--(1) Park Service eyes December demolition of Cyclorama-----------------------------------------------------
Park Service eyes December demolition of Cyclorama
BY SCOT ANDREW PITZER, Times Staff Writer
09/05/2008
Gettysburg Times (PA)
http://www.gettysburgtimes.com/articles/2008/09/06/news/local/doc48c1161489bea963410083.txt
The old Cyclorama building at Gettysburg National Military Park could be demolished as early as this winter, even though a lawsuit to save the architectural masterpiece continues to meander its way through the federal court system.
“If we stay on schedule, the buildings could come down in December,” GNMP Supt. Dr. John A. Latschar said regarding the old Cyclorama and Visitor Center facilities, located atop Cemetery Ridge in Ziegler’s Grove.
The park intends to raze both buildings and transform the land, home to Pickett’s Charge in the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863, back to its Civil War era appearance. But a Virginia based group — the Recent Past Preservation Network and Dion Neutra — filed a lawsuit in December 2006, arguing that the park never fully considered alternatives.
“The current contract that we have is for the demolition of both buildings, but it depends, of course, on the resolution of the Cyclorama lawsuit,” said Latschar. “Even though we don’t have to wait until a decision is made, the Department of Justice has advised us that it’s prudent.”
The old Cyclorama building — built in the early 1960s to house a 377-foot-long by 42 foot-high painting that has since been moved to the new $103 million park Visitor Center — is considered by preservationists to be a memorial. Neutra’s father, Richard, designed the complex, but it has been unused since the park’s new 139,000 square-foot Visitor Center and Museum opened in April along the Baltimore Pike.
Thousands of documents have been filed in the lawsuit, and the Recent Past Preservation Network recently asked the judge to settle the case in a federal courtroom.
“There is good cause for an oral hearing in that the issues raised in the Plaintiffs’ motion are complex, the Administrative Record for this case is lengthy and there continue to be significant and legal disagreements between the parties,” wrote attorney Nicholas C. Yost, in court documents filed June 20.
Presiding Judge Thomas F. Hogan has not ruled on the motion.
The demolition project is part of a comprehensive $9.5 million plan to restore Ziegler’s grove back to its 1863 appearance. The Gettysburg Foundation, the park’s non-profit partner, is raising money for the project — the first phase is the demolition of the old Cyclorama and Visitor Center buildings. A portion of the parking lot, big enough for about 30 cars and several buses, is being left for Soldiers National Cemetery visitor parking.
“The contract doesn’t include the parking lots,” explained GNMP spokeswoman Katie Lawhon.
Planning for the new Visitor Center and Museum began nearly 14 years ago, and after years of studies and public comment, the park opted to move to a larger facility instead of renovating its old home, which was originally built as a private residence and added onto 14 times since.
The Recent Past Preservation Network contends that the park, in its General Management Plan of 1999 and the associated Environmental Impact Statement, “studiously avoids” restoration and rehab alternatives.
Also, the group argues that the park’s decision to demolish the old Cyclorama building violates federal preservation laws.
--(2) National Trust seeks to join quarry litigation -----------------------------------------------------
National Trust seeks to join quarry litigation
By Erica M. Stocks
9-5-2008
Winchester Star (VA)
http://www.winchesterstar.com/
Winchester — The National Trust for Historic Preservation is seeking to join 20 local property owners in challenging the Frederick County Board of Supervisors’ decision to allow the expansion of a Middletown quarry.
The trust filed a motion in Frederick County Circuit Court last week asking to intervene as a co-plaintiff in the landowners’ complaint, which questions the supervisors’ approval of a request from O-N Minerals Chemstone to rezone 394 acres to the north and south of its quarry from Rural Areas to Extractive Manufacturing
The rezoning, which will allow the company to mine high-grade limestone from property that it owns, was approved in May.
Opponents of the rezoning, including the National Trust, have argued that the quarry’s expanded operations will threaten nearby historical sites, including the Cedar Creek Civil War battlefield and Belle Grove National Historical Park .
The trust owns Belle Grove, which is open to the public as a 283-acre historical site. The property is within the boundaries of the Cedar Creek and Belle Grove National Historical Park south of Middletown .
“We have a lot of concerns, not just as a property owner, but as the manager of a historic site open to the public,” Elizabeth Merritt, deputy general counsel for the National Trust, said in a phone interview Thursday.
Twenty people who own adjoining land, or land within 1,500 feet of of the Chemstone property, filed a complaint in Frederick County Circuit Court in June, asking that the court declare the rezoning decision of the Board of Supervisors void because it did not comply with state laws.
“Plaintiffs request that this Honorable Court declare that the zoning decision by the Board was improperly advertised; that it violated the law of Virginia; that the board had no jurisdiction or authority to act on May 28, 2008, on the rezoning; that the rezoning is null and void and of no effect,” the complaint states.
Merritt said the property owners’ complaint raises a number of issues that National Trust officials also think are important.
