Daily Press

The biggest artifact from the Civil War's Battle of Williamsburg vanishes slowly.

It's not a long-buried cannon or an unmarked grave or bones.

It's land -- the ground many historians call "hallowed" for the battle fought there and the lives lost. That land has been used for hotels, pancake houses and, lately, a garage for Colonial Williamsburg's bus fleet and a parking lot for tour buses.

A list released this week of the nation's most endangered Civil War battlefields doesn't include Williamsburg. But the battlefield, the city's largest Civil War claim to fame, is one of many examples of Civil War battlefields being consumed by development.

Less than a quarter of the original Williamsburg battlefield remains, local historians say. The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, which operates Williamsburg's Historic Area, mostly owns what's left.

"We certainly respect other areas of history," said CW spokesman Jim Bradley, "but our prime focus is the colonial period just before the American Revolution, during it and just after."

Bradley said a CW archaeological survey of the site off Pocahontas Trail where the bus garage is going in produced "absolutely nothing significant" from the Battle of Williamsburg.

"I don't think they even found any uniform buttons," he said.

What's more, Bradley added, it is away from the Historic Area.

The Battle of Williamsburg was fought May 5, 1862, in a driving rain. Nearly 73,000 troops -- 60,000 more than Williamsburg's population today -- fought in the muddy woods between the Wren Building to the north and the Yorktown line to the south.

After nearly falling to the Confederates around midday, Union Gen. George McClellan's troops rallied with a push into the Confederate lines from the east and west. They took Williamsburg, but their effort failed because the Confederates achieved their goal of pulling back to defend Richmond.

While not considered one of the Civil War's major battles, the Battle of Williamsburg was the bloodiest to that point, an ultimate draw that both sides considered a victory. Had McClellan been able to defeat the Confederates there, many historians believe the Civil War would have ended. Instead, it stretched on for three more years.

Williamsburg resident Earl Hastings thinks it's a shame that what remains of the battlefield is not being preserved.

"There are a lot of first-hand accounts of this battle," said Hastings, who with his son wrote "A Pitiless Rain: The Battle of Williamsburg, 1862."

"Seeing this land makes you understand just how hard it was for those guys to fight here, enduring the long marches through heavy woods with the smoke from gunfire and the rain. And they fought with great spirit and great patriotism, on both sides."

And just because the test excavation didn't turn up Civil War artifacts, doesn't mean the battle wasn't fought on that ground. Hastings believes it was, and so does Newport News historian and author John Quarstein, an expert on local Civil War history.

Quarstein called the presence of a shrinking Civil War battlefield part of the "tremendous resources" from that era that both the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation and the Colonial National Historical Park have chosen not to interpret.

"All we need to do is properly save, then interpret them and they become an asset to the community. Tourists come, they see, they leave their money and they go," he said. "I don't see that as a problem."

There is interest in Williamsburg's major battle, Quarstein said. Descendants of the 70,000 who fought there are keenly aware of the site and call often to see about touring it and getting "in touch" with the place their ancestors clashed. Quarstein is happy to walk them around.

Although much is already gone, Quarstein said earthworks still tower as high as 30 feet above the battleground. Those, like the "Bloody Ravine" where the battle ended, are protected by the woods and terrain that hold development at bay for now.


The top-10 most endangered battlefields, listed alphabetically, according to the Civil War Preservation Trust:

1. Chancellorsville, Va.

2. Fort Donelson, Tenn.

3. Franklin, Tenn.

4. Glendale, Va.

5. "The Hell Hole" (Pickett's Mill, New Hope Church and Dallas), Ga.

6. Mansfield, La.

7. Morris Island, S.C.

8. New Bern, N.C.

9. South Mountain, Md.

10. Wilson's Creek, Mo.


Published correction ran Friday, February 27, 2004.A story in Thursday's Local News section about how development continues to threaten the battlefield where the Battle of Williamsburg was fought misspelled the last name of Union General George McClellan. (Text corrected.)
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