--(1) Virginia Announces Battlefield Grants -----------------------------------------------------
BATTLEFIELDS GET HELP
By CLINT SCHEMMER
11/18/2008
Fredericksburg Free Lance Star (VA)
http://fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2008/112008/11182008/425800
Virginia stepped forward yesterday to help save portions of 15 Civil War battlefields from encroaching development.
The commonwealth will provide up to $5.2 million to front-line private groups defending Civil War battlefields--including Chancellorsville and Brandy Station. Preservationists must come up with $10.4 million to get the 21 matching grants awarded by the state Department of Historic Resources.
The resulting total, $15.57 million, would be one of the largest sums earmarked for Virginia battlefield preservation in decades.
"I am pleased that we are able to join with these private organizations to save important open spaces and cultural landscapes while we still have the opportunity," Gov. Tim Kaine said of the initiative yesterday.
"Battlefield protection preserves Virginia 's historic as well as its natural landscapes. It is an integral part of my administration's goal to protect 400,000 acres of open spaces by 2010."
Tapping the state's Civil War Historic Site Preservation Fund, established by the General Assembly in 2006, the department's grants will save 1,571 acres.
The money comes not a moment too soon, as Virginia and conservationists race to preserve some of the nation's most threatened hallowed ground from urban and suburban growth.
The grants will save key parcels by enabling private organizations to buy parcels or obtain easement rights on land that will stay in private ownership. Those deals will enlarge or join together previously protected battlefield tracts.
The private groups include the Civil War Preservation Trust, the Shenandoah Valley Battlefields Foundation, Trevilian Station Battlefield Foundation and the Richmond Battlefield Association.
"We are very, very pleased that Gov. Kaine and the state legislature were able to fund this program," Jim Campi, spokesman for the Civil War Preservation Trust, said yesterday. "This is by far the largest single appropriation by any state for battlefield land in recent memory."
Trust President James Lighthizer praised the "visionary leadership" of Kaine, House Speaker Bill Howell, R-Stafford, and state Sen. Edd Houck, D-Spotsylvania, who championed the program.
The 15 affected battlefields lie in the counties of Amelia, Appomattox , Culpeper, Frederick , Hanover , Henrico, Louisa, Rockingham, Shenandoah and Spotsylvania .
The sites' military histories are varied, including significant Union and Confederate victories as well as the scenes of horse-mounted battles, such as Brandy Station in Culpeper County --where the largest cavalry fight in North American history was waged.
"These purchases will allow us to secure places with the power to connect us and future generations to the lessons of a defining period of our history," said Kathleen S. Kilpatrick, director of the Historic Resources Department.
"Time is running out. Each year, battlefield lands are lost forever," she said. "Today, more than 50,000 acres of critical battlefield lands are unprotected in Virginia ."
The aid comes as groups across Virginia slate events for the Civil War's sesquicentennial, which begins in 2011. Spotsylvania County was the first locality to start planning for the conflict's 150th anniversary.
In Spotsylvania, the state grants will help acquire land at Chancellorsville 's "First Day" battlefield along State Route 3 and the site, miles to the west, where Confederate Gen. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson later launched the famous flank attack that routed Union forces during that battle. About 159 acres will be acquired.
The Battle of Chancellorsville, which raged from April 30 to May 6, 1863, is regarded by many historians as Gen. Robert E. Lee's greatest victory.
In Culpeper County , the money will help the CWPT acquire two tracts, totaling 49.5 acres, to preserve the core of Fleetwood Hill on the Brandy Station battlefield. The parcels on U.S. 29 are close to nearly 1,000 acres already preserved by the Brandy Station Battlefield Foundation and CWPT.
The battle, fought at the start of the Gettysburg Campaign, ended on June 9, 1863, when Union attackers were driven off Fleetwood Hill.
--(2) Saving the Civil War's important battlefields -----------------------------------------------------
McMansionizing History
Can anyone save some of the Civil War's most important battlefields?
By John A. Farrell
11/16/2008
Washington Post Magazine (DC)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/07/AR2008110701937.html
In 1964, Michael Shaara, a frustrated writer of little-known fiction, took his wife and children on a road trip to the World's Fair in New York . On their way home, they stopped at Gettysburg National Military Park , where a fine statue of Robert E. Lee guards the western reach of the famous battlefield.