“We wanted to express our support and make it clear that we are directly supporting them,” she said of the organization’s decision to sign on as a co-plaintiff.
In its motion filed last week, the trust states that the expanded mining operation will consume nearly 400 acres of land on the battlefield property, potentially leading to direct, indirect, and cumulative impacts on the historical park.
“The National Trust, like the existing plaintiffs, seeks a determination by the Court that the rezoning decision is unlawful, and therefore null and void,” the organization states in its motion.
Merritt said the Board of Supervisors specifically failed to provide the type of public access and notice required by the county’s bylaws in approving the rezoning request of O-N Minerals Chemstone, a subsidiary of Carmeuse Lime & Stone based in Belgium .
“It raises a number of procedural concerns,” she said.
The property owners’ complaint, as well as the National Trust’s decision to intervene, is in its early stages, Merritt said. “At this point, nothing has really happened.”
Nord Wennerstrom, director of communications for the trust, said Thursday that the rezoning is not an issue his organization takes lightly.
“Belle Grove has been a historical trust site for 44 years, so it’s important,” he said in a telephone interview.
In June, trust and Belle Grove officials announced that they were ending their involvement with the Cedar Creek Battlefield Association because of the foundation’s failure to fight the quarry expansion.
Belle Grove Inc. said that in April, the foundation reversed its previous opposition to the expansion and arranged with the quarry owner to accept a land gift of eight acres.
--(3) OPINION: Hallowed ground; Why Belle Grove Plantation and Cedar Creek Battlefield matter -----------------------------------------------------
OPINION
Hallowed ground
Why Belle Grove Plantation and Cedar Creek Battlefield matter
By Richard Moe and Anne Buettner
09/04/2008
Winchester Star
http://www.winchesterstar.com/
Virginia’s historic Belle Grove Plantation and Cedar Creek Battlefield are under threat from an international corporation’s rush to expand mining operations in the middle of some of the nation’s most hallowed ground.
For almost half a century, the National Trust for Historic Preservation and Belle Grove, Inc., have worked to preserve Belle Grove, an 18th-century plantation and Civil War battlefield. Hosting thousands of visitors annually, Belle Grove and its 283-acre rural setting are beloved locally and recognized nationally.
The plantation is a National Historic Landmark and – thanks to the efforts of our longtime champions, Congressman Frank Wolf and Senator John Warner – an essential element of a National Heritage Area and a National Historical Park . As for Cedar Creek, the National Park Service’s American Battlefield Protection Program considers it “one of the most important Civil War battlefields in Virginia and in the nation.”
Belle Grove and Cedar Creek are much more than a collection of old buildings, woods and fields. These places are tangible links with the history of the Shenandoah Valley – from its early settlement and agricultural development to its pivotal role in the brother-against-brother bloodshed of the Civil War. In short, these places matter.
But now Carmeuse Lime & Stone, a Belgium-based mining conglomerate, wants to triple the size of its industrial operation at the Middletown Quarry, immediately adjacent to Belle Grove and the National Park. On May 28, Frederick County approved the quarry expansion plan, rezoning 394 rural acres to permit extractive mining and allowing a significant expanse of well-preserved battlefield and plantation landscape to be turned into an industrial zone.
This activity threatens serious long-term harm to the quarry’s neighbors – not only historic sites such as Belle Grove and the Cedar Creek Battlefield, but also numerous individual homeowners – through increased blasting, noise, dust, visual pollution and truck traffic. The quarry is located outside the National Park boundaries, but the American Battlefield Protection Program has confirmed that it actually occupies part of the 6,200-acre core battlefield where men in blue and gray fought and died in the autumn of 1864.
For years the National Trust for Historic Preservation co-existed peacefully with Middletown Quarry – until the local company was sold, first to an out-of-state owner and then to Carmeuse Lime & Stone. Today, relations with quarry management are strained, and regrettably, the controversy has caused friction among members of the local community. Some believe there has been an intentional pitting of neighbor against neighbor in an attempt to “divide and conquer” those concerned about the impacts of the quarry expansion. We won’t be discouraged by such cynical tactics.
Carmeuse’s quarry expansion is vigorously opposed by a broad coalition of public agencies and private organizations – including not only the National Trust for Historic Preservation and Belle Grove, Inc., but also APVA – Preservation Virginia, the National Park Service, the National Parks Conservation Association, Preserve Frederick, the Shenandoah Valley Battlefields Foundation, the Shenandoah Valley Network, and the Virginia Department of Historic Resources. These concerned partners have called for an in-depth analysis of adverse impacts, adequate protection against harm to historic resources, and conservation easements to set aside the most important elements of the historic landscape. Carmeuse has ignored our requests.
The radical quarry expansion is opposed also by 20 homeowners who have sued Frederick County to protect their private property. On Friday, Aug. 29, the National Trust for Historic Preservation filed a motion with the Circuit Court of Frederick County asking to join the homeowners’ lawsuit. Litigation is not an action the National Trust takes lightly, but in this case, we believe it is necessary to prevent the harm that will result from the quarry expansion.
