Vote nears on Wal-Mart site near battlefield

ORANGE — Wal-Mart adds 240 new stores a year, but few have received as much attention as a Supercenter planned near a Civil War battlefield in Virginia’s Orange County.

The proposal goes before the public Monday and supervisors could vote after the hearing. They are also scheduled to meet Tuesday night.

The planned 138,000-square-foot store would be within a half-mile of the Wilderness battlefield, where 29,000 Union and Confederate soldiers were injured or killed 145 years ago. Preservationists have said that is too close to hallowed ground.

But Wal-Mart maintains the store would be located in an area commercially zoned and already home to two strip malls.

While the preservation community has recoiled at the proposal, some residents welcome the jobs and shopping the store would bring.