Help Us Save 141 Acres of Todd's Tavern
Dear Preservation Partner,
Battlefield preservation usually works best with cooperative endeavors and efforts resulting in win-win situations. Today, I’m writing to you with a special opportunity to join a collaboration to save core battlefield land at Todd’s Tavern.
In early 2021, the owner of the Todd’s Tavern tract reached out about preserving the land. It was important to the family to save the land from being developed, and to remain so in order to help tell the history of our unique American story. For years both the CVBT and ABT have had our eyes on this important property, but the owners were not yet willing to sell, until now. The American Battlefield Trust took the lead and asked us here at the Central Virginia Battlefields Trust, if we could work with them to save Todd’s Tavern forever.
A ramshackle tavern sat at the intersection of the Brock and Catharpin Roads, an important road junction connecting the Wilderness to the county seat of Spotsylvania County, Spotsylvania Court House. The tavern carried the name of Charles Todd, who died about 1850. The Todd family had sold the property to Flavius Josephus Ballard about 1845. The tavern was no longer operating as a business in May 1864, and the buildings were deteriorating rapidly. But for the fact that a significant cavalry battle was about to rage there, there was little of interest about this unremarkable place. However, 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.
The Battle of the Wilderness began on May 4, 1864, when Maj. Gen. George G. Meade’s 122,000-man Army of the Potomac blundered into Gen. Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia in Saunders Field in the Wilderness adjacent to the Chancellorsville battlefield of a year earlier. The battle, fought primarily on May 5 and 6, was a bloody slugging match that ended largely as a draw. Lee believed that Grant would continue moving toward Richmond and shifted his army southward toward Spotsylvania Court House to block him.
Lee gave his cavalry chief, Maj. Gen. J.E.B. Stuart, the task of delaying the Union advance. Grant instructed Maj. Gen. Philip H. Sheridan, commander of the Army of the Potomac’s Cavalry Corps, to cut the route that the Confederates would take to Spotsylvania and to seize and hold the crossroads at Todd’s Tavern. The opposing cavalry forces clashed at Todd’s Tavern at about 4:00 p.m. on May 7 and fought a severe engagement until after dark, when the Confederates retired. The battle resumed the next morning, with heavy losses on both sides and with the Confederate horsemen being slowly shoved back upon Spotsylvania. They were about to abandon the crossroads when the first elements of Lee’s infantry arrived, using a bridge that Sheridan had ordered his cavalry to destroy, ending the battle. The Confederates won the race to Spotsylvania Court House as a result.
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. At stake is a 141-acre tract of land that was the site of the tavern, and which saw the bulk of the cavalry battle. The CVBT has agreed to raise $15,000 and join our resources to the grants and fundraising already in place.
I hope you’ll examine the map that I’ve enclosed, and I’m sure you’ll agree this is a unique opportunity. Let’s make sure the land can be preserved forever to tell the story of the fighting at Todd’s Tavern.
With your generous support, I am confident that Central Virginia Battlefields Trust will quickly rally and raise our portion of the amount to help close on this tract of hallowed ground. We need to raise $15,000 to fulfill this commitment, making the difference between “history saved forever” or land lost to continued development.
Sincerely,
Tom Van Winkle
CVBT President