Dr. Mauss will speak about the Marquis de LaFayette’s 1781 campaign, and his encampment in the Wilderness area. He will then lead a walking tour to the area of the encampment. Sturdy shoes are recommended.
Copies of Dr. Mauss’s book will be available for purchase on site, and a book signing will take place just after the talk and tour. National Park Service Living Historian Peter Maugle will also discuss uniforms, weapons, and camp life of a revolutionary soldier.
FoWB volunteers will be available to assist visitors with possible ancestral connections to the Battle of the Wilderness or Ellwood, in the Heritage Program tent on the grounds.
The house will be open from 10 a.m. – 5 p.m., and FoWB volunteer interpreters will be available to talk with visitors and answer questions.
Ellwood Manor is a circa 1790 house within Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park. It is located at 36380 Constitution Highway (Route 20), in Locust Grove, Va. The cemetery contains the grave of Confederate General “Stonewall” Jackson’s amputated arm from the Battle of Chancellorsville, and the house was a Federal headquarters during the Battle of the Wilderness.
Ellwood Manor is owned by the National Park Service. Friends of Wilderness Battlefield stewards the property in partnership with the Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park. For more information or directions, please visit www.fowb.org
John Maass is a historian at the U.S. Army Center of Military History, Fort McNair, Washington, D.C. He received a BA in history from Washington & Lee University, an MA in U.S. history from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, and a PhD in early U.S. history from the Ohio State University. He is the author of “North Carolina and the French and Indian War: The Spreading Flames of War” (The History Press) and “Defending a New Nation, 1783-1811” (U.S. Army Center of Military History).
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