The statue marks the area where, on July 3, 1863, Confederate Gen. George Pickett led some 13,000 men out from the shelter of the woods and up the long slope of Cemetery Ridge. Shaara and his 12-year-old son, Jeff, followed the path of Pickett's men, across undulating ground and a fence at Emmitsburg Road . As they climbed the ridge, Michael Shaara told stories to his son. He recounted how Pennsylvanians had done what Lee did not think they'd do that day: They'd fought and died in defense of their state's soil. He spoke of Confederate Gen. Lewis Armistead and Union Gen. Winfield Scott Hancock, great friends before the war, and how they lay bleeding, yards apart, not knowing the other was near. And when the Shaaras got to the small stone monument that marks the dirt where Armistead was mortally wounded, the boy was stunned to see his father weeping.
"What happened to my father, walking the ground at Gettysburg , changed his life," Jeff Shaara remembers. "He became obsessed with telling that story."
It took Michael Shaara seven years to complete "The Killer Angels," which won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1975, but not a wide audience. It was only in the wake of Ken Burns's wildly popular 1990 PBS documentary series, "The Civil War," that a faithful adaptation of Shaara's book was filmed, propelling "The Killer Angels" to the top of the bestseller lists and establishing a family franchise. Michael Shaara, who died in 1988, never knew the success that Jeff has had with a series of novels that, in the style of his father, revisit the Civil War, the American Revolution and other storied clashes.
"It is a testament to the power of that ground," Shaara says, remembering when he climbed Cemetery Ridge with his dad. "There is no substitute for coming out by the Lee statue, looking out across that mile of open ground and then walking it yourself … And realizing it is not that Hollywood stuff where guys charge, sort of screaming and yelling and lickety-split. No. They walked. One step at a time."
Last summer, Shaara was asked to join the board of trustees of the Civil War Preservation Trust, whose calling is to save battlegrounds from bulldozers as sprawl creeps beyond the suburbs of Washington , Richmond and other cities with historic land nearby. The trust was formed in 1999, when the two small and troubled private groups merged and chose a onetime Maryland politico -- Jim Lighthizer -- to serve as president.
Lighthizer has built the trust into an effective organization that is part conservation fund, part lobbying shop, part political pit bull. He is not afraid to take the tools of modern politics -- polling, direct mail, media -- into battle with developers, and defeat them.
When the trust asked for Shaara's help, "I listened long and hard," the author says, "because this is a huge time commitment." In the end, Lighthizer won him over. "He is the energy behind this."
Which is noteworthy, because, when I ask Lighthizer what triggered his love for Civil War battlefields, he goes back to a day in 1983 when he asked a friend to recommend a book to take on vacation. Lighthizer was skeptical of his pal's suggestion. "I don't read novels. I read history," he says. But the friend persevered, and in Nags Head, N.C., that summer, Lighthizer read "The Killer Angels."
"It lit something that can best be defined as between a passion and an obsession," he says.
The ground had inspired a story; the story a man, to save the ground.
"When I took the job... did I say we were going to start a political organization? No," Lighthizer says. "But as the facts presented themselves, I recognized … if we don't get political, we are not going to be in business."
He and I are driving down Interstate 95, heading toward Fredericksburg , Va. , the small town on the Rappahannock River where, along a 10-mile arc, the Union and Confederate armies fought four legendary battles -- Fredericksburg , Chancellorsville , the Wilderness and Spotsylvania Court House -- from December 1862 through May 1864. Lighthizer is behind the wheel of an SUV: a pale-skinned, freckled man of medium height and build, with thinning reddish hair, expressive features and a sometimes goofy grin. The singular feature of his personality, a sly candor, won him the affection of the Maryland press corps during his eight years as Anne Arundel's county executive and four years as transportation secretary under then-Gov. William Donald Schaefer.
He is a Democrat who delights in political incorrectness. He recalls -- jokingly, I believe -- that when one deal to protect a battlefield was hung up over the fate of the feral cats that inhabited the property, he toyed with the notion of delivering a few feline corpses, like the horse's head in "The Godfather," to the animal-loving landowner's doorstep.
Lighthizer's political acumen and deal-making skills have been put to the test trying to save the "hallowed ground" where more than 600,000 Americans lost their lives.
