Conservation at the Crossroads: Preserving Siegen Forest at Chancellorsville

Siegen Forest stands on the banks of the Rapidan River as it winds between Orange and Culpeper counties, Virginia. People have lived here for nearly 12,000 years, drawn by the plants, animals and minerals of the river valley and by shallows where the river, for centuries a highway, could be crossed. The place takes its name from the English and German settlers of the early 18th century: the Germanna colonies brought skilled workers from the German principality of Nassau-Siegen to mine local iron. By the time of the Civil War, enslaved people of African descent worked these lands.

Crossings to battle

• In late April 1863, after its bloody defeat at Fredericksburg the previous December, the U.S. Army of the Potomac crossed the river here on its way to another beating at Chancellorsville.
• A year later, at the opening of the Overland Campaign in May 1864, United States Colored Troops crossed at Germanna Ford on their way to the Battle of the Wilderness, where neither side could claim victory despite 30,000 dead and wounded.

Protected for the public

The National Park Service's American Battlefield Protection Program awarded a Battlefield Land Acquisition Grant to the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation and its partner, the Germanna Foundation, to preserve part of the Chancellorsville battlefield and protect public access to the Rapidan. Under a conservation easement granted by the nonprofit Germanna Foundation to the Virginia Board of Historic Resources, the forest will remain a park, open for enjoyment, reflection and inspiration.

The grant programmes

Battlefield Land Acquisition Grants from the American Battlefield Protection Program help preservation partners across the country buy and protect threatened battlefields of the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812 and the Civil War. The programme also runs three other grants: Preservation Planning Grants, open to any site of armed conflict on American soil, and Battlefield Restoration and Battlefield Interpretation grants. Together they support community-led care of historic places at the state, tribal and local levels.

Sources

• National Park Service, American Battlefield Protection Program, "Conservation at the Crossroads: Preserving Siegen Forest at Chancellorsville." https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/preserving-siegen-forest-at-chancellorsville.htm
• A photograph of the Rapidan from Siegen Forest, by the Virginia Department of Historic Resources, is not reproduced here.