The Buzz: Tree Reforestation at Bristoe Station Battlefield Heritage Park
Visitors to the Bristoe Station Battlefield Heritage Park may assume that it's always looked the way it does today. Experts say, though, that the battlefield doesn't look the way it did when Gen. Robert E. Lee commanded a fight there during the last major battle of the Civil War fought in Northern Virginia. Therefore, to interpret the site more accurately, a group of 38 volunteers helped plant young trees that will eventually help make the park look more as it did during the Civil War.
In addition to helping restore the site, the volunteers also planted 160 seedlings on approximately .25 acres as part of a reforestation project. This project will help repair the tributary to Broad Run, which has been named an impaired stream by the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality.
Restoring the tributary and its streambed will serve to keep the county in compliance with the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Act. Prince William County is in the watershed, along with other jurisdictions in Virginia and neighboring states, and is required to maintain a certain level of clean water, said Deb Oliver, communications specialist with the County's Department of Public Works.
Replanting native vegetation helps keep clean water flowing into the bay, Oliver said. One of the things we're really trying to get people to understand about reforestation projects is that they create a whole lot of benefit. For our sites, it helps to protect water quality, which allows us to meet federal and state mandates. If we don't meet those mandates, we can get severely fined.
It also helps improve wildlife habitat, Flanagan said. Native insects like native plants and birds like native insects. There's a connection between healthy native plants and the insect population and healthy bird populations. Native plants are the foundation of the food chain for native ecology and builds from that. It helps us get healthy populations of birds and all kinds of wildlife.
Flanagan said the plantings only included native species, such as black cherry, flowering dogwood, redbud, northern red oak and scarlet oak trees in the upland areas of the project. Swamp white oak, sycamore, red maple, black willow, common hackberry, boxelder, musclewood and blackgum trees will be used near the water.
Planting the trees that will grow and restore the battlefield to its Civil War condition took research, said Bill Backus of the county's Historic Preservation Division. We used historical letters and diaries from soldiers who described the landscape, along with maps from the 1860s and two maps that the local landowner used to recoup his losses during the Civil War.
Flanagan said it will take a while for the recently planted seedlings to grow to the size of the trees that were at the battlefield during the Civil War, but now that they're in, it's only an investment of time. In 30 years, it'll look about like it did back then.
To help pay for the reforestation, the Prince William County Department of Public Works recently applied for and received a $10,000 matching grant from the Virginia Department of Forestry to defray the costs of planting trees along the stream bed that runs through Bristoe Station. The project, which is spearheaded by the county's Environmental Services Division, included the reforestation of 14 acres in the 142-acre park.
Flanagan said getting the community involved in the planting complemented the work that was largely done by contractors. We did the volunteer planting as an educational and community component of the larger reforestation.
Reforestation also saves maintenance costs in the long run, Oliver said. When we plant forested areas or meadows, we don't have the expense of mowing. So, over the years, we're going to save money, as well.
Civil War author Jeffrey Hunt: Meade and Lee at Bristoe Station
On October 16th at the Warren Rifles Confederate Museum (95 Chester Street, Front Royal, VA). author Jeffrey Hunt present his book Meade and Lee at Bristoe Station: The Problems of Command and Strategy After Gettysburg, from Brandy Station to the Buckland Races, August 1 to October 31, 1863.
The Royal Examiner's camera was there.
The Civil War in the Eastern Theater during the late summer and fall of 1863 was anything but inconsequential. Generals Meade and Lee continued where they had left off, executing daring marches while boldly maneuvering the chess pieces of war in an effort to gain decisive strategic and tactical advantage. Cavalry actions crisscrossed the rolling landscape; bloody battle revealed to both sides the command deficiencies left in the wake of Gettysburg. It was the first and only time in the war Meade exercised control of the Army of the Potomac on his own terms. Jeffrey Wm Hunt brilliant dissects these and others issues in Meade and Lee at Bristoe Station: The Problems of Command and Strategy After Gettysburg, from Brandy Station to the Buckland Races, August 1 to October 31, 1863.
The carnage of Gettysburg left both armies in varying states of command chaos as the focus of the war shifted west. Lee further depleted his ranks by dispatching James Longstreet (his best corps commander) and most of his First Corps via rail to reinforce Bragg’s Army of Tennessee. The Union defeat that followed at Chickamauga, in turn, forced Meade to follow suit with the XI and XII Corps. Despite these reductions, the aggressive Lee assumed the strategic offensive against his more careful Northern opponent, who was also busy waging a rearguard action against the politicians in Washington.