For a century after the Civil War, there was little cause to fret about its battlegrounds. In recent decades, that has changed. Entire battlefields have been lost to sprawl in Franklin , Tenn. , and Atlanta . From the red clay around Richmond , developments with names such as Stonewall Estates have sprouted where Lee stopped the Union drive to capture the Confederate capital in 1862. Even the historic vistas at Antietam and Gettysburg have been put at risk, as the tendrils of exurban Washington creep into Western Maryland and southern Pennsylvania . In 1997, the federal government's Civil War Sites Advisory Commission published an updated survey of 384 "principal" battlegrounds and warned: "This nation's Civil War heritage is in grave danger. It is disappearing under buildings, parking lots, and highways … We may lose fully two-thirds of the principal battlefields."
"I will give you an example," Lighthizer says. "You know about Pickett's Charge? It was a charge by 13,000 men, more or less, across a mile of open ground, supported by artillery, attacking a wall. What do you know about the Battle of Franklin? Well, it was an attack by 25,000 men -- twice the number -- over two miles of open ground, with no artillery support against a … heavily fortified line, with significantly more casualties.
"And you know why most people haven't heard about Franklin ? Because they paved it over."
The route we travel down I-95 offers compelling proof. For years, it was a lightly populated stretch of pine woods, creeks and rivers. Now, with its housing developments, malls and outlet stores, the land is being consumed at a rapid pace. Of the 100 fastest-growing counties in America , according to the U.S. Census Bureau, six are in Virginia , including Prince William, Stafford and Spotsylvania counties along the I-95 corridor. The boom has generated a backlash. Development-friendly county officials are being pressured by new residents, who want additional open space, fewer traffic jams and better planning.
Under Lighthizer, the trust has found ways to tap that slow-growth sentiment, which is ironic, given that Lighthizer presided over a period of rapid development as a county executive in the 1980s and as transportation secretary in the 1990s. Back then, contributions from developers fueled his political campaigns. In Anne Arundel, he concedes, "we issued 3,000 building permits a year, in some years."
Yet, in a way, this makes Lighthizer a cunning soldier in the war he's now waging against development. When he arrived at the trust, he recognized that his group could not outbid developers, who were inflating the value of land from about $2,000 an acre to as much as $40,000 an acre. "They would price us out of existence," he says. "But the land-use process at the local level is often very political. I knew how to stop rezoning." He had seen it done by determined residents who had sometimes thwarted projects he'd supported. "You can aggressively, as we have done, start grass-roots efforts to put the pressure on local officials.
"If we can compromise, we will do it -- and have done it," Lighthizer says. "But if we engage [developers] in battle, we want to make the battle so nasty and so brutal that even if we lose, they won't ever want to cross our path again.
"Like somebody said after the Chancellorsville fight: Now all we have to do is bark."
"This is the Zoan ridge," says Robert Krick, who served as the National Park Service's chief historian for some of Virginia 's most important battlefields before retiring several years ago. "It is the highest ground from here, eastward, to somewhere in France . Wonderful high ground. And just in front of you is where -- when Joe Hooker did not have the nerve to come out of the Wilderness and take this dominating high ground -- Stonewall Jackson bared his teeth, and Hooker collapsed upon himself."
After Lighthizer and I pick up Krick up at the park's headquarters, the three of us stand at the point where the sprawling housing developments and strip malls of greater Fredericksburg rub up against Chancellorsville Battlefield.
In the spring of 1863, swaggering Union Gen. Joe Hooker launched an ambitious assault on the Confederates. He sent part of his army across the Rappahannock just south of Fredericksburg . A second wing of the Union forces swung north and west, crossed the river, came down through the scrub woods known locally as the Wilderness and arrived behind the unsuspecting and outnumbered Rebels, halting that night at a 70-acre clearing at the small country crossroads called Chancellorsville . Hooker was jubilant. "Our enemy must either ingloriously fly, or come out from behind his defenses and give us battle on our own ground, where certain destruction awaits him," he told his troops.
Lee responded by dividing his army and attacking Hooker on his own ground, as the Union general had predicted. On the morning of May 1, the armies clashed at the Zoan ridge, where, after a spirited battle, the Union general inexplicably ordered his men back into the Wilderness. Recognizing a psychological advantage, Lee divided his army again and sent Stonewall Jackson on a sweeping march around Hooker's right flank, which ended in a surprise Confederate assault at dusk. The shock of the attack sent the Union forces reeling back to the river, though it cost Jackson his life -- he was shot by his own troops in the chaos and gloom. The fighting at the Zoan ridge was the opening act in what historian Shelby Foote called "in terms of glory … the greatest" of all Confederate victories.
