Civil War Battlefields Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Berkeley County Turns Civil War Battlefield Into Historical Park

The Shenandoah Valley Battlefields Foundation is working with the Berkeley County government to create a new battlefield park in West Virginia’s Eastern Panhandle.

West Virginia’s Eastern Panhandle saw major military activity in the Civil War. But, driving through the region today, it can be hard to tell many historic sites exist.

Over the years, local historic preservation groups have worked to erect markers and monuments across Civil War grounds to spread awareness of the history they contain.

Now, one preservationist group is partnering with the local government to create the first battlefield park in Berkeley County, and preserve the site for years to come.

Keven Walker is CEO of the Shenandoah Valley Battlefields Foundation, the Virginia-based nonprofit leading the park’s construction. The park will be erected on a 10-acre plot of land where the Battle of Hoke’s Run was fought.

“You’re going to have all of the visitor facilities that you would expect at a state park,” he said. “You’re going to have restroom facilities here, parking facilities. You’ll have a pavilion here. There’ll be an outdoor learning area for youth.”

The 1861 battle marked the first Civil War conflict in the Shenandoah Valley, according to Gary Gimbel, president of the Falling Waters Battlefield Association.

“They hadn’t come across the line into West Virginia before,” he said. “This is the very first time.”

The Shenandoah Valley Battlefields Foundation is currently undertaking construction on the future battlefield park in Berkeley County, with a goal of completing construction this fall.

*Photo Credit: Jack Walker/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

Gimbel’s group works to preserve and interpret the history of the Falling Waters Battlefield, located near the Hoke’s Run site and West Virginia’s Maryland border.

The new park will also feature an “interpretive and recreational trail” that connects with the battlefield’s history, according to Walker.

“It will bring you face to face with the history of the site through outdoor exhibits, panels and interpretative signage,” he said.

Gimbel said using the park as an opportunity to spread awareness about West Virginia’s Civil War history like this is a “big deal” for local Civil War buffs and the community at large.

The historic element of the park marks an opportunity to tell residents, “Look, something happened here,” Gimbel said.

“This isn’t just where you live. There’s actually history here that you probably don’t know about, and we would like to explain it to you,” he continued. “The idea [is] being able to combine education with this park.”

The announcement of the new park also comes as counties in the Eastern Panhandle grapple with new development.

West Virginia has the third-highest percentage of forest cover among the fifty states, according to a 2016 survey from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Down the road from the new battlefield park, a historic marker denotes a site where Union soldiers were captured by Confederate soldiers in 1861.

*Photo Credit: Jack Walker/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

But the Eastern Panhandle is one of the only regions in the state that experienced population growth last year. Some residents worry the rate of development could jeopardize their access to the greenspaces that make West Virginia feel like home.

Berkeley County Commissioner Steve Catlett says counties in the Eastern Panhandle need to plan ahead, which makes the creation of new outdoor recreation spaces like the battlefield park even more important.

“We’re growing too fast and our infrastructure can’t keep up. As we keep building more and more homes and more and more development, we need to set aside more acreage for public recreation and parks,” he said. “People can go and enjoy their well-being … [and] being outdoors.”

Walker said his organization hopes the park can offer more than just an educational opportunity or a new outdoor venue.

As political divides make people feel more distant, he said sitting with American history and examining our place in it can help overcome barriers to understanding one another.

“We are a nation that is constantly being told that our history should divide us, and that’s just not the case,” he said. “Our history is what should bring us together as a people, remind us of the struggles of past generations [and] give us inspiration and strength for the struggles in our own time.”

Walker said his organization aims to complete construction this fall, and to open the park to the public in 2025. From there, he’s excited to see how local community members connect with the history all around them.

“These quiet little pockets of history, these battlefield parks, these outdoor classrooms are places where all of that remembrance can happen,” he said.

How Protecting Civil War Battlefields Helps Protect Drinking Water

After the 2014 Elk River chemical spill in the Kanawha Valley, the West Virginia Rivers Coalition created the Safe Water WV initiative. The idea is simple: to strengthen a community’s connection to their drinking water and encourage them to work together to better protect it.

A couple years ago, Jefferson and Berkeley Counties decided to build off that initiative in a unique way – using the conservation of farmland and Civil War battlefields as a model for drinking water protection.

About two miles from the heart of Shepherdstown is the site of the bloodiest battle in West Virginia during the American Civil War. More than 600 Union and Confederate soldiers died in a two-day battle in September 1862.

The Battle of Shepherdstown may have been small in comparison to other battles of the Civil War, but historians agree, the battle not only halted the Confederates’ northern invasion, but it also opened the door for President Abraham Lincoln to issue the Emancipation Proclamation.

Since 2011, the site of the Battle of Shepherdstown has been a protected historic landmark. The battle site also happens to be at a unique location – along the Potomac River. The Potomac provides drinking water to Shepherdstown residents, and other nearby areas.

“The Landmarks Commission owns about a half-mile of the Potomac River frontage,” Martin Burke said.

This map shows details of the attacks and soldier divisions during the Battle of Shepherdstown. A marker for the cement mill can be seen along the Potomac River.

Burke is the chairman of the Jefferson County Historic Landmarks Commission – the group responsible for protecting the site of the Battle of Shepherdstown.

“Controlling the runoff, planting trees, all helps improve water quality.”

That’s why his group, along with the Jefferson County Farmland Protection Board, the Berkeley County Farmland Protection Board, and the West Virginia Rivers Coalition decided two years ago to work together. They started an initiative called the Safe Water Conservation Collaborative in the Eastern Panhandle.

