1. Using GIS Analysis to Stop the Wilderness Wal-Mart GIS 200 May 11, 2009

2. Executive Summary  Wal-Mart is planning to build a 141,000 square foot store in Orange, Virginia  The proposed store will be on land near the Wilderness, a historic Civil War battlefield  This project concludes that a Wal-Mart can be built three miles north of the proposed location and not affect the view from the Wilderness battlefield site

3. Why Preserve Battlefields?  Provides a tangible link to the past  Provide an opportunity to attract visitors  Requires no costly infrastructure  Nonrenewable resource  Increases quality of life  Prevents urban sprawl "The Wilderness is an indelible part of our history, its very ground hallowed by the American blood spilled there, and it cannot be moved … Surely Wal-Mart can identify a site that would meet its needs without changing the very character of the battlefield.” – James McPherson, Pulitzer Prize winning historian

4. Battle of the Wilderness  Principal Commanders for the U.S. Federal Government (US): Lt. General Ulysses S. Grant and Major Gen. George G. Meade  Principal Commander for the Confederate States of America (CS): General Robert E. Lee  Forces Engaged: 162,920 total (US: 101,895; CS: 61,025)  Estimated Casualties: 29,800 total (US: 18,400; CS: 11,400)  Opening battle of Grant’s sustained offensive against the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, known as the Overland Campaign  The Overland Campaign was the bloodiest campaign in American history and the turning point in the war in the eastern theatre  Resulted in a tactical draw  Grant did not retreat and the Federals advanced toward the crossroads of Spotsylvania Courthouse

5. Battle of the Wilderness May 5-7, 1864

6. Orange, Virginia and Surrounding Counties

7. National Park Boundaries

8. The Wilderness, Then and Now

9. Orange County, Virginia Zoning

10. Parkland Under Threat of Development

11. Protected Land

12. Proposed Wal-Mart Location

13. Other Threatened Land

14. Other Regional Wal-Marts

15. Compromise Location

16. The Future? A proposed Wal-Mart Supercenter near a hallowed Civil War site in Virginia is headed to local planners next month. A developer has submitted revised plans for the store in Orange County. The Planning Commission will consider the plans at its next meeting, on May 7, and a public airing is expected May 21. Supervisors will have the final say. Historians from New England to California have criticized Wal-Mart’s plan to build within a cannon shot of the battlefield where the troops of Gens. Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant first clashed. For its part, Wal-Mart says the site is zoned for commercial use and the store would not diminish the battlefield.