"The fighting through here was not Armageddon … but it was very significant because it pushed Hooker back," Krick says. "And all of this land would be paved or covered with houses today, but Jim Lighthizer saved it."
Lighthizer came to the preservation movement as a sportsman. He is a lifelong hunter, an Ohio boy who put himself through Georgetown University law school by selling typewriters for IBM. Inspired by John F. Kennedy, Lighthizer ventured into Democratic politics and won a seat in the Maryland House of Delegates in 1978. He was elected Anne Arundel County executive in 1982 and inherited a budget seeping red ink. He capped wages for Anne Arundel's teachers and other public employees and encouraged development to grow the county's tax base. By the end of his first term, he was able to cut property taxes and introduce a "smart growth" plan that satisfied the public yearning for containing sprawl. It had the added benefit, he says with a smile, of pressuring developers to donate to his campaign. He faced no real opposition for reelection.
Anne Arundel County is famed for its Colonial capital, Annapolis , and for hundreds of miles of shoreline on the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries. Historic preservation, environmental protection and "quality of life" are huge issues there. Awash in revenue, Lighthizer let the conservationist in him blossom in his second term. He spent millions of dollars buying parkland on the rivers and bay. A lasting legacy of his tenure as county executive is the $17 million Quiet Waters riverfront park, near Annapolis , on 340 acres that he snatched from developers.
Lighthizer had a reputation for cockiness, fueled by the embarrassing disclosure that, as his second term ended, he had spent more than $100,000 of public funds on a glossy, 96-page, self-aggrandizing booklet titled "The Lighthizer Years." Nevertheless, when he left in 1990, limited by law to only two consecutive terms, he was viewed as a potential candidate for higher office.
As state transportation secretary, he presided over the arrival of Southwest Airlines at Baltimore-Washington International Marshall Airport , a development that tripled flights and transformed the airport into a big-league operation. He won praise from conservationists for exploiting a clause in the massive 1991 federal transportation bill and using highway "enhancement" monies for battlefield preservation. At Antietam and other battlefields, the state spent more than $16 million to acquire land and conservation easements. The money, coupled with other open-space efforts, left Antietam , site of the war's single bloodiest day of fighting, one of the nation's best-preserved battlegrounds.
Then came a time of personal and professional ordeal. After Lighthizer became transportation secretary, state and federal investigators began scrutinizing several land deals that had been sanctioned by his administration during his time as county executive. Though no charges were filed, the investigations were an embarrassment.
They were followed by something far worse. In February 1993, a state trooper found Lighthizer's son Robert, named in honor of Robert F. Kennedy, dead in a state park. The 23-year-old Army veteran, and former all-county lacrosse player, committed suicide. His son's death "took a tremendous amount out of me," Lighthizer says. "I went, in the course of a year, from thinking of running for governor to getting out of the business. I just decided I didn't want to do this anymore."
Instead Lighthizer went to work as a lobbyist in Annapolis , representing Southwest Airlines and other clients for the Baltimore law firm Miles & Stockbridge. He quickly came to detest his new duties. "If you want a lesson in humility, go from being county executive and transportation secretary to chasing state legislators up and down the hall," he says. "I hated to go to work. I was making more money than I ever made in my life, and I was less happy, professionally, than ever. And in the end, I didn't care if they got a comma in the tax bill."
Lighthizer seemed on course to become just one more Maryland political hack. It was his obsession with the Civil War that rescued him from that fate.
Starting in 1890,Congress authorized the creation of the first four national military parks -- at Chickamauga , Shiloh, Gettysburg and Vicksburg . But, over time, even major battlefields suffered from chronic federal budget shortfalls. At Fredericksburg , for example, the northernmost stretch was overrun by housing; the southern sector by an industrial park and a General Motors factory; and what's known as the Slaughter Pen Farm, at the center of the battleground, was zoned for commercial or industrial development.
Over the years, the federal bureaucracies "lost deals because they couldn't get appropriations, and they lost deals because they moved so goddamn slow when they had the money," Lighthizer says. "And a lot of the important battlefield land is outside the Park Service boundaries, because the boundaries are arbitrary. They are political."
Slaughter Pen Farm is outside the boundaries. "Some farmer went to his congressman 50 years ago and said: 'Screw you. Don't put me in that battlefield. I don't want to be in it,' " Lighthizer says. "And so it's not."