We do not seek to shut the quarry down. However, in order for us to support any expansion of the quarry’s operations, careful impact analysis must be completed and the necessary protections put in place. We will not cede our commitment to preserve Belle Grove Plantation and the Cedar Creek Battlefield for posterity.
Richard Moe is president of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, Anne Buettner is president of Belle Grove Inc.
--(4) Civil War Regiment from Connecticut to Be Honored at Vicksburg -----------------------------------------------------
Civil War Regiment from Connecticut to Be Honored at Vicksburg
By Pamela Hitchins
9/2/2008
Vicksburg Post (MS)
http://www.courant.com/news/local/hc-regiment0902.artsep02,0,1606358.story
After years of work and waiting, Connecticut will have a monument in the Vicksburg National Military Park .
It will be a tribute to the men of the 9th Connecticut Regiment Volunteers — known as the Irish Regiment — who, in the summer of 1862, dug Grant's Canal across Louisiana's DeSoto peninsula so Union ships could bypass Vicksburg and its Confederate guns.
Long denied a place at the military park because of the timing of their service, the 9th's monument will come to fruition in October.
National Park Service workers recently broke ground at the monument site, across the river near Delta, La. , where traces of Grant's Canal remain. The canal was begun in June 1862 and abandoned the following January after several disastrous attempts.
The 9th was there for two months. About 150 men from the regiment died from malaria, dysentery and heat stroke.
One of them, John Marlow of New Haven , was the great-great-grandfather of Bob Larkin, a Cheshire resident who has worked for nearly 10 years to see a memorial at the park for the men of the 9th.
"It's been tiring but very rewarding because of my ancestor," Larkin said in a recent phone interview, shortly after the centerpiece of the Connecticut monument was unveiled in a Hartford ceremony by Gov. M. Jodi Rell. "I found a lot of other people with ancestors who were in Vicksburg that are interested in history and were anxious to see some mention of what they went through. They weren't at the final battlefield and siege, but they were there the year before."
The monument to the 9th's efforts is black granite and comprises a base, a center panel winged by two side pieces and two benches. The centerpiece is nearly 9 feet tall and weighs 5,827 pounds. Mounted on the side pieces are bronze plaques, one in the shape of the state of Connecticut . The plaques tell the history of the 9th, which also saw action in Baton Rouge and New Orleans .
Vicksburg National Military Park historian Terry Winschel was at Grant's Canal recently as work progressed on the site, a quiet, flat, grassy area fringed with trees.
"The monument's center panel has laser etchings of the soldiers, including some of the faces of the men who worked on the canal," he said. "The black granite stone is beautiful."
The pieces will be assembled and rest on a concrete plaza, which will include a central area in the shape of the state of Connecticut with its counties shown in different colors, Winschel said.
Nearby, a series of metal tablets and information markers already line the path and tell the story of Grant's Canal, remnants of which are just beyond the site on the 2.56 acre property. Other units besides the 9th also worked on the canal, as well as about 500 slaves mustered from nearby plantations.
"This will open a whole new chapter of interpretation for us," Winschel said.
The area will not be manned, but is included on park maps and in the latest edition of park brochures being printed as the site work gets underway.
In its initial establishment of the Vicksburg National Military Park , Congress authorized monuments for the 28 states with units that fought in the 1863 campaign and siege of Vicksburg , Winschel said. All 28 of those states have erected monuments.
Because the 9th Connecticut worked on Grant's Canal during the summer of 1862, separate legislation was required to expand the park's province.
Passed in 1990, the bill authorized memorials for two additional states, Vermont and Connecticut , which served in the 1862 campaign, and to accept the donation of the land. Vermont has not yet accepted its invitation.
Winschel praised Larkin and the committee that worked to see the Connecticut monument become a reality.
"It's been a very time-consuming process. Also very expensive. I have no idea what the cost of the monument was. All the funds were raised privately," he said. The Knights of Columbus and the Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism were among the project's benefactors.
Larkin said the 9th was called "the Irish Regiment" because many of the men were first-generation Irish-Americans or immigrants. The website of the Connecticut Irish-American Historical Society prominently features the 9th and its Vicksburg monument and puts the estimate for the cost at $60,000, a figure Larkin confirmed.
The official dedication ceremony will be Oct. 14 at the Grant's Canal site.
The Connecticut monument will bring the park's total to 1,332, making it "one of the most densely monumented battlefields in all the world," Winschel said.
In recent weeks a number of preservation and restoration projects have taken place at the park, including replacing markers commemorating Col. T.N. Waul's Texas Legion's defense positions and moving monuments honoring Illinois artillery units and Union Col. Adolph Engelman inside park boundaries.
"When Connecticut was not invited to place a monument at Vicksburg 's National Military Park , they put in a beautiful monument to the 9th overlooking the harbor in New Haven ," Larkin said.
