The Blue and the Gray in Orange
Mine Run: The Campaign that History Forgot
Orange County will host a day-long symposium on Saturday, November 16, 2013, to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the ill-fated Mine Run Campaign, a Civil War engagement rife with errors and doomed by weather. The action centered around one of the few clearings here in the heart of the Wilderness, not far from today’s Zoar Baptist Church, a place called Payne’s Farm. Here a Confederate force, numbering roughly 6000 men held off not one but two federal Corps, numbering 33,000 men. It was the only open engagement of the Mine Run Campaign, a little known military expedition in late November and early December 1863 that quickly became a comedy of errors.
The symposium, which is a partnership between the Orange County Sesquicentennial Committee, The Civil War Trust, Lake of the Woods Civil War Study Group, National Park Service and Friends of the Wilderness Battlefield, gets underway at the Locust Grove Middle School (6368 Flat Run Road, Locust Grove, VA) at 10:00 am.
Local historians from Orange, Lake of the Woods and the National Park Service will look into the missteps, mischief and mayhem that characterized Mine Run Campaign. In the early afternoon, participants will be given a tour of the nearby Payne’s Farm battlefield for a Civil War Trust-guided tour of the only open engagement of the campaign.
Tthe registration fee is $25 per person. To register, download the Mine Run Registration Form-Nov.pdf below or visit www.visitorangevirginia.com and download the form. Forms are also available at the Orange County Department of Tourism, located in the Sedwick Building in Orange (146 North Madison Road, Suite 205, Orange, VA) or by calling 540-661-5328.
For more information, please contact Leigh Mawyer, Tourism Manager at 540-661-5328.