Help Us Save Union Church at the Cross Keys Battlefield

Well, thanks to the efforts of some of our lead donors and the care that a local service club has for their community, you and I have the opportunity to save the two acres where the 15th Alabama fired the first shots of the Battle of Cross Keys – we can save the place where the battle began! I don’t have to tell you what a tremendous opportunity this is, but I do need to tell you just exactly what property I’m taking about and how this project got underway. 

Let me start with the property. These two acres are the site of the old Union Church near the intersection of Battlefield Road and Keezletown Road, in what was the village of Cross Keys from which the battle derived its name. Take a look at the map and you’ll see the target property, a small but critical battlefield parcel, immediately adjacent to the 98-acre Webb farm that many of you just helped to preserve last July. If you’ve visited the battlefield, you probably stopped at the property, as it has long been the place where most Cross Keys battlefield tours begin.

It was here that several companies of the 15th Alabama Infantry were positioned on the eve of the battle, having been pushed forward of the main Confederate line on Mill Creek Ridge. Their orders were to cover the main approach from Harrisonburg to the northwest. They took shelter in and around the church itself and crouched behind headstones in the adjacent cemetery, waiting and watching for the Federal Army of General Fremont that they knew would be advancing from Harrisonburg. When the vanguard of Fremont’s troops crossed White Oak Ridge and into the area of Cross Keys, the Alabamians were ready. Shots rang out from the Union Church position; the Battle of Cross Keys had begun. 

The 15th Alabama would seem to be everywhere in the battle that day. Having given the advance warning of the quickly approaching Federals, they fell back to the main Confederate line under fire the entire way. Once there they would be shifted from the center left to the far right before being ordered forward once again late in the engagement. Nonetheless, their fight began at Union Church and that’s where our fight is today! 

The site had been a gathering place of Presbyterian worshipers long before the Civil War. The war led to the destruction of the building, leaving the congregation to build the current structure when peace finally returned to the Valley. By the late 1960’s, the congregation was worshiping at a new site and the Ruritan Club purchased the building soon after. The Ruritans are a national civic service organization with a mission of fellowship and service in rural areas and small towns across the country. The Cross Keys chapter of the club has used the old Union Church as their meeting hall and gathering place for decades, and has protected and cared for the property, always mindful of its historic significance. We spoke with the club’s leaders several years ago about the possibility of preserving the site, but with no funds immediately available a pin was put in the conversation, and we stayed in periodic contact . . . that is until I received a notice from an attorney of the passing of Ms. Marlys Armentrout.

no fuss and no fanfare, she did her part. Until we received the notice of her passing, we had no indication that she had intended to make a bequest.

It is her last gift to us, her generous bequest of $120,000, that kicked off this campaign to purchase the Union Church property. In her will, she had asked only that we attempt to use the funds to save land at Cross Keys or Port Republic Battlefields. In doing a little research, I found that her great-grandfather had fought under Stonewall Jackson in the Valley Campaign and had been a prominent farmer in the Cross Keys area before and after the war. The Armentrout house was a prominent landmark at Cross Keys at the time of the battle and can be seen in an eyewitness sketch with cannons firing from all around it. The house was situated not much more than 400 yards from the Union Church property that, thanks to Ms. Armentrout’s generosity, we have the opportunity to save. I have no idea if or how she was related to the Armentrout house and family, or if she even knew that her great-grandfather had fought in the two battles that she directed her estate to protect. I may never know. But what I do know is that Ms. Armentrout’s gift will leave a permanent legacy and have a generational impact. 

About the time we learned of Ms. Armentrout’s battle-specified bequest, a good friend and devoted preservation supporter sent a generous $5,000 gift with a note instructing us to use the funds “anywhere that Alabama had fought.” This gift was the spark that made us consider investing both gifts specifically at Union Church. We reached out to the Ruritan Club and quickly worked out a deal for the purchase of the site at a much-reduced price of $250,000, and allowed the Ruritans to use the building as they always have for as long as their club desires. 

Things continued to come together when near this same time, Mr. Bocklage, who has long been a supporter of our work and a member of the Foundation, called to make a very generous $10,000 gift and was pleased to have that put toward the Union Church purchase. And that wasn’t the end of it! Childs Burden, who so many of you know and who has been a member of our Board of Trustees for more than a decade, called with the idea of combining some funds from his family’s foundation with his and his wife’s personal funds, to make a challenge gift of $25,000 at our National Conference. I told him about the movement afoot to purchase the Union Church property, and he immediately thought that that is where his gift should be invested. All went as planned at our Conference a couple of weeks ago; Childs made his pitch to save Union Church and challenged those in attendance to come together to match his $25,000 gift. Within minutes, Rod Graves matched Childs with a $25,000 gift from Luray Caverns Corporation, the Graves Family and John Graves, and the other conference attendees added $16,850 more to that number!!

So, the purchase price for the property is $250,000 with an additional $20,000 in due diligence expenses for a total project cost of $270,000. Thanks to the extreme generosity of so many, we have already raised $201,850! That means that all that stands between us and saving this property forever is $68,150!! I think we can raise that and I’m asking for your help to do it. You’ve proven over and over that when we work together, we can do anything we set our mind to. Together, we can be like the 15th Alabama – we can seem to be everywhere in the fight to save this property and win the day at Cross Keys!

Ms. Armentrout joined our Foundation as a $35 member in 2016. She maintained her membership through the years and would give here and there, supporting campaigns that piqued her interest. All together she made twelve gifts to the Battlefields Foundation during that time. She didn’t attend our events or tours and I’m sad to say that to the best of my knowledge I never had the pleasure of meeting her. She’s truly representative of most of our members and donors. She did what she could, when she could, to support our work. With

Will Eichler of Civil War Digital Digest following the 15th Alabama beginning at Union Church