"This was in 1903. Two months later, the first monument was dedicated at Vicksburg , the Massachusetts monument. I'm sure if we'd been invited back in 1899 or 1900 Connecticut might have been first.
"But it's finally happening in Vicksburg."
--(5) Proposed Incinerator Facility Plans at Standstill -----------------------------------------------------
Proposed Incinerator Facility Plans at Standstill
By Carrie Ann Knauer
8/31/2008
Carroll County Times (MD)
http://www.carrollcounty.com/articles/2008/08/31/news/local_news/newsstory3.txt
The Carroll County Board of Commissioners voted in April to go forward with Frederick County to share a 1,500-ton-per-day waste-to-energy incinerator. At that time, county Public Works Director Mike Evans said the next step would be to pursue a final and best offer from the two companies that had submitted initial proposals. Once the new plans come back, they would be reviewed by the Northeast Maryland Waste Disposal Authority and then sent to each county for approval.
Robin Davidov, executive director of the authority, said the authority would help Carroll and Frederick leaders draft a contract spelling out how the facility would be owned and operated between the parties involved. Davidov said the contracts would take several months to prepare.
Four months later, little progress has been made. Mike Marschner, director of the Frederick County Division of Utilities and Solid Waste Management, said the Frederick County Board of Commissioners decided soon after Carroll’s decision that the proposed site for the incinerator should be reconsidered.
Initial plans focused on the Ballenger-McKinney Wastewater Treatment Facility in Frederick as the site because the water available from the plant could be used for cooling in the incinerator’s operation, and because the site is located in an industrial park with proper zoning, and on land the county already owned.
However, the site received much negative feedback from the public because the incinerator would be visible from the nearby Monocacy National Battlefield. The Civil War Preservation Trust named the battlefield one of the most endangered Civil War sites in its annual report because of the incinerator plans.
Marschner said his department has been working with the authority to identify other possible locations for the incinerator but does not have any specifics to put forward to the commissioners yet.
“We still have a lot to do to get a site finalized,” Marschner said.
Marschner added that he hopes to have a new proposal by the end of the calendar year, if not this fall.
--(6) Ox Hill Improvements Complete -----------------------------------------------------
Ox Hill Improvements Complete
By Layla Wilder
8/28/2008
Fairfax County Times (VA)
http://www.fairfaxtimes.com/news/2008/aug/27/ox-hill-improvements-complete/
Much to the satisfaction of local history buffs, the site of the only major Civil War battle fought in Fairfax County is finally being preserved as a historic park.
Members of the Chantilly Battlefield Association, led by Chantilly resident Ed Wenzel, and other Civil War historians lobbied hard as development encroached on the battlefield little by little.
But their dream of an Ox Hill Battlefield Park will be realized with a ribbon-cutting on Sept. 1 that is expected to draw uniformed men representing both sides.
“This was a fight against all odds to preserve the battlefield,” said John McAnaw, president of the Bull Run Civil War Round Table. “Civil War buffs consider this a big victory.”
President Abraham Lincoln had just made John Pope commander of the Union Army when it was defeated by the Confederates on the Rappahannock River , according to park historians.
The Northerners retreated to Centreville and, as Maj. Gen. Thomas Stonewall Jackson tried to cut them off, the Union army met the Confederates in a surprise attack in late August 1862 near what is now Monument Drive in Fairfax .
Park historians say about 516 Confederates and possibly up to 1,000 Union troops died in the battle, which came to a draw after a Sept. 1 thunderstorm made it impossible to fight.
Much of the battlefield has already been paved over with residential buildings and retail development like the Fairfax Towne Center .
But the portion of the battlefield where Union Gens. Isaac Stevens and Philip Kearny were reportedly killed during the struggle still remains. Stones mark those spots today.
"At least we've saved what we have left," said Michael Rierson, a former Park Authority archaeologist who has been working on the project.
Visitors to the 4.8-acre park being developed by the county's Park Authority will be able to enjoy a trail that loops around the property, interpretive historical markers and benches.
The park was designed so it has to be mowed only once a year, making the field look a little overgrown as it was during the Civil War, Rierson said.
After the battle, the Confederates – headed in the direction of Washington , D.C. – turned around and went up toward Maryland where Antietam was fought several days later, Rierson said.
"This battle could have very well changed the course of the war," he said.
--(7) Historical Mapping Project Excites Preservationists, Historians -----------------------------------------------------
Historical Mapping Project Excites Preservationists, Historians
By Pam Sohn
8/28/2008
Chattanooga Times Free Press (TN)
http://www.tfponline.com/news/2008/aug/28/historical-mapping-project-excites-preservationist/?local
Local historians and preservationists are pushing science to map Civil War history on today’s landscapes.
“We plan to overlay historical battle maps and charts with today’s landscapes. When the new maps are done, we can trace the events of the Civil War locally right over the buildings and roads and addresses we see now every day,” said Jim Ogden, historian for the Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park .
