BUCHANAN—Seven men costumed as Confederate riflemen drill next to a row of white canvas tents, preparing for the curious onlookers who already are starting to wander past. A man in a 19th-century soldier’s tunic and decidedly more modern pajama pants steps out of a Porta John. And the Rev. Allen Farley, whose chaplaincy to Civil War re-enactors has lasted about five times as long as the actual conflict did, officially begins his Sunday by walking across the grass in a long black coat, ringing a bell and hollering, “Church call!“

Lessons from the eve of the Civil War that still resonate today drew about 1,800 people to the University of Richmond yesterday for the inaugural event of the Virginia Sesquicentennial of The American Civil War Commission. The conference “helps us reckon with the hardest parts of American history,“ said UR President Edward L. Ayers. Virginia began its commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the war by focusing on the events of 1859 and bringing together scholars for what was “not the usual Civil War discussion,“ Ayers said.

Carolyn Johnson’s search for her great-great-grandfather ended in Richmond’s Oakwood Cemetery last August with a tinge of disappointment. A small, block-shaped stone marked the grave of Confederate soldier Austin Brown of the North Carolina 3rd Artillery. He was identified only by an engraved numeral seven. Johnson said the numbered marker is striking when compared with the handsome headstone of another ancestor who died in the Civil War. Her great-great-uncle served the Union Army and was buried at the Annapolis National Cemetery in Maryland.

It cost $12 million to purchase for preservation a 208-acre portion of the Fredericksburg Civil War battlefield. But the price paid on that ground on December 1862 was far greater. Confederates suffered 5,300 casualties during the Battle of Fredericksburg, and Union losses were far greater, with more than 12,600 soldiers killed, wounded or missing.

SUTHERLAND, VAThe 13th annual Southside Virginia Heritage Days in Dinwiddie County has added new exhibitors and living-history demonstrations to give a more rounded and accurate picture of what life was like in Southside Virginia before and during the American Civil War. Heritage Days will be Saturday, April 4, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday, April 5, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Admission and parking are free.

Event organizers are seeking exhibitors for the 13th annual Southside Virginia Heritage Days in Dinwiddie County. The event will be April 4-5 and features 19th-century living-history demonstrations, as well as tours of the 1803 plantation house Fork Inn. Heritage Days commemorates the anniversary of the Civil War Battle of Sutherland Station that took place at Fork Inn April 2, 1865. The free, family-oriented, educational event was started 13 years ago by Darrell Olgers, owner and resident of Fork Inn. It includes a variety of civilian and military living-history demonstrations and displays celebrating and educating the public about life in Southside Virginia in the early and mid-1800s.

Who was Abraham Lincoln? A group of historians will delve into the life and works of one of America’s most celebrated presidents at a conference next month on Lincoln and the South at the University of Richmond’s Jepson Alumni Center. The March 12-14 conference is presented by the American Civil War Center at Historic Tredegar.

Vermont lawmakers are contemplating intervening in a Wal-Mart project in Orange County near a Civil War battle site. Howard Coffin, a Civil War historian, asked lawmakers Wednesday to pass a resolution urging the Orange County Board of Supervisors to reconsider the proposed Wal-Mart planned for land in Locust Grove outside the Wilderness Battlefield. He said it threatens the area near a monument that honors the 1st Vermont Brigade, which held the ground for the Union Army.

A Civil War battlefield in the town of Appomattox could be preserved with the help of a state grant, the Virginia Department of Historic Resources announced. Region 2000 Local Government Council Executive Director Gary Christie said the grants have the added prospect of drawing visitors into the town from the Appomattox Courthouse battlefield three miles away. A 46-acre tract known as Appomattox Station will be bought by the Civil War Preservation Trust, a national organization that seeks to purchase endangered battlefields, state officials said in a news release.

WASHINGTON. Virginia’s irreplaceable historic landscapes, from the Piedmont to the Tidewater, are at the heart of our national heritage and their preservation is an issue that should concern all Virginians. So it is shocking to learn that commercial real-estate speculators are now pressuring elected officials in rural Orange County to approve plans for a bland but mammoth 145,000-squarefoot Wal-Mart, a sea of parking, and a 900-acre business park and retail center with three more big-box stores. This cookie-cutter behemoth will sit just one-quarter-mile from the main entrance to a unique treasure: the Wilderness Battlefield, which honors the sacrifice of the 29,000 Americans who were killed, wounded, or captured there in one of the largest and most strategically important battles of the Civil War.

A Civil War battle flag—estimated to be worth as much as $500,000 and coveted by the Elkton Historical Society—has failed to sell at auction. The historic flag, which was flown at the battle of Port Republic as well as Gettysburg, was put up for sale Thursday by Cowan’s Auctions Inc. in Cincinnati but failed to elicit the minimum bid of $375,000, a spokeswoman for the auction house said yesterday.

The Elkton Historical Society has collected less than $1,000 to buy a pricey Civil War battle flag to be auctioned soon, but its members remain hopeful. The historic flag could fetch up to $220,000 at a Dec. 3 auction in Cincinnati. The auction will be conducted by Cowan’s Auctions Inc. “It’s been a slow go so far,“ the society’s president, Casey Billhimer, said of the past several months’ fundraising efforts to buy the locally important flag.

Slave shackles from the Middle Passage voyage to America were bad, but we know about them. A surprise indignity seemed to resonate with visitors yesterday when the “America I AM” mobile exhibition stopped in Richmond. A weather-beaten wooden trough, displayed in front of a photo of a slave cabin, looked like something that would have been used for farm animals. Instead, it was used for enslaved children to eat corn mush.

Even if you’ve been to Gettysburg a dozen times, you haven’t really experienced it until you’ve seen it this year. The three-day Civil War battle has become more than a military exercise in the new Gettysburg Museum and Visitors Center. Friday was the first day to see the restored Cyclorama painting of Pickett’s Charge and feel the climactic moment of the battle come to life through a sound-and-light show.