Unison Heritage Day 2012

150th Anniversary of the Battle of Unison
and celebration of new Unison Battlefield Historic District

Photos: www.oakhillstudio.org

Unison Preservation Society receives Loudoun Preservation Society Award

Unison Battlefield Wins Conservation Award

Unison Group Cited For Battlefield Preservation
Proposed Historic District To Get Public Review

The Mosby Heritage Area Association has recognized the work of the Unison Preservation Society, bestowing its with its annual Heritage Hero Award on the volunteer organization.

Unison Preservation Society President Harry Bigley and members of the society's Battlefield Committee Owen Snyder, Paul Hodge, Mitch Diamond and Denis Gordon were on hand for the Dec. 22 ceremony as MHAA President Childs Burden presented the annual award.

The Heritage Hero award was initiated by then-President Gayle DeLashmutt in 2007 in an effort to recognize movers and shakers at the local level in the field of preservation and history education in the Virginia Piedmont. That first award was given jointly to Karen Hughes White for her work at the African-American Museum in The Plains and to the late Robert H. Smith for his preservation philanthropy. Subsequent awards went to Sen. John Warner (R-VA) for his support of preservation projects and to Linda Newton, president of the Atoka Preservation Society for its successful work.

The 2010 award was given in recognition of the Unison group's activism and dedicated work over the past four or five years to gain national recognition of the significance of the Nov. 1-3, 1862, Battle of Unison as well as other preservation activities in the village. That work has culminated in a nomination currently being prepared to create an 8,000-acre Civil War battlefield historic district. If approved, it would stretch across portions of western Loudoun and Fauquier counties and would be among the best preserved battlefield historic districts in the nation, according to the MHAA.

"We wanted to recognize another organization for its activist work," Burden said this week. Nominations are submitted by MHAA board members, and when Unison came up, Burden said it was timely because "it is coming up for battlefield historic district recognition and [historian] Maral Kalbian is about to finish her nomination." Saying his "hat is off to them," Burden noted he was involved in the early work on the battlefield designation, having been on the panel of historians during the society's application for its first grant from the National Park Service.

Although recognized in contemporary media accounts for its significance, the three-day delaying battle that helped Gen. Robert E. Lee escape to Richmond after the Battle of Antietam has largely fallen out of modern-day accounts. The story of the society's efforts to re-focus attention on the little-known battle has been a long one that started when Unison leaders were endeavoring to find ways to deal with an unwanted development of 100 acres on the edge of the village. History was one avenue.

Diamond and Hodge, former president of the Unison Preservation Society, worked together to dig out the actual history of the event and, based on what they found, gain attention for the battle at both the state and national levels.

Diamond conducted the historic research and said the battlefield group was excited "not just about the recognition, but the new scholarship" that was uncovered.

"Lee had retired behind the Blue Ridge. Looking at the map, [President] Lincoln saw that [Gen. George B.] McClellan was still near Sheperdstown and Antietam and was actually closer to Richmond than Lee was." Lincoln told McClellan to head south through Loudoun and move close to Lee's flank to cut off his retreat to Richmond, Diamond said.

In mid-October, McClellan crossed the Potomac, but "Lee figured it out and moved south," Diamond said. Part of that was knowing he needed a delaying action for several days so Lee ordered Gen. J.E.B. Stuart to take 1,000 troopers to the Bloomfield area to hold of McClellan for the necessary respite, which he did, fighting a fierce retreat south to Rt. 50. When Lincoln realized the impact of McClellan's delay, he fired the Union general.

"This battle is not mentioned in the history books," Diamond said. But he found an article on the end of McClellan's career in a magazine called Blue and Gray. "It gave a lot of history, so I started calling around and a group of us began investigating on our own." They met with State Historic Preservation Officer Kathleen Kilpatrick and her team. Once she was convinced their quest was real, she agreed to write a letter of support to the National Park Service.

Through that letter, the preservation society obtained the first of three federal grants, the initial one from the American Battlefield Protection Program of the NPS. With that first grant, the society hired a professional historian from the NPS to do a scholarly study of the battlefield area and its history. The credibility gained from the study and initial mapping became the "basis of what we wanted to do."

Later grants covered the bulk of the cost of Kalban's team in preparing the nomination. The research as it evolved produced wonderful surprises, Diamond said. "Names started popping up-Lincoln, Stuart, Lee, McClellan, even Mosby, who was attached to Stuart's group as a scout before anyone had heard of him," Diamond recalled. Among the other useful tools was the Internet, which enabled researchers to look at the New York Times archives and find contemporary stories of 1862, that had information not included in modern textbooks but which were fully available in the press at the time, and understood to be important.

Kalbian and her team have finished their fieldwork and are in the final process of preparing draft nomination document. Diamond said the Battlefield Committee is hoping to get the document edited and reviewed internally by the end of the month before being sent to the Virginia Department of Historic Resources and local preservation organizations for their review. When the document is complete, a public hearing, likely next month, will be held in the area and area landowners invited to attend. There will be a presentation on the battlefield and its history, what it means and what it doesn't mean, according to Diamond.

Just as important is what the designation doesn't mean. There are "no restrictive efforts on zoning," Diamond said. "That's the single most important message. It's an honorary designation, which has tax benefits and recognition, but is not in any way restrictive."

The designation also gives leverage for fund-raising. Of the 8,000 acres 55 percent is already subject to conservation easements, and the group hopes to get more than that-through special funds available at the national register level and through organizations like the Land Trust of Virginia, which has a special fund to help defray easement costs in recognized battlefields, or the Virginia Outdoor Foundation.

If all goes well and there is community support, the document will be submitted to the state, and the group hopes in the spring to be considered the Virginia Register of Historic Places. Once approved, there is a six-month delay before the nomination can be approved for the National Register of Historic Places. "We hope to be on the state and national registers by the end of the year," Diamond said. The village of Unison already has those designations.

Now the beginning of the end is in sight, Diamond and his fellow committee members were elated by with the MHAA recognition.

"It's a particular pleasure and delight to be honored and recognized by your own friends and neighbors," Diamond said.