Combining Geographic Information System technologies, historical maps and the Internet, yesteryear explorers such as Mr. Ogden will give the rest of us an interactive way to see what was happening not just in the military parks but also on the streets and in local communities when the Blue and Gray clashed in the 1863 Campaign for Chattanooga.
What might such maps show?
Main Street, once named Moore Road , was the path used by Union troops commanded by Gens. Philip H. Sheridan and Richard Johnson to drive Gen. Braxton Bragg’s Confederate troops from their commanding perch on Missionary Ridge , Mr. Ogden said.
The properties in the vicinity of what is now Hawthorne and Main streets once were the site of an overnight camp spot where soldiers spent a long, cold night awaiting the next day’s battle that many believed was a suicide mission, he said.
Aside from intriguing Internet learning, the resulting “new” maps — paid for with a $41,120 grant from the National Park Service — also will serve a needed planning function, said Rick Wood, director of the Chattanooga office of Trust for Public Land, which is managing the project.
The effort will enable officials to identify areas for future preservation, he said. Policymakers, developers and preservationists can know quickly if property may have historical significance in need of protection.
To accomplish the mapping project, one of only 32 in the nation, officials and contractors will convert six historic maps of area battlefields into geographic information data for integration into data already on hand for Hamilton County ’s geographical information, Mr. Ogden said.
Once completed, the maps easily can be updated as land uses change, he said. More historic information and links also can be added, he said.
“This, in a lot of ways, is the foundation of something that can grow again and again,” he said.
Sprawling history
Kay Parish, executive director of the Friends of Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park , said the park already preserves several important areas, but the city of Chattanooga and its smaller neighbors have grown up over what once was a giant field of battle.
The Campaign for Chattanooga covered a large regional landscape and is viewed by many historians as a turning point in the war. The Union’s victory here opened the Deep South to General Sherman’s march to Atlanta and the sea, according to historians.
But what most excites her about the project is the future, she said.
“The new history layer will be a great tool ... for proactive land planning,” Ms. Parish said. “Our Civil War history is a crucial part of our heritage. Hundreds of thousands of visitors come here each year to explore that history.”
Mr. Wood said the project is funded with a grant from the American Battlefield Protection Program, a branch of the National Park Service.
“This kind of historical mapping (with GIS) is not out there everywhere yet,” he said. “It makes protection and awareness just so much more visible than anything else.”
Shawn Benge, superintendent of the Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park , said the public interest in local Civil War history is high, but property-specific information has not been easy to find.
“I’m unaware of any place that information is housed,” he said.
Mr. Wood and Mr. Ogden said the six historical maps by then-Chattanooga engineer Edward E. Betts provide a wonderful opportunity to try the new project here. Mr. Betts, whose family still does engineering work locally, was commissioned shortly after the war to make the historical maps, which show troop movements, engagements and encampments during the 1863 Campaign for Chattanooga .
Mr. Benge said he would like to see the geography of historical geographic information mapping be extended beyond the immediate Chattanooga area.
Ms. Parish said she looks forward to adding more historical detail and additional interactivity.
“Some day we might be able to add 1863 street patterns and landscape features — even the monuments that are sprinkled across the county — so that if you clicked on a monument or troop location, you would be linked to the text of the physical plaque or to information about the troops marked on the map,” she said.
--(8) Editorial: Worse than the Yankees, Saving the Wilderness from Walmart -----------------------------------------------------
Editorial:
Worse than the Yankees, Saving the Wilderness from Walmart
8/27/2008
Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star (VA)
http://fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2008/082008/08272008/405573
TO PARAPHRASE Ronald Reagan, here we go again. It seems like only yesterday when the community was fighting Wal-Mart to keep a big-box store off George Washington's boyhood home. Now another historic property is threatened, and the question is: Who will win the second Battle of the Wilderness?
The original, of course, was the 1864 conflagration between Gens. Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant. The first meeting of the two on the field of arms took place in western Spotsylvania and eastern Orange counties, a wild, thicket-laced area along the old Plank Road . The battle involved over 160,000 troops and marked the start of Grant's Overland Campaign, an offensive that took the Union Army clear down to Richmond . Before the smoke cleared--literally: bullets set the dry brush on fire and many wounded burned to death--almost 4,000 soldiers rested in the arms of God.
This year's invaders cannot rightfully be called Yankees, since Wal-Mart is headquartered in Bentonville , Ark. , and trades with the world. But the 142,000-square-foot store it proposes could be as devastating as anything Grant unleashed. The site, near State Routes 3 and 20, lies irreverently within a quarter-mile of the Fredericksburg & Spotsylvania National Military Park . Also, Wal-Mart's site plan includes four pads for "junior big boxes." And another group wants to put a 1.65-million-square-foot retail, office, and government complex on 846 adjacent acres. Developments in toto larger than Central Park would lap at the entrance to a national shrine.
Did the people who choose to live out western Route 3 buy their homes there despite the lack of shopping opportunities, or because of it? Slipping the surly bonds of congested, close-in Route 3 retail areas surely provides palpable relief to most residents.