Meade and Lee at Bristoe Station is a fast-paced, dynamic account of how the Army of Northern Virginia carried the war above the Rappahannock once more in an effort to retrieve the laurels lost in Pennsylvania. When the opportunity beckoned Lee took it, knocking Meade back on his heels with a threat to his army as serious as the one Pope had endured a year earlier. As Lee quickly learned again, A. P. Hill was no Stonewall Jackson, and with Longstreet away Lee’s cudgel was no longer as mighty as he wished. The high tide of the campaign ebbed at Bristoe Station with a signal Confederate defeat. The next move was now up to Meade.
Hunt’s follow-up volume to his well-received Meade and Lee After Gettysburg is grounded upon official reports, regimental histories, letters, newspapers, and other archival sources. Together, they provide a day-by-day account of the fascinating high-stakes affair during this three-month period. Coupled with original maps and outstanding photographs, this new study offers a significant contribution to Civil War literature.
About the Author:
Jeffrey William Hunt is Director of the Texas Military Forces Museum, the official museum of the Texas National Guard, located at Camp Mabry in Austin, Texas, and an Adjunct Professor of History at Austin Community College, where he has taught since 1988. Prior to taking the post at the Texas Military Forces Museum, he was the Curator of Collections and Director of the Living History Program at the Admiral Nimitz National Museum of the Pacific War in Fredericksburg, Texas for 11 years. He holds a Bachelors Degree in Government and a Masters Degree in History, both from the University of Texas at Austin. In 2013, Mr. Hunt was appointed an honorary Admiral in the Texas Navy by Governor Rick Perry, in recognition of his efforts to tell the story of the Texas naval forces at the Texas Military Forces Museum.
At both the Texas Military Forces Museum and the Admiral Nimitz Museum he has organized and conducted hundreds of living history programs for the general public. He is a veteran reenactor of the War Between the States as well as the War of 1812, the Texas Revolution, World War I, World War II, and the Vietnam War. He is a frequent speaker for a wide variety of organizations as well as documentaries and news programs.
Mr. Hunt’s writing credits include his book, The Last Battle of the Civil War: Palmetto Ranch, and contributions to Essential Civil War Curriculum, the Revised Handbook of Texas and the Gale Library of Daily Life: American Civil War.
About Savas Beatie LLC:
Savas Beatie LLC is a leading military and general history publishing company. Read more about Meade and Lee After Gettysburg and Meade and Lee at Bristoe Station.
Battle of Brandy Station 150th Anniversary Tour - Stop 2A (raw footage)
This is the raw footage of stop two of the Louden County Civil War Roundtable sponsored Anniversary tour of the Battle of Brandy Station. Clark Bud Hall, Mike Block, and Eric Wittenberg lead a tour of around 150 people to 9 stops on the battlefield, including some places that you don't normally see at Brandy Station.
Stop 2 (Buford's Knoll) will take place in 2 uploads. This is 2A. The other will be 2B
Louden County Civil War Roundtable:
Eric Wittenberg:
Civil War Trust Brandy Station's page:
Bristoe Campaign
The Bristoe Campaign was a series of minor battles fought in Virginia during October and November 1863, in the American Civil War. Maj. Gen. George G. Meade, commanding the Union Army of the Potomac, began to maneuver in an unsuccessful attempt to defeat Gen. Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. Lee countered with a turning movement, which caused Meade to withdraw his army back toward Centreville. Lee struck at Bristoe Station on October 14, but suffered losses in two brigades and withdrew. As Meade followed south once again, the Union army smashed a Confederate defensive bridgehead at Rappahannock Station on November 7 and drove Lee back across the Rapidan River. Along with the infantry battles, the cavalry forces of the armies fought at Auburn on October 13, again at Auburn on October 14, and at Buckland Mills on October 19.
The Confederates had not achieved their primary objectives of bringing on a decisive battle or preventing the Federal reinforcement of the Western Theater, and Lee and his officers were much demoralized by this failure.
Bristoe Campaign Confederate order of battle
If you find our videos helpful you can support us by buying something from amazon.
Bristoe Campaign Confederate order of battle
The following Confederate States Army units and commanders fought in the Bristoe Campaign (October 13–November 7, 1863) of the American Civil War.
-Video is targeted to blind users
Attribution:
Article text available under CC-BY-SA
image source in video