SHEPHERDSTOWN, W.Va. — History buffs are doing their best to make sure the site of a Civil War battle in Jefferson County remains preserved.
“It doesn’t have meaning unless we give it meaning,” said Dennis Frye, the chief historian at nearby Harpers Ferry National Park and a founding member of the Civil War Trust preservation organization.
“So you need to be able to have access to the site, be able to walk the site, be able to actually experience the battlefield so that the soles of your feet actually can connect to their souls. That’s the whole power behind battlefield preservation, is the connection you can actually make on the ground, where they fought and feel that experience as you walk those grounds.”
The Shepherdstown Battlefield Preservation Association has been advocating for the preservation of the battlefield and making it more accessible to the public.
So far, about 52 acres of land have been protected from development.
The Jefferson County Historic Landmarks Commission, which is a branch of county government, announced earlier this month that it took title to 26 more acres of battlefield land through the assistance of the Civil War Trust, a nonprofit battlefield-preservation group.
And more than $44,500 in federal funding from the U.S. Department of Interior for the restoration and preservation of more than 14 acres of historic battle grounds in West Virginia was recently announced.
“That’s been going on, the effort to preserve the battlefield, for at least 15 years,” Frye said. “The active effort to actually purchase this land on the battlefield has been happening in more recent years, within the last five or six years.
“So now they’ve got more than 50 acres that actually is preserved.”
He added, “There’s been a lot of interest to not just preserve it but to buy it because that’s the only way you can guarantee absolute preservation.”
The battlefield site in Shepherdstown is right along the Potomac River.
The Battle of Shepherdstown, also known as the Battle of Boteler’s Ford, was fought on Sept. 19-20, 1862, after the Battle of Antietam on Sept. 17, 1862
It was the third and last battle of Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s Maryland campaign.
“The Battle of Shepherdstown is part of what’s known as the first invasion of the North. It was the first time the Confederate Army crossed into the United States, launching an invasion in September of 1862. The Civil War is now 18 months old,” Frye said.
“General Lee of the Confederate Army hopes that this invasion will have a political and diplomatic outcome that will be favorable to the confederacy and ultimately to confederate independence. He will fail militarily in that effort.”
The Confederate Army was stopped in Sharpsburg, Md., just a couple miles from Shepherdstown, in the Battle of Antietam, the bloodiest single day in American military history. Overall, there were 22,717 casualties.
The Confederate Army then withdrew across the Potomac River, just down river from Shepherdstown. The Union army pursued.
“The union army attacks General Lee’s rear guard in what becomes known as the battle of Shepherdstown that occurs two and three days after the Battle of Antietam,” Frye said.
“Lee ultimately will retain the position in a very, very bloody fight there, over 600 casualties in a very short time, and that is the official end of the first invasion of the North.”
What remains is historic but also somewhat remote. The two-lane road along the Potomac River is a gorgeous drive, but parking and walking around the battle site is a challenge.
“The core of the battlefield, which is right along the Potomac River, where the heaviest fighting occurred in the aftermath of Antietam, is actually beginning to become well-preserved,” Frye said.
“Not all of it, but much of the core battlefield is protected. Not all of it, but what happens next is you need to open it up to the public.”
He said more progress remains to make the battlefield accessible.
“At the moment you will see trails. You will see some signage and there are some self-guided trails. But it is not well-developed. Parking is an issue, and the reason is this is a very narrow spit of land between the river and cliffs,” Frye said.
“The battle actually was fought in an area of very steep-faced cliffs. So there’s not much available there currently for parking. That is a problem to be solved, and it’s not going to be an easy problem to solve. You can’t bring a mass number of people or a mass number of vehicles down there presently because it’s just not accessible in that regard.”
At some point, the battlefield may be preserved by the federal government under the umbrella of another battlefield, most likely nearby Antietam.
A 2014 National Park Service study found that a 510-acre area in the center of the battlefield “would be a suitable addition to Antietam National Battlefield because of the close historical and geographical connection between the two battles.”
“Ultimately the administration of the battlefield perhaps can come under the National Parks Service,” Frye said. “That’s going to depend on congressional action. But at some future date this may become part of a national park – not independent but part of a national park here in this area.”
For Frye, the path toward preservation is gratifying.
“We’ve done good work here,” he said. “I’m very pleased with how much success they’ve had. Still more work needs to be done.”