Walmart battlefield battle heads to court

January 24, 2011 at 2:42 p.m. | Updated January 24, 2011 at 2:42 p.m.

In this Aug. 7, 2009 file photo, a gravestone marker on the spot where the arm of General Stonewall Jackson is buried is near the Ellwood house in Locust Grove, Va. Civil War history will play out in a rural Virginia courtroom this week when Wal-Mart Stores Inc. defends a planned store near the hallowed site where Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant first met on a battlefield in 1864.
In this Aug. 7, 2009 file photo, a gravestone marker on the spot where the arm of General Stonewall Jackson is buried is near the Ellwood house in Locust Grove, Va. Civil War history will play out in a rural Virginia courtroom this week when Wal-Mart Stores Inc. defends a planned store near the hallowed site where Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant first met on a battlefield in 1864.

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) - The dispute over whether a Walmart should be built near a Civil War battlefield in Virginia is headed to court.

The case pits preservationists and some residents of a rural northern Virginia town against the world's largest retailer and local officials who approved the Walmart Supercenter. The site of the store is near where Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant first met on a battlefield in 1864.

The Battle of the Wilderness is viewed by historians as a critical turning point in the war, which ended 11 months later. An estimated 185,000 Union and Confederate troops fought over three days, and 30,000 were killed, injured or went missing.

Both sides are scheduled to make arguments before a judge Tuesday.

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