Landscape Architect and Historian Plan to Preserve Civil War Battle Site

Major General Joseph Wheeler Army of Tennessee Cavalry Corps.

July marks the 140th anniversary of the Battle of Brown's Mill, a Civil War cavalry fight that occurred in the forest two miles southwest of Newnan, Georgia. Last November a master plan was revealed with a proposal to distinguish one of the nation's most distinctive Civil War parks, located in Brown?EUR??,,????'???s Mill. Previous planners wanted to turn Brown's Mill into a passive recreation park, but public outcry prompted the new master plan, which details a proposed interpretive battlefield park.

Much of the master plan was designed in a collaboration between Anne Wilfer, senior landscape architect with Jaeger, and David Evans, Athens historian and author of the 1996 book "Sherman's Horsemen: Union Cavalry Operations in the Atlanta Campaign."

Although an existing monument erected in 1908 by the Newman Chapter United Daughters of the Confederacy marks the battle site, many Newnan residents were unaware that the Battle of Brown's Mill, where cavalry genius Joseph Wheeler achieved a victory for the Confederates was fought nearby.

In December 2002, the county purchased 104 acres (a site of the battle's most intense fighting) from a Texas Timber company. By November 2003, Evans and Wilfer had introduced their master plan to preserve the battlefield and it?EUR??,,????'???s history. The following February the Coweta County Board of Commissioners approved the landscape design.

One element of Evans' and Wilfer's design calls to create a "regional history trail" which will appears as a small replication of troop movement into and during the Brown's Mill battle. Walking trails built on the 104-acre grounds encompass almost 250 miles of cavalry routes.

If the master plan is executed at a projected cost of $3.5 million, Brown's Mill will be the second Civil War park to replicate the grounds of a cavalry battle (Brices Cross Roads, Miss. was the first). At press time there were no schedules in place to complete or even begin construction on the project.

The nonprofit Civil War Preservation Trust in February named Brown's Mill one of America's 25 most endangered battlefields. Others include part of Gettysburg, Pa.; Chancellorsville, Va.; Appomattox, Va., and Harper's Ferry, W.Va.

Source: The Atlanta Journal Constitution, www.ajc.com

The original Battle of Brown?EUR??,,????'???s Mill monument erected in 1908 by the Newnan Chapter United Daughters of the Confederacy.