The Battle of the Wilderness, one of the crucial turning points on the Union’s path to victory in the Civil War, encompassed three days of horrendous combat in May, 1864. Those fighting to keep part of the original battlefield safe from a Wal-Mart and big-box retail development hope their own campaign will live to see another day.

A judge in Orange County, Va., will soon decide whether to allow or throw out a lawsuit opposing plans for a Wal-Mart supercenter and other major retail stores on the original lands of the Wilderness Battlefield and adjacent to the Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park. The National Trust for Historic Preservation, the Friends of Wilderness Battlefield, and a number of local citizens are challenging the approval of Wal-Mart’s and the developer’s plans by the Orange County Board of Supervisors, a vote that took place last August.

Judge Daniel Bouton must determine whether the groups and citizens have legal standing to bring the lawsuit or to side with Orange County’s contention that they do not have such standing or any justifiable arguments. The judge heard about three-and-a-half hours of testimony from both sides in Circuit Court on Wednesday.

Basically, if Orange County has its way, bulldozers will be on the ground without further obstacle. If the preservation groups, historians, and the National Park Service get their way, Wal-Mart would consider another spot in Orange County to build.

Those behind the lawsuit claim that when it granted a zoning special-use permit for the development, the Orange County Board of Supervisors failed to gather and consider important information about how the Wal-Mart and adjacent retail businesses would harm the county’s citizens and its historic lands. Orange County, located about 75 miles south of Washington, D.C., is a largely rural county with a population of just above 33,000 people. It also has a significant tourism trade, with its Civil War sites, wineries, horse farms, and beautiful countryside.

“It’s our position that citizens have a right to challenge a decision like this which is incredibly poor,” says Robert Nieweg, director of the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s Southern Field Office in Washington D.C.

“Junior Big Boxes”

To those fighting the new Wal-Mart, the megastore and other development would bring sprawl, noise, and traffic to one of the most hallowed pieces of ground in not only the Civil War but all of American history. Wal-Mart would construct a new 138,000-square-foot supercenter a short distance from the National Park service land commemorating the Wilderness battle. The store would actually fall within the original footprint of where the battle took place. The superstore would be built on the northern side of Route 3 near Route 20, in close proximity to the Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park, which commemorates four of the most important Civil War battles. (This map shows exactly where the proposed commercial site is located in relationship to the battlefield and national military park.)

Ultimately, the county-approved plans call for constructing an additional 100,000 square feet of retail, with three additional “junior big boxes” – about 240,000 square feet of big-box commercial development in total – on a 52-acre parcel owned by JDC Ventures of Vienna, Va.

The Wilderness was not the site of a momentous victory like Gettysburg. Here, however, an important shift occurred that ultimately brought about the Confederacy’s demise. In this part of Virginia during the spring of 1864, historian Bruce Catton once noted that “it almost seemed as if all the fury and desperation of the war were concentrated.” In a thick, unforgiving landscape of dense woods, ravines, and underbrush, General Ulysses S. Grant led the Army of the Potomac against General Robert E. Lee’s Confederate Army of Northern Virginia in a battle on May 5-7, 1864. It was the first time that Grant and Lee met in battle.

In just over two days of close-up, often-fiery combat that pretty much ended by the dawn of the third day, some 26,000 soldiers were killed or wounded. The fight ended in a stalemate. Yet unlike other Union generals before him, Grant didn’t retreat or head north but chose to have his soldiers march on southward in pursuit of Lee’s army – a grinding, relentless strategy that finally achieved a Union victory by 1865.

In their lawsuit, the National Trust for Historic Preservation and its fellow plaintiffs maintain that the county Board of Supervisors ignored this significance and hastily approved the development plans without getting adequate information. The National Park Service, for instance, had only three minutes of testimony allowed in front of the Board of Supervisors at a hearing, according to Nieweg.

The lawsuit seeks to have the special-use permit approval invalidated and the issue sent back to the county supervisors. The National Park Service is also objecting to the Wal-Mart and adjacent development, saying it would significantly harm the historic battlefield. Also opposing are a large coalition of local, state, and national groups, more than 250 historians including David McCullough and James McPherson, and Senator Jim Webb (D-Va.).

Those opposing Wal-Mart’s plans say ultimately the corporation is in the best position to resolve the situation, by finding another site and relocating. The National Trust and its partners in the Wilderness Battlefield Coalition, as well as Virginia Governor Tim Kaine, have offered assistance to the retailing behemoth to find an alternative location.

Walking the Land

In their frustration, the preservationists cite intense efforts aimed at persuading Wal-Mart to reconsider and move to another location. Nieweg recalls a day when National Trust and National Park Service leaders met with some of Wal-Mart’s executives and actually stood together at various points of the battlefield, seeking to point out the significance of the place and how a megastore would harm it irrevocably. “We were having a heartfelt conversation,” Nieweg says. Still, groups such as the National Trust understand what Wal-Mart does and how the corporation acts on “auto-pilot” in looking for strategic locations, he adds.

“We showed them…this is where the Union Army was ordered to march south, to race Lee to the next crossroads,” Nieweg says. “This is the best place to teach that history, the best place to understand what the common soldier felt after two days of fighting and before that many more days of fighting.“

Now, a Circuit Court judge will decide whether those who see another important place of American heritage vulnerable to loss will get an opportunity to make their case further in court – or whether it will be paved over by a retail parking lot.

As Nieweg observes: “This intersection was critical in 1864, and it’s critical today, too.”

Mindful Activism: The Wilderness Wal-Mart

Here are some suggested actions and resources for those who would like to advocate on behalf of preservation of the Wilderness Battlefield and against the Wilderness Wal-Mart and adjacent retail development:

• The National Trust’s Nieweg advises writing to Wal-Mart to urge the corporation to relocate this proposed supercenter. You can send e-mail here. Or if sending a letter,  in care of CEO and President Michael Duke, send correspondence to: Wal-Mart., Inc., 702 SW 8^th St., Bentonville, AR 72716-8611. Other ways of contacting Wal-Mart can be found at this page.
• The Civil War Preservation Trust provides an option to donate and to obtain more information, resources, and ways to get involved in saving the Wilderness in its 2010 report devoted to the nation’s most endangered battlefields.

To explore more background, additional Civil War history, and earlier developments concerning Wal-Mart’s proposed megastore on the site of the Battle of the Wilderness, also see, on mindfulwalker.com:

Wal-Mart’s Threat to a Historic Battlefield

Wal-Mart: A Step Closer at the Wilderness