FORT A.P. HILL, Va. — A bunch of “damned Yankees” from the Maine Army National Guard are training at a historic place during a historic time.

About 400 members of the 1st Battalion, 152nd Field Artillery, from Aroostook County have brought state-of-the-art five-ton trucks and 155mm howitzers to Fort A.P. Hill this April when Virginia is commemorating the 125th anniversary of the end of the Civil War.

Fort A.P. Hill is only a few miles from such places as Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville and Spotsylvania, where some of the bloodiest fighting took place on Virginia soil during that long and bloody war.

The sprawling post where the Maine Guardsmen are training in the techniques of modern warfare is named for Confederate Gen. Ambrose Powell Hill who was killed by a Union soldier 125 years ago last Tuesday, one week before Robert E. Lee decided that the Army of Northern Virginia could fight no more.

The final week of the Civil War, including the formal Confederate surrender in which Gen. Joshua Chamberlain of Maine played a key role, will be re-enacted in nearby Fredericksburg beginning Sunday.

Maj. Gen. Ernest Park, Maine’s adjutant general, and a small group of other Maine Army Guardsmen visited another historic place early Wednesday morning — the Stonewall Jackson Shrine in Guinea, a short drive from the post.

It is a small, white house beside a railroad track where Gen. Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, the Confederacy’s greatest warrior, died of pneumonia on May 10, 1863, a week after being badly wounded by his own men during the Battle of Chancellorsville.

“I’m glad they keep these historical places. It is so important that this country remember its past,” said Park, of the little house which has been authentically restored as Jackson’s final headquarters.

The original bed and mantel clock are still in the downstairs room where Jackson died, according to a National Park Service spokesman.

Park flew to Virginia on Tuesday to spend some time with the Maine artillerymen during their three-day field training exercise before he left for Washington, D.C., on Wednesday to call on members of Maine’s congressional delegation.

The Maine battalion spent four days driving halfway down the East Coast to A.P. Hill because this would be its mobilization station should it be activated for a national emergency.

The troops, commanded by Lt. Col. Reginald Bernard of Caribou, lived and fired and moved day and night in the woods in a damp chill that made them wonder if they were really in a southern state.

The mud created by a torrential rain on Monday night also bogged down the howitzers and other heavy equipment when the men moved out Tuesday morning.

The County boys are accustomed to the cold and the mud, so they were able to move from one location to another pretty close to their schedule.

They also appreciate it when the general comes out to visit. Park even fired one of the B Battery howitzers that came from Houlton.

“It’s good to see him and to have him see us at work and give us his support,” said Spec. Kent Cousins of Caribou, the Maine Army Guard’s soldier of the year for 1989.

Cousins’ face was a mask of green camouflage paint. He had just come off two hours of guard duty.

“A general visits his troops in the field in peace time for two reasons,” said Maj. David Turner from the Maine Army Guard’s state headquarters in Augusta.

“He gets an idea of his troops’ capabilities in terms of equipment, training status and any difficulties they encounter,” Turner explained.

“And the troops need to know that everyone all along the line to the top cares about what they are doing.”