Robert Duvall vs Wal-Mart: One more battle at Wilderness battlefield

Just a bit of news that most might have missed. Robert Duvall is currently fighting with Wal-Mart over a new proposed location in Virginia. Now before all the left-wing, anti-Wal-Mart nuts start tripping over themselves in joy this is not about the company.

It seems that Duvall is a descendant of Robert E Lee. This may well be a factor because the new Wal-Mart location in Virginia is also the next to the site where Lee first fought General Ulysses S. Grant - Wilderness Battlefield. So for Duvall, Congressmen Peter Welch of Vermont and Ted Poe of Texas, this is a matter of historical preservation.

I am known for my desire to preserve - in fact highlight - the causes, repercussions, and reality of the Civil War. So to an extent I see the reason these men are fighting Wal-Mart on this location. But, the fact is that there are hundreds of battlefields that crisscross the nation from that war. And several are far more famous and significant than Wilderness.

For me, it is the pivitol and the last battles that matter. Not the first nor the minor. To preserve such sites seems in a way to be holding on to a romanticized dream of what happened, why and how. Of course had I ancestors that died in the battle I might feel different. Then again, my ancestors died before, during and after the Civil War on a regular basis - en masse at times - without so much as a gravestone.

But I will say this. In my conversation with Robert Duvall some years ago in Moscow. I came to find him to be a driven and purposive man. He is a deep thinker, and rarely acts without reason or forethought. He is committed to the actions he takes. So I am left to believe that this battlefield is perhaps more significant than I am aware. Still I notice that the Virginia representatives of Congress are not mentioned in reports about this.

I have readers in the South. I am sure at least a few are Civil War buffs. How important was Wilderness battlefield? Do the people of Virginia care about this site? Is this site worthy of being kept preserved, or is it just the quasi-political tether of family that drives this cause?