At Chancellorsville , the federal government owns all but 1,703 acres of the 7,517-acre "core area" of the battleground, "where the heaviest fighting took place," says Russ Smith, the Park Service superintendent there. The greater, federally recognized "study area," which includes land on which the armies maneuvered or set up camps and field hospitals, is 21,874 acres. The threat of development led to the founding of aggressive local groups in Gettysburg , Northern Virginia and other locales, as well as two national organizations -- the Civil War Trust and the Association for the Preservation of Civil War Sites -- to buy land. But their efforts were unfocused, and by the end of the 1990s, the preservation association was $7 million in debt. Lighthizer was on the board of the Civil War Trust when the two groups merged in 1999, and the new trustees asked him to serve as president. There were 24 employees at the trust when Lighthizer took office; only four remained after six months. The rest were fired or left on their own. To replace them, Lighthizer tapped a community of battlefield buffs to find young professionals who had experience running political campaigns, congressional offices or commercial real estate operations. With the help of well-connected trustees and donors, he put his lobbying skills to work in Congress and state legislatures and retired the $7 million debt.
"We never ask for outright grants. Everything, we match," he says. "I was in government. I know that when people come in with their hand out, you want them to have some skin in the game. So I say: 'Lookit. You give me a million, and I will make it two … And, by the way, I will give the land back to you, if you want it.' It's a good argument."
Membership in the trust tripled. A new direct-mail program brought in millions of dollars. And more than 20,000 acres of land at storied places -- Manassas, Fredericksburg, Shiloh, Gettysburg, Harpers Ferry, Antietam, Brandy Station, Malvern Hill -- were bought outright or saved via conservation easements, which give landowners tax breaks for giving up the right to develop their properties.
Buying property from willing sellers was one thing. It was quite another to rescue land that had already been purchased by developers and designated for high-density residential and commercial growth. Lighthizer accepted that challenge at what became known as "the second battle of Chancellorsville."
The first volleys were fired in 2002 after the Spotsylvania County Board of Supervisors voted to move the Zoan ridge property out of the county's rural preserve and into its "primary settlement" district, thus opening the land for high-density development. In June, the Dogwood Development Group of Reston announced plans to build a town center on the spot, with more than 2,000 homes and 2.4 million square feet of commercial space. In November, the county planning commission approved the developer's plan, dismissing the growth-related concerns of a large crowd of local residents who waited hours to testify. When Lighthizer tried to negotiate, the developer and the county government ignored him. Furious, he decided to fight the development by orchestrating public pressure and, if necessary, defeating the pro-development supervisors at the polls.
"Nothing we have ever done compares to this. Nothing," Lighthizer wrote in a fundraising letter to his membership. "If you never give another dollar to help save another battlefield, I need you to help with this one. If we succeed ... not only will we save 140 essential acres at Chancellorsville, but in years to come, savvy developers ... will think twice about going head to head against us ... they'll go build their strip malls somewhere else."
The Coalition to Save Chancellorsville Battlefield was formed that summer. A pollster was hired to gauge community sentiment, and the results (showing that almost two-thirds of nearby residents opposed the development) were released to local news outlets. The coalition held news conferences and lured national media such as Washington Post columnist George Will and National Public Radio to report on the controversy. Volunteers conducted a petition drive, collecting 27,000 signatures from residents who opposed the development. They canvassed neighborhoods, distributed leaflets and yard signs, held candlelight vigils and attended public hearings. A Web site kept the anti-growth forces alert to fresh developments, and served as a community rallying point. There were radio ads and a direct-mail appeal.
Dogwood fought back with telemarketing and mailings of its own, dismissing the 1863 action on the Zoan ridge as a "skirmish" that could suitably be honored with a small "memorial park."
"These outsiders ... think they know what's best for you," the developers' political action committee said in a mailing to area residents. "They came from places like New York, New Jersey, Ohio and Pennsylvania. They've never been stuck in our traffic, worried about improving our schools, or had to travel out of the county to spend their money ... to shop."
But the coalition's efforts had transformed the political climate. That fall, the voters filled a vacant seat on the Board of Supervisors with a candidate endorsed by the slow-growth forces: Robert Hagan got 64 percent of the vote. In January, when they had to fill a vacancy on the board, the supervisors selected Hap Connors, one of the coalition leaders. Then, in March 2003, as hundreds of county residents sat watching, the increasingly nervous supervisors voted 6 to 0 to reject the Dogwood proposal. The revolution peaked on Election Day 2003, when five pro-preservation candidates were elected supervisors, giving the movement control of the board.
