Support Restoration Work at the Fisher’s Hill Battlefield

The 146-acre Funkhouser farm on the Fisher’s Hill Battlefield has been purchased and preserved forever!

This is an amazing accomplishment that wouldn’t have been possible without the help of friends like you.  This victory is made even sweeter by the fact that we can also announce that we’ve completed projects to preserve two other properties at Fishers Hill: 47 acres where Union Gen. James Ricketts launched his late-day attack against the Confederate left, and 97 additional acres in the center of the battlefield.

One thing we have to do to satisfy the requirements of the grant funding that we received to purchase the Funkhouser farm. The grant requires that we move quickly to tear down the non-historic structures on the property. 

It’s important for us to stop and remember that the purchase is just the beginning.  It’s easy to get so caught up in the mechanics of the deal, to focus so intently on preserving the land that we forget that the land for us is really a means to an end and not the end itself. 

The land is a place where great beauty collides with momentous and terrible events in a way that consecrates the ground.  These parcels are a portal through which we can access the lessons of a time long past – lessons more important now than ever.  The land is hallowed, sacred as a place where men fought and died to create the nation that we’ve inherited. But if we don’t connect people to that land and if the land does not give them a sense of place that fosters and elevates its sacred status and timeless relevance, then we will be the last generation to which this land speaks. 

Ridding the property of visually intrusive buildings that are diminishing the historic integrity of the site is a good thing – but it’s going to cost $52,000 to do it.  Even though that money will be used to demolish the buildings and properly dispose of the debris – the work is required by the land acquisition grant, so, in essence this is the final payment to preserve this property forever.

Even if this work wasn’t required by the grant agreement, removing these 20th-century buildings will help to return the site to its 1860s appearance, make the property safer for visitors, and eliminate the expense of maintaining buildings with no historic significance – buildings that actually detract from the landscape and understanding the battle that raged there 162 years ago. 

Non-historic structures to be removed

So, post-preservation projects like tearing down a handful of non-historic structures are extremely important.  Pushing back the hands of time and restoring some of these parcels isn’t just a nice thing to do; it’s imperative.  We know that battlefields are special places, but for every visitor we must remove as many impediments to that understanding as we possibly can, and projects like this one help us do just that. 

We need to raise $52,000, and if we all do our part it won’t take much.