The Richard King Mellon Foundation has been one of the nation’s most active conservers of American land over the last generation. (See separate 1988 entry.) Protecting Civil War battlefields has been one of their priorities. In 1998, for instance, the foundation purchased the land where Stonewall Jackson made his famous flank attack at Chancellorsville, being mortally wounded in the process. The tract was donated to Spotsylvania County, with an historic easement being simultaneously given to the Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park. The foundation’s investment of $10.5 million in Civil War land purchases in 1990 was one of the largest gifts given to create a park up to that time, and preserved acreage at the Antietam, Gettysburg, Fredericksburg, and Petersburg battlefields plus the Shenandoah National Park.
- News story on 1998 purchase, news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2472&dat=19981120&id=uPAyAAAAIBAJ&sjid=oggGAAAAIBAJ&pg=4866,4646072