Walmart and Preservationists Square-off Over Civil War Site

Walmart wants to build a Supercenter in a plot next to a Civil War site where Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant first fought.

Preservationists say, "those be fightin' words."

According to the AP, a who's who of historians, including filmmaker Ken Burns and Pulitzer Prize winner David McCullough, sent a letter last month to H. Lee Scott , president and CEO of Wal-Mart Stores  Inc., urging the company to build somewhere farther from the Wilderness Battlefield. o "The Wilderness is an indelible part of our history, its very ground hallowed by the American blood spilled there, and it cannot be moved," said the letter from 253 scholars and others.

Walmart says the 138,000-square-foot store would be right behind a bank and a small strip mall, a full mile from the entrance to the historic site.

Local leaders want the $500,000 in tax revenue they estimate the big box store will generate for the county.

Seems everyone wants a piece of this debate.