RICHMOND, Va. (AP) – A national Civil War center being built downtown will tell the story of the conflict from the often contrasting perspectives of Union supporters, Confederates and black Americans.
On April 22, ground is to be broken for the first phase of The American Civil War Center at Historic Tredegar. Completion is set for 2006.
Alex Wise, president of the nonprofit Tredegar Foundation, said the center will tell the causes, course and legacies of the war “straight up” without bias, not advocating any one point of view.
“We’re not missionaries,” Wise said. As the stories of the Union, the Confederacy and black Americans are told, he said, people will begin to better understand each other’s perspective.
The center will be built at the Tredegar Iron Works, an 8-acre site along the James River that was vital to the United States and the South as a producer of cannon, ammunition, small arms, railroad rails and iron plates for ships.
In 1994, Valentine Museum launched Valentine Riverside, a $22 million museum and interpretive center at Tredegar that included exhibits and a historical sight-and-sound show for evening viewing outdoors. Sagging attendance and money woes forced Valentine Riverside to close the next year.
Since then visitors have returned to the area with the opening of the Canal Walk in 1999 and the National Park Service’s Richmond headquarters at Tredegar in 2000.
The Civil War center will be built inside Tredegar’s Gun Foundry, an 1861 building.
More than $11 million from private and public sources has been raised toward the center’s $12.7 million price tag, which will include a $1 million endowment.
J. Alfred Broaddus Jr., retired head of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, has been a leading supporter of the project.
“I have an interest in history,” Broaddus said, “but I also have an interest in racial reconciliation, which I think is a major focus and underlying motivation for all of us who are involved.”