True, the site Wal-Mart wants, within Orange County , was zoned commercial 20 years ago. But times have changed. Sho pping opportunities now abound, including online. As a region, we recognize more and more that history paved over is lost forever.
Just this summer, scholars unearthed the foundation of George Washington's home at Ferry Farm. What treasures were found, what insights! Except for the dogged opposition of a group of history-conscious residents, this trove could have been buried under Aisle 8Bof the store Wal-Mart slavered to build.
Fortunately, Orange Country's big-box ordinance requires approval for the Wal-Mart project. The county should manfully repel this invasion from the stateless army of Bentonville--a very small sacrifice alongside that tendered by Americans blue and gray in the bloody Wilderness.
--(9) Ground Broken for Visitors’ Center at Civil War Battlefield-----------------------------------------------------
Ground Broken for Visitors’ Center at Civil War Battlefield
By Charlie Hall
8/27/2008
New Bern Sun Journal (NC)
http://www.newbernsj.com/news/battlefield_41848___article.html/center_war.html
The March 1862 Civil War Battle of New Bern lasted one day, leaving the city in the hands of the Union forces, as well as leaving 600 total wounded and dead.
Wednesday under a setting sun, a 146-year milestone of the battle was reached with groundbreaking for a visitors' center to the 25-acre battlefield site near the entrance to Taberna on U.S. 70 East.
The battlefield park is the major project of the New Bern Historical Society, which got the battlefield through the Civil War Preservation Trust, and later bought several acres to house the visitors' center, parking and a re-enactment site.
"Nine years ago we were given a blank sheet of paper and the authors were the men who fought and died here," said Mark Mangum of the 26th North Carolina Regiment. "And what our responsibility has been is to tell the story. And that is what we are trying to do - tell the story. It is a culmination of nine years of hard work and community involvement and support. It is going to be a great asset for years to come."
Nelson McDaniel, president of the historical society, praised the early efforts of Harry Goodman and the late historian Richard Lore in getting the project off the ground.
"They were two people who really had the vision," McDaniel said. "This battlefield and woods were here for over a century and people paid no attention to it."
McDaniel said it was important to commemorate those who fought here, and to use the site as a place of historical education.
"It's an opportunity to educate young people and others who need to know how important this battle was and the history of our area," he said.
The visitors' center is a $170,000 piece of an overall $900,000 project. Counting the battlefield land value, donations and grants from groups such as the Harold Bate Foundation, the society is within $300,000 of its goal.
George Dixon of Havelock was another proud re-enactor, representing Company F, 7th Regiment North Carolina , which has been active in battlefield projects such as Civil War Adventure Day for youngsters.
"It is an honor to us to be a part of this battlefield," he said. "Every re-enactment unit adopts a regiment that existed in the war. Some of the re-enactment units are miles and miles away from where their namesake fought or participated and we are very fortunate to be right here in the area where the 7th campaigned early in the war."
The visitor center will house a meeting room, displays and have public restrooms. A large covered outdoor meeting area is also planned.
Down the road, a memorial path is planned to lead into the adjacent battlefield site. It will have informational displays along two paths - Union and Confederate - commemorating battles that many of the New Bern battle survivors later fought - such as Antietam, and Gettysburg .
Mike Dumont, head of the 16-man battlefield guide corps, said anyone wanting a tour of the site can call the Historical Society (638-8558) to schedule an appointment.
Work on the battlefield has produced trails and bridges, and last year a monument was dedicated to the North Carolina 26th. Plans call for more than 15 more memorials representing regiments from both the Union and Confederate armies.
Dumont said the visitors' center work should begin this week, with a completion date in early 2009.
--(10) Editorial: Kaine Keeps His Word on Fort Monroe -----------------------------------------------------
Editorial: Kaine Keeps His Word on Fort Monroe
8/25/2008
Norfolk Virginian-Pilot (VA)
http://hamptonroads.com/2008/08/kaine-keeps-his-word-fort-monroe
Fort Monroe's rich history and abundant recreational assets aren't likely to be obliterated or overshadowed by commercial and residential development under a reuse plan signed last week by Gov. Tim Kaine. But the land, which the U.S. Army is scheduled to hand over to the state in three years, also is unlikely to reach its full economic and educational potential unless Kaine and other local, state and federal leaders get behind an effort to create Fort Monroe National Park .
The reuse plan, now headed to the Department of Defense for final approval, has many merits. It offers strong assurances that the property won't be chopped up by developers - or, at least, stronger assurances than many historians and residents had feared the plan would contain.
Kaine, in a meeting with The Pilot editorial board in June, said "revenue maximization" - i.e. selling or leasing open spaces for development - "should not be goal one" for the state or the city of Hampton when the base closes. He's kept his word, stating again during a tour of the fort Wednesday that "we need to protect this as a public resource and have as much of it in public space as we can."
