Evening Star Newspaper, September 20, 1931, Page 72

A e EW SHRINES for t T wo Great Memorial Parks Now Being Plotted and Laid Out'at Petersburg . and Fredericks- burg, Va., Mark Area Where More Battles of the Civil War Were Fought Than in Any Other Regton. ~ - BY ANNE BRADBURY PEEBLES. P the thousands of motorists who have driven U. 8. Route No. 1 southward from Washington most are probably unaware that they passed within a few miles of the historic fields on which morl;al bat- of the Civil War were fought than any o“t.:ermion. Few even of those intelligent, wide-awake people who each Summer tour the country, studying its history “on the spot,” know Chancellorsville and the Wilderness, Spotsylvania Court House, the battlefields at Fredericksburg, the fortifications at Richmond and the lines which almost encircled Petersburg during the dreary Winter of 1864-5. Yet nearly all of those who sped unheeding by these scenes of greater conflict have visited Gettysburg. Gettysburg was parked by the Federal Gov- of their country because they had read the inseriptions on these monuments, climbed Big Round Top and Little Round Top, and walked over ground on which their fathers, grand- fathers and uncles fought during the first three days of July, 1863. Chickamauga has for years been a military the work is completed the particular engagements and took place and the forts and forti- fications will be appropriately marked with signs that even he who runs—or rides—may read. In addition, bronze relief maps will be placed at many points, inscribed to show plans of the battles. The Battlefields Memorial Commissions at Petersburg and Fredericksburg were appointed by the Secretary of War, and are under the special charge of the Assistant Secretary of War, Col. Frederick H. Payne. Col. Payne §s much interested both in the parks and in the benefits to the State of Virginia as a result of the accessibility of the ground on which so much of United States history was made. The actual work is in charge of Maj. Arthur E. Wilbourn, member and secretary of both commissions, and - he -i8 pushing it, unit. by unit, as funds become available. His head- - : p——— e 1¢ Tourists .in Work on the main highway into the Fredericksburg Battlefield Parks, which is to be opened next month. This view is taken near the point where the highway leaves U. S. Route No. 1. quarters are in Fredericksburg, and a branch office is in Petersburg. The chairman of the Com- mission is Maj. Gen. John L. Clem, retired, who at 10 years of age ran away from home with an Ohio Regiment and joined the Army of the Cumberland, and became known to the world as “The Drummer Boy of Shiloh” because he sounded the Long Roll which aroused the Union troops when they were attacked by the Con- federate Army under Albert Sidney Johnston. He served as orderly to Gen. Thomas through- out the war, and when it ended and Thomas said to him, “Now, Johnny, go home and get yourself an education,” he was still too young to enter West Point. The third member of the Fredericksburg Commission is Mr. R. Walton Moore, prominent throughout Virginia and Rep-~ resentative in Congress from the eighth Vir- ginia district for 12 years. The chairman of the Petersburg Battlefields Memorial Commission is Capt. Carter R. Bishop. He was a cadet at the Virginia Military Insti- tute when his class became “Troops of the Confederacy” in 1865, and held the picket line “Stonewall” Jackson in the Valley cam- This gift is the first of the kind on Southern territory. Only in Arlington , and in the case of those Confederates who died and Salem Church, built by the “Refugee Baptists,” in the early days of Virginia, which on the morning of the battle of Chancellorsville was captured by the Union forces and then recaptured by the Confederates, %3 : the “serried ranks” of these stones, each beare ing the name and regiment of a gallant soldier who gave his life for a principle he thought facing the not far distant “Bloody Angle,” where on another 12th of May, 67 years before, Grant flung the men of Hancock's 2nd and units of the 6th Corps against a salient in the Confederate lines, and it with many prisoners and artillery. Gen. valor and of reconciliation.” ‘The symbolism of memorials is loved by all fell will necessarily be limited. The most favorable positions will be obtained for those monuments for which early arrangements are made. Mrs. Gari Melchers, wife of the famous artist, represents the Ladies’ Memorial Asso-