Toll Brothers, Spotsylvania County, and CWPT that permits Toll Brothers to build thirty-three additional houses north of the battlefield in exchange for selling seventy-four acres of hallowed ground to the trust. Toll Brothers will convey the seventy-four acres to CWPT for $1 million, less than half the market value of the property (estimated at $2.3 million).

History Associates provides business, government, and nonprofit clients with professional historical research, writing, archives, and records management services. For more information, call (301) 279-9697 or visit www.historyassociates.com.

With more than 70,000 members, CWPT is the largest nonprofit battlefield preservation organization in the United States. Its mission is to preserve our nation's endangered Civil War battlefields and to promote appreciation of these hallowed grounds. Since 1987, the organization has saved more than 23,000 acres of hallowed ground nationwide. CWPT's website is www.civilwar.org.