Virginia: National Park Service OKs Grant to Preserve Todds Tavern Site
When it comes to preserving a pristine part of Virginia’s Wilderness battlefield, history-minded sorts can practically see home plate.
There’s just a short way to go.
The Fredericksburg-based Central Virginia Battlefields Trust and the American Battlefield Trust, a national nonprofit headquartered in Washington, are raising money to score the final run.
Heartening news came Friday when the National Park Service said it will contribute $496,756 toward purchasing 136 acres at Todd’s Tavern, scene of fierce fighting on May 7–8, 1864, as Confederate horsemen fought to prevent Union cavalry from reaching Spotsylvania Court House.
The so-called Dario–McLeod Tract is associated with campaigns of the American Revolution and the Civil War, having witnessed maneuvers and combat during both conflicts. On June 3, 1781, the Marquis de Lafayette, the patriots’ French ally, led his Continental Army troops past the site en route to their fateful clash with Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown. A state historical marker nearby testifies to that event.
But it is Civil War action for which Todd’s Tavern is most famous.
“The arrival of the cavalry of the Army of Northern Virginia and the Army of the Potomac put this otherwise ordinary tavern on the radar screen of history,” said the Central Virginia Battlefields Trust, a nonprofit that preserves portions of Fredericksburg-area battlefields.
“The Central Virginia Battlefields Trust, in partnership with the American Battlefield Trust, has a unique opportunity to save nearly the entirety of the Todd’s Tavern battlefield, which remains largely pristine,” CVBT President Tom Van WInkle said Friday. “At stake is the land that was the site of the tavern, and which saw the bulk of the cavalry battle.”
Van Winkle, who lives in Spotsylvania, said the local trust must raise $15,000 to fulfill its commitment to the national trust.
He asked people to help CVBT save the tract, which he called a “vital piece” of the battlefield.
Todd’s Tavern became a hot spot as Union Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant pressed his Overland Campaign against Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia.
Days earlier, as the Battle of the Wilderness opened on May 5, Grant and Maj. Gen. George G. Meade’s Army of the Potomac had stumbled into Lee’s men in Saunders Field in Orange County. Their deadly engagement, largely a draw, cost some 27,000 casualties.
Lee believed Grant would keep moving toward Richmond, the Confederate capital, so he shifted his army south toward Spotsylvania Court House to block him. Lee ordered his cavalry chief, Maj. Gen. J.E.B. Stuart,to delay the Union advance.
Grant instructed Maj. Gen. Philip H. Sheridan, his Cavalry Corps commander, to cut the route that the Confederates would take to Spotsylvania and to seize the crossroads at Todd’s Tavern, CVBT said.
Blue and gray cavalrymen met at the tavern at about 4 p.m. May 7, fighting fiercely until after dark, when the Confederates retired. The battle resumed the next morning, with heavy losses on both sides. Slowly, the Confederate horsemen were shoved back toward Spotsylvania Court House.
The troopers were about to abandon the crossroads when Lee’s infantry began arriving, using a bridge that Sheridan had ordered his cavalry to destroy. That ended the battle.
All the fighting around the tavern bought crucial time, enabling Lee’s horsemen to win the race to Spotsylvania and set up defensive positions there. That set up the next big slugfest, the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House.
Todd’s Tavern saw lots of action during this critical stretch.
Dan Davis, a historian with the American Battlefield Trust, said Grant and Meade rode south along the Brock Road on the night of May 7, skirting the eastern section of the tract to be preserved. The two commanders stopped briefly at Todd’s Tavern, Davis said.
The Union army’s 2nd and 5th corps marched south on Brock Road past the tract’s eastern section toward the courthouse village, he added. From May 8 to 9, the 2nd Corps camped and maintained a post on the tract.
And there is more to the place’s past. The National Park Service calls Todd’s Tavern “an essential meeting point for local life” as well as a pivotal landmark during the Civil War.
“While one might not expect taverns to be important to military history, they are often a location that sheds light on the lives of ordinary people caught in the crosshairs,” the agency said Friday as it announced its grant. “At Todd’s Tavern, there are promising clues about the lives of enslaved and freed African Americans who labored there. This land acquisition allows for the site to be preserved and for future investigation into its nuanced history.”
The ramshackle tavern sat where Brock and Catharpin roads meet, an important junction connecting the Wilderness to Spotsylvania’s county seat.
The tavern was named for Charles Todd, who died about 1850. His family had sold the property to Flavius Josephus Ballard about 1845. The tavern was no longer operating in May 1864, and its buildings were deteriorating.
The Spotsylvania grant is one of several destined for Virginia, Mississippi and New Jersey from the Park Service’s American Battlefield Protection Program. They total $2.34 million.
National Park Service Director Chuck Sams announced the land-acquisition grants to the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation, Mississippi Department of Archives and History and Middlesex County in New Jersey.
The grants will protect nearly 500 acres of Revolutionary War and Civil War battlefields.
In addition to Todd’s Tavern, the agency awarded $692,450 to save 353 acres of Mississippi’s Champion Hill battlefield, a pivotal precursor to 1863’s Battle of Vicksburg; $71,567 for an acre on the Sailor’s Creek battlefield in Central Virginia; and $1.08 million for 7.5 acres at New Jersey’s Metuchen Meeting House battlefield, a Revolutionary War site.
The grants are made possible by the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which reinvests taxes from offshore oil and natural gas leasing to strengthen conservation and recreation across the nation.
“These grants to state and local governments represent an important investment in public-private conservation efforts across America,” Sams said. “They ensure that future generations have access to green spaces and can reflect on our collective history.”
The Park Service’s Battlefield Land Acquisition Grants help partners nationwide preserve threatened battlefields on American soil.
