The Fredericksburg – Spotsylvania – Stafford region is a high-growth area and part of the broader Metropolitan Washington D.C. area. We are engaged in a constant struggle to balance saving buildings and battlefields from being razed or built on and have achieved some success. The bottom line, of course, is that folks need a place to live!
The Historic Fredericksburg Foundation, Inc. (H.F.F.I.) is particularly active within the City of Fredericksburg saving and preserving various properties.
The Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities (APVA), one of the earliest preservation groups in the nation, owns four local properties that Hallowed Ground Tours has on our routes through town.
The local Central Virginia Battlefield Trust (CVBT), closely associated with the national organization, the Civil War Trust, has worked hard to save key battlefield areas from development. Visit their website and check out a list of their “saves”, particularly the land at the First Day’s Battle of Chancellorsville and the 210 acre “Slaughter Pen Farm” area near the southern end of the Battle of Fredericksburg site.
The uncertainties of Federal budget cuts leave the local National Park Service in a lurch, sometimes. Their efforts are directly supported by specific volunteer organizations who help at certain key sites. To allow the professional Park Historians to work with the broadest number of visitors, volunteers staff Chatham Manor seven days a week. During the Spring – Fall seasons, volunteers from the “Friends of the Wilderness Battlefield” clean up and staff the grounds and house at Ellwood, in Orange County. Generally, also, the Park’s efforts are supported by the Friends of Fredericksburg Area Battlefields.
We do not dun or coerce our clients but, if you ever feel charitable or in a memorial gift-giving mood, we’d like to suggest that you consider contributions to these fine organizations.
The Fredericksburg area also is home to not one but two Civil War Round Tables. Begun before (and expanded during) the Nation’s Civil War Centennial in the 1950s and 1960s, these groups organized in communities nation-wide meet in varying degrees of formality and organization to further education and awareness of the American Civil War.
One of Fredericksburg’s Round Tables (arguably one of the oldest in the nation) is titled the “Civil War Round Table of Fredericksburg” and meets on the fourth Wednesday of most (but not all) months. The Tourmaster (who belongs to BOTH RTs) would call this the more traditional of the two local organizations with coats and ties implied as a dress code! However, a great and dedicated bunch of men they are!
The newer (since 1989) round table, the “Rappahannock Valley Civil War Round Table” meets monthly, year round on the second Monday of each month. This organization is a little larger and its memberships residences comprise a wide swath of this geographic area. Like its sister organization, this Round Table’s mission includes education and information about the Civil War.
If you’re going to be in town, check either website for programming and meeting information.