Defining "as we can" will be the tricky part in the years ahead. Ideally, the 570-acre property will become financially self-sustaining, with income derived from renting some of the bases's buildings for offices and residences. Sustainability should be possible without surrendering open land to developers eager to take advantage of the fort's waterfront views.
But the best economic model for the forts lies in its past - literally, in its past.
Fort Monroe's history, which stretches back to the 1600s, encompasses a broad but little-known swath of the American story and includes figures such as Capt. John Smith, Chief Black Hawk, Harriet Tubman and the defeated and imprisoned Jefferson Davis.
Among the most fascinating episodes in the fort's narrative is the saga of Frank Baker, Sheppard Mallory and James Townsend, three enslaved men who fled to the fort in the early days of the Civil War. A Union general refused to return them, setting into motion a series of events that brought more fugitive slaves to what soon became known as "Freedom's Fortress." The exodus played a direct role in Lincoln 's Emancipation Proclamation.
Some preservationists have suggested that Fort Monroe would be a more suitable setting for a national slavery museum than a site in Fredericksburg chosen by former Gov. Doug Wilder and others. Given the fundraising difficulty that project has encountered, it would be appropriate to reconsider Fort Monroe - and its story of Baker, Mallory and Townsend - as home for the museum.
But, with or without that facility, it's clear Fort Monroe could become a major historic attraction and education center, drawing new economic activity to Hampton, the neighboring village of Phoebus and the region as a whole. And it's clear that the National Park Service is best equipped to bring that vision to life.
During his tour, Kaine said he doesn't have a position on what entity should run the fort once the Army leaves because "the real issue is use and protection, rather than the agency that's got its name on the sign."
But the reality is that the National Park Service is the only agency with the breadth of experience and expertise to take on this challenge. And there is no "name on the sign" that would better indicate to travelers they're entering a first-rate presentation of an important landmark in U.S. history.
Yes, it's true the park service has struggled for funding in recent years and has difficulty maintaining the national treasures now in its care. However, the agency's fate may change when the economy rebounds and new leadership takes over in Washington .
Now is the time to begin building private financial support to supplement federal funding for a national park at Fort Monroe . Now is the time for leaders like Kaine to endorse an idea that would ensure its rich story reaches as many people as possible.
--(11) Making the Most of Saltville’s History----------------------------------------------------
Making the Most of Saltville’s History
By Dan Kegley
8/24/2008
Southwest Virginia Today (VA)
http://www.swvatoday.com/comments/making_the_most_of_saltvilles_history/news/3393/
Saltville’s Civil War sites and battlefields will not become part of the National Park Service anytime soon if ever, but there’s much the town can do to preserve and share its historic features.
That was the central message of Phillip Thomason of Nashville, Tenn.-based Thomason & Associates, historical preservation planning consultants. Thomason presented an outline Thursday of a plan developed for Saltville at a meeting attended by a handful of citizens and town council member Neil Johnson.
NPS oversight has been one of the ideas discussed in recent years as the town moved toward inclusion of tourism opportunities as a larger part of its revenue base.
Dr. Robert Whisonant, the Radford University geology professor who has led projects to map the Saltville battlefields, told a November 2006 gathering of local historians, re-enactors, Museum of the Middle Appalachians board members and others that the Confederate earthworks on hills surrounding the vital salt wells and evaporation furnaces is a defensive system important enough to understanding the area’s military actions to deserve national status.
The Saltville battle sites are made more important to preservationists because they and the town are one and the same. Many Civil war battlefields across the country are on farmland or the outskirts of towns where sprawl is expanding urban areas and destroying an acre of battlefield every 10 minutes, Whisonant said.
The old fortifications, like Hatton and Walnut Street on hills north of the well fields, and Breckenridge and Statham to the south, as well as the Broady Bottom and Sanders Hill, Cedar Creek and Elizabeth Cemetery, fall into Whisonant’s core areas and study areas, depending on whether one is considering the October battle or the December battle in 1864.
In October, Union forces marched on the town from the east, arriving via Richlands and points as far west as Kentucky . Confederate defenders repulsed the attack and saved the salt operations. In December, marching from Chilhowie and Marion, the federals slipped in under cover of rain and fog and were in the valley before the defenders knew it, overrunning gun emplacements at forts Statham and Breckenridge and interrupting salt production.
While Saltville ranks for many historians as the most important of the battles for Southwest Virginia mineral resources and railroads that took place in Smyth, Wythe and Pulaski counties, “The National Park Service isn’t interested right now in taking this in,” Thomason said.
In its absence, Thomason recommended the sites spread across the considerable area of Saltville be managed as part of its town park system.
Trails to the earthen fortifications, located on virtually every hill surrounding the critical salt production facilities, are a key part of the plan that recommends parking areas serve two or more trails where possible.
Cutting some trees to clear the views so visitors can see battery and troop positions is also among the recommendations. From the battlefield overlook, for example, trees block the view toward Cedar Creek that would reveal how Confederate defenses had the high-ground tactical advantage in repelling the October 1864 Federal attack.