“We formed the Safe Water Conservation Collaborative to bring together, for the very first time, water utilities, land conservation organizations, and watershed groups to take a collaborative approach to protecting drinking water using the conservation of land, and protecting land forever, to protect our drinking water sources,” Tanner Haid said.

Haid is the Eastern Panhandle Field Coordinator for the West Virginia Rivers Coalition.

The initiative focuses on using land conservation easements to protect drinking water. A conservation easement is a voluntary private or government contract with a landowner to protect land for ecological reasons – to improve water quality, maintain a historic site, or protect wildlife.

Haid said this approach makes drinking water protections stronger, because land conservation easements help to prevent potential contamination threats or development that could impact a source water intake.

In Jefferson County alone, there are more than 16,000 acres of battlefield land that have been identified, according to the Jefferson County Historic Landmarks Commission. Only 861 acres of that is currently protected.

Liz Wheeler is the Director of the Jefferson County Farmland Protection Board. Her organization administers conservation easements to protect historic farmland and battlefields in Jefferson County.

“When we protect land, we’re not just protecting cropland. We’re protecting woodland, we’re protecting streams, we’re protecting historic resources, so it fits into what we do; to be able to contribute to source water protection,” Wheeler said.

But the Safe Water Conservation Collaborative in the Eastern Panhandle doesn’t come without its challenges. Finding enough money to protect the land can be the biggest challenge, but so can educating landowners about their options if they qualify for a conservation easement or historic status.

Haid said, in the coming year, he and his team hope to identify and prioritize areas of land in the Eastern Panhandle not currently protected that are close to drinking water areas.

“And then in particular, closest to the water intake or the utilities who draw up the water, because those are the areas most threatened by development and actions that we take on our land that has an impact on our water quality,” Haid said.

Jefferson and Berkeley Counties are among the most successful in the state for land conservation, according to West Virginia Rivers. Together, these counties have protected more than 10,000 acres of land.

West Virginia Rivers said, so far, they haven’t collected data on how water quality has improved through the Safe Water Conservation Collaborative in the Eastern Panhandle, but over the past two years, they have signed up 30 partner organizations interested in the project.

The group hopes this model – to protect water by conserving land – isn’t just for the Eastern Panhandle but could be used across the state.

Flowers and Loss: A Memorial Day Snapshot

On Monday, Americans will celebrate Memorial Day. The holiday came to represent the unofficial start to summer. But for many, the day also reminds us to take a few moments to stop and remember a loved one who fought and died for our country on the battlefield. The holiday is steeped in rich history dating back to the American Civil War.

The exact beginnings of this federal holiday are debated, but most scholars say Memorial Day began after the end of the Civil War as a way to remember the vast numbers of dead. It’s recognized during springtime, because that’s when flowers bloomed and could be placed on gravesites.

Berkeley County Council member Elaine Mauck is a retired schoolteacher and lover of history. She spoke about the holiday at a recent Berkeley County Council meeting.

“Memorial Day started, more or less, as the families were reinterring their members that had been killed during the Civil War, and they were going from different battlefields and bringing their family members home,” Mauck said.

There were 750,000 casualties during the American Civil War, according to the National Park Service — and around 3,000 Union deaths in West Virginia, and more than 30,000 Confederate deaths in Virginia, according to the American Battlefield Trust.

Mauck said there was never an official Memorial Day recognized before the Civil War, because there had never been that sheer number of dead before.

“It was the massive numbers. I mean, Antietam, there was 25,000 killed. It was massive numbers.”

The National Park Service reports the battle of Antietam left 23,000 people dead, wounded or missing, and it lasted for just 12 hours.

Mauck also describes the importance springtime played in the creation of Memorial Day, and how today, we ended up having the holiday at the end of May.

“It was because the flowers in the South were available in April, and then it became, for regular Memorial Day, on May 30; your flowers in the North; your peonies, and the lilacs and things were more available May 30. So, the date was kinda changed to work for everybody.”

Today, our nation’s more than 130 national cemeteries often provide a place to celebrate Memorial Day. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs reports the first national cemeteries were also created as a result of the Civil War.

In 1971, Memorial Day was officially recognized as a federal holiday.

Group Seeks to Preserve 84 Acres at Three Civil War Battlefields

A battlefield preservation group is raising funds to protect 84 acres at three Civil War sites in western Maryland and West Virginia.

Spokeswoman Meg Martin said Monday the Civil War Trust aims to raise about $413,000 by year’s end to match about $1.1 million in mostly public funds.

The targets are nine acres at the Antietam National Battlefield, 65 at Maryland’s South Mountain State Battlefield and 10 acres near Shepherdstown, West Virginia.

The Antietam parcel is near the Dunker Church landmark.

The South Mountain parcel is in the unincorporated Frederick County community of Frostown.

The Shepherdstown parcel is near a Potomac River crossing called Boteler’s Ford. It’s part of a 510-acre site that the National Park Service said last year would make a suitable addition to Antietam, if Congress desires.

Volunteers Sought for Spring Cleanup at 125 Historic Sites

The Civil War Trust is recruiting volunteers for its annual spring cleaning at battlefields and historic sites.

This year’s National Park Day is scheduled for April 2 at 125 historic sites in 29 states. Last year, nearly 8,000 volunteers stepped up to paint, bag trash, rake and build trails.

For their labors, volunteers receive Park Day T-shirts and have the opportunity to hear from local historians.

Besides Civil War battlefields, the trust has expanded the spring clean-up to more Revolutionary War and War of 1812 sites.

Volunteers are being sought for Antietam National Battlefield in Maryland, Petersburg National Battlefield in Virginia and Droop Mountain Battlefield in West Virginia, among 100-plus more sites.

To volunteer or find a battlefield in your state, go to: http://www.civilwar.org/aboutus/events/park-day/