Public Input Sought for Trail Project at Fisher’s Hill Battlefield

Project Will Connect Fisher’s Hill to Strasburg and National Park

For immediate release—June 1, 2010
Contact:      Elizabeth Paradis Stern/SVBF (540-740-4545 x205)
                  John D. Hutchinson/SVBF (540-740-4545 x204)
 
NEW MARKET, Va.—Many special places combine to form the mosaic that is northern Shenandoah County.  The steep slopes of the Massanutten and Great North Mountain, Tumbling Run and the Shenandoah River, the streetscapes of Strasburg and productive farmland are all essential parts of the area.  But one thing unites this varied landscape: It was witness to the repeated combat during the Civil War, culminating in the battles of Fisher's Hill and Cedar Creek. 

Next week residents of northern Shenandoah County will have the first of several opportunities to participate in the planning of a trail that will link the preserved areas of the Fisher’s Hill battlefield to one another and eventually to the town of Strasburg and the new Cedar Creek and Belle Grove National Historical Park.  A public meeting is planned for Tuesday, June 8 from 5:30pm to 7:00pm in the Strasburg Town Council chambers.  Additional meetings will take place later in the summer.

Preservation to Interpretation

Sponsored by the Shenandoah Valley Battlefields Foundation, the $1.3 million project is funded in part by federal transportation grants.  The location and other specifics of the trail network will be determined over the summer during a public planning process involving local residents, landowners, partner organizations, and county and town officials as well as a team of experts in historic resource management and recreational planning.  Initial construction of the trail is expected to begin later this year on properties owned by the Battlefields Foundation.

“This project represents the next phase in our mission,” said W. Denman Zirkle, the Foundation’s executive director said when the project was announced last summer.  “Preserving the battlefields is the first task; interpreting those newly preserved areas is an important next step.  The Valley Pike / Fisher’s Hill project will serve as a model for us as we begin to work with partners to interpret other battlefields throughout the Valley.”

Planning Team Assembled
                                      
John D. Hutchinson V, the Foundation’s Director of Preservation and Planning, is managing the project, assisted by a group of advisors, consultants, and a steering committee comprised of local landowners and stakeholders.

Providing technical assistance for the project is an advisory committee comprised of Pam Sheets, the director of Shenandoah County Parks and Recreation; David Ruth, superintendent of Richmond National Battlefield Park; Joanna Wilson, an archeologist with the Virginia Department of Historic Resources; and Sarah Mauck, a member of the Strasburg Town Council.  To coordinate the public planning process for the project’s master plan, the Battlefields Foundation has hired Hill Studio, a Roanoke firm of architects, landscape architects, and planners, with expertise in community planning, town and urban design, housing, master planning, and historic preservation.

“This planning team is absolutely top-notch,” said Zirkle.  “The depth of experience and expertise they bring will ensure that residents, visitors, and future generations of Americans will benefit from this trail and learn about the important history that took place here.”

A steering committee for the project has been assembled—it includes landowners from throughout the project area, representatives of potential user groups (bicyclists, hikers), local preservation organizations, and the town and the county.  The committee has begun to identify features that will be important to the trail planning and location process.

“With our team in place, we are ready to hear from the public in the Fisher’s Hill and Strasburg areas about what they would like to see happen with this trail,” said Hutchinson.  “This project will be an asset to the neighborhoods in the project area and the properties through which the trail will pass especially if we know what the community wants.  That is why we have created a local steering committee and are holding public meetings.”

The Valley Turnpike and the Battle of Fisher’s Hill

Even before the Shenandoah Valley was settled by Europeans, the Valley Pike—once a footpath, then a wagon road and a turnpike, and now US 11—was a vital transportation route for the people moving through the region.  It carried new settlers to the western areas of the Virginia colony.  Union and Confederate armies moved along it during the Civil War as did tourists and commerce throughout the 20^th century.

The Battle of Fisher’s Hill (22 September 1864) was one of the last major battles in the Shenandoah Valley.  In the fall of 1864, Union commanders sent Gen. Philip H. Sheridan to the Valley to bring a final end to Confederate control of the region.  After delivering a crushing defeat at Winchester on 19 September, Sheridan faced Confederate Gen. Jubal Early just south of Strasburg at Fisher’s Hill.  Although firmly lodged in earthworks above the Valley Turnpike, Early’s diminished forces were not able to fully cover the Valley’s span.  As a result, the Federals routed the thinned Confederate lines along Fisher’s Hill.  Seeing that they had been flanked, the Southerners were forced into a hasty retreat along the Valley Turnpike towards Woodstock.

In its 1992 survey of the Valley’s Civil War battlefields, the National Park Service noted the significance of the Battle of Fisher’s Hill.  “Confederate defeat at Fisher's Hill…opened the Shenandoah Valley to a US advance that reached beyond Staunton,” the report said. “When Sheridan withdrew during the first part of October, his army systematically burned mills, barns, crops, and forage, and ran off livestock.  By implementing this strategy of ‘total warfare,’ Sheridan felt that he accomplished the primary objective of his campaign--to deprive the Confederacy of the agricultural abundance of the Valley.”

The Battlefields Foundation protects a total of 426 acres at Fisher’s Hill.  In the 1990s, the former Association for the Preservation of Civil War Sites purchased more than 194 acres there.  A local Sons of Confederate Veterans camp—the Strasburg Guards—developed a walking trail and interpretation at the site before it was deeded to the Foundation in 2007.  The Foundation has protected an additional 232 acres at the battlefield since 2001.

The last major Civil War battle fought in the Shenandoah Valley was centered just north of Strasburg at Cedar Creek.  The battlefield spans the area from Fisher's Hill in the south to just north of Middletown.  The Shenandoah Valley Battlefields Foundation and its partners have protected more than 1,500 acres on the Cedar Creek battlefield.  This includes the 151-acre "Kiester Tract" on Pouts Hill just east of Strasburg, acquired by Shenandoah County for development as a park. 

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As authorized by the U.S. Secretary of the Interior, the Shenandoah Valley Battlefields Foundation serves as the non-profit manager of the Shenandoah Valley Battlefields National Historic District, partnering with local, regional, and national organizations and governments to preserve the Valley’s battlefields and interpret and promote the region’s Civil War story.

Created by Congress in 1996, the Shenandoah Valley Battlefields National Historic District encompasses Augusta, Clarke, Frederick, Highland, Page, Rockingham, Shenandoah, and Warren counties in Virginia and the cities of Harrisonburg, Staunton, Waynesboro, and Winchester.  The legislation authorizes federal funding for the protection of ten battlefields in the District: Second Winchester, Third Winchester, Second Kernstown, Cedar Creek, Fisher’s Hill, Tom’s Brook, New Market, Cross Keys, Port Republic, and McDowell.

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ON THE WEB:

Shenandoah Valley Battlefields Foundation and
Shenandoah Valley Battlefields National Historic District:
www.ShenandoahAtWar.org

National Park Service 1992 study of the Shenandoah Valley’s Civil War battlefields:
http://www.cr.nps.gov/hps/abpp/shenandoah/svs0-1.html
Battle of Fisher’s Hill: http://www.nps.gov/history/hps/abpp/shenandoah/svs3-13.html

 

 

 

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