Trees blanket the hills and obscure the view Confederate defenses had of the salt furnaces they protected on the valley floor below. Thomason did not advocate clear-cutting the hills, which would duplicate how the barren hills looked in the 19th and 20th centuries, but in cutting only enough to open viewsheds.
Cliff Boyd, a Radford University anthropologist, archaeologist and professor, attended Thomason’s presentation and recommended trees growing on the earthworks be cut to prevent root intrusion from tearing down the cannon ramps and breastworks.
Walkways built above the earthworks would prevent erosion caused by visitors’ walking directly on the historic features.
Throughout town and along the trails, interpretive kiosks would reveal troop movements and the progression of the military actions in Saltville in 1864.
Boyd recommended the town work with local high school history teachers to identify students who would serve as interpreters at sites like the King-Stuart and William A. Alexander houses, gaining volunteer helpers and perhaps kindling in them an interest in local history that is not extensively represented in school curricula.
Additionally, Thomason recommended, those sites should be open on a regular schedule, even if only on weekends, to accommodate tourists.
For sites made inaccessible by steep terrain to the physically challenged, video presentations that impart to them an understanding of the history would satisfy Americans with Disabilities Act requirements, Thomason said.
He urged the town to develop brochures to guide walking and driving tours of sites, and as tourism grows, consider offering shuttle service from downtown to outlying sites.
Funding sources for preservation and interpretation activities include the Virginia State Historical Preservation Program, the Civil War Preservation Trust, the American Battlefield Protection Program, Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21), Sons of Confederate Veterans, the Trust for Public Land , and the Land Trust for Virginia .
In addition to its Civil War history, Saltville remains a living classroom for learning about the development of a company town. Houses built on the same plans line streets, recalling the Mathieson Alkali days when the company not only paid employees, but housed them and their families, educated them and provided medical care.
In a couple of weeks, Thomason will mail the town a copy of its full plan for consideration. It will be up to the town to decide which, if any, of the steps to implement and how much money to budget.
A replica period cannon, a tourism draw that can help illustrate artillery positions and make a battlefield feel real, can cost $20,000, Thomason said.
--(12) Widow of Confederate Soldier Dies at 93-----------------------------------------------------
Widow of Confederate Soldier Dies at 93
By Peggy Harris
8/20/2008
Associated Press (NAT)
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hC-fJrTR0gqXtZe5eDZjtzivWn_QD92LIC686
LITTLE ROCK, AR - Maudie White Hopkins, who grew up during the Depression in the hardscrabble Ozarks and married a Confederate army veteran 67 years her senior, has died. She was 93.
Hopkins, the mother of three children from a second marriage who loved to make fried peach pies and applesauce cakes, died Sunday at a hospital in Helena-West Helena, said Rodger Hooker of the Roller-Citizens Funeral Home.
Other Confederate widows are still living, but they don't want any publicity, Martha Boltz of the United Daughters of the Confederacy said Tuesday.
Hopkins grew up in a family of 10 children, did laundry and cleaned house for William M. Cantrell, an elderly Confederate veteran in Baxter County whose wife had died years earlier.
When he offered to leave his land and home to her if she would marry him and care for him in his later years, she said yes. She was 19; he was 86.
"After Mr. Cantrell died I took a little old mule he had and plowed me a vegetable garden and had plenty of vegetables to eat. It was hard times; you had to work to eat," she said in an Associated Press interview in 2004.
Hopkins later married Winfred White and started a family. In all, she was married four times.
For decades, she didn't speak about her marriage to Cantrell, concerned that people would think less of her. Four years ago, she came around after a Confederate widow in Alabama died amid claims that she was the last widow from that war.
"I didn't do anything wrong," Hopkins told the AP in 2004. "I've worked hard my whole life and did what I had to, what I could, to survive. I didn't want to talk about it for a while because I didn't want people to gossip about it. I didn't want people to make it out to be worse than it was."
Military records show Cantrell served in Company A, French's Battalion, of the Virginia Infantry. He enlisted in the Confederate army at age 16 in Pikeville, Ky. , and was captured the same year and sent to a prison camp in Ohio . He was exchanged for a Northern prisoner, and after the war moved to Arkansas to live with relatives.
In the interview, Hopkins referred to her first husband as "Mr. Cantrell" and described him as "a good, clean, respectable man." She recalled one description he gave of life as a Civil War soldier, how lice infested his sock supports and "ate a trail around his legs."
Baxter County records show they were married in January 1934 by a justice of the peace. She said Cantrell supported her with his Confederate pension of "$25 every two or three months" and left her his home when he died in 1937.
The pension benefits ended at Cantrell's death, according to records filed with the state Pension Board.
She is survived by two daughters and a son.
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Jim Campi, Policy and Communications Director
Civil War Preservation Trust
1331 H Street NW
Suite 1001
Washington, DC 20005
Phone: (202) 367-1861
http://www.civilwar.org <http://www.civilwar.org/>