The trust found a local homebuilder, Tricord Inc., that was willing to deal. In 2005, according to the trust, Tricord purchased 227 acres of the Dogwood property for more than $12 million and immediately transferred the 140 most important acres to Lighthizer's group for $3 million. In return, the coalition forces and the supervisors agreed to let the builder put higher-density housing on the remaining 87 acres. In late 2006, the supervisors unanimously approved a second deal, along the same lines, with another builder, Toll Brothers. That $1 million sale, which closed this year, gave the trust another critical 74 acres of the battlefield.
"We don't fool ourselves that the average American is a Civil War buff," says Lighthizer. "But we do know they are tired of traffic, of congestion, of homes going up everywhere."
The trust's political muscle yielded further dividends. When the last major undeveloped tract at Fredericksburg -- Slaughter Pen Farm -- went on the market in 2006, Lighthizer was alerted by his friends at Tricord, who agreed to move quickly and buy the land, then flip it without profit to the trust. The $12.5 million price tag made the 208-acre deal his organization's most ambitious and expensive purchase yet, but Lighthizer was willing to borrow to buy such a crucial piece of land. It is the only place on the battlefield where a visitor can follow in the footsteps of the Union assault from start to finish, now that land to the north and south has been developed.
Another coup occurred in 2006, when the trust rescued the 319-acre heart of another endangered tract -- the Glendale Battlefield in Henrico County, Va. -- for $4.1 million.
It was in the last days of summer in 2006, amid that string of triumphs at work, that Jim Lighthizer lost another of his three sons.
Conor Lighthizer, 28, died during a camping trip with his father high in California's Sierra Nevada mountains. Free from the demands of politics, and seared by Robert's suicide, Lighthizer had worked at spending more time with his four remaining children. During the years of late-night campaign banquets and budget sessions, weekend bull roasts and wining and dining lawmakers, "I didn't ignore my children," he says, "but if I knew -- if I was as mature as I am now -- I would have spent more time with them." The camping trips were one of his ways of compensating for that lost time.
Conor suffered from juvenile diabetes but worked hard to keep himself in shape. He had completed a marathon that year. But illness or altitude triggered a diabetes-related condition called ketoacidosis at the end of a long climb. Conor lost strength, his sight and then consciousness at their alpine campsite. A helicopter came too late to save him.
"Conor died in my arms," Lighthizer says, recounting the story in his office at the trust. His face is suddenly distorted; he is chagrined by an involuntary sob and apologizes, needlessly. "How close to the surface the emotions are," he says, startled and marveling.
Grief can be relentless. It strips from us our distractions -- ambition, creativity, desire -- and their power to charm. We confront the great lie of life, and if we are fortunate, we fall on the crumbs of a cause for which to soldier on.
"You go on because you have no choice," Lighthizer says. "You try to help the other people who are hurting, and not spend a lot of time on yourself."
But some friends wonder if, as the battle between preservation and development comes to a fierce conclusion in the next few years, Lighthizer will be able to recapture the verve and vigor he displayed in the last decade.
In 1889, an old soldier named Joshua Chamberlain returned to Gettysburg for the dedication of a monument to the 20th Maine Regiment, which he commanded during the battle. Chamberlain is one of the heroes in "The Killer Angels." He and his raw farm boys and fishermen were posted at the far end of the Union line, on the slope of a rocky height called Little Round Top, when the Confederates launched their attack. If the soldiers from Maine had given way, the federal line may well have collapsed. They knew that, and fought with fury. When they ran out of ammunition, they threw rocks and, at Chamberlain's order, charged down the hill with bayonets, stunning the rebels and saving the hill.
On the day he returned to Gettysburg, Chamberlain spoke of the wisdom of saving battlefields. "In great deeds, something abides," he said. "On great fields, something stays. Forms change and pass. Bodies disappear, but spirits linger." Future generations, he predicted, "shall come to this deathless field. And lo! The shadow of a mighty presence shall wrap them in its bosom, and the power of the vision pass into their souls." It did for Michael and Jeff Shaara. It has for Jim Lighthizer, who dreams of raising $250 million -- twice what he has spent so far -- to preserve another 25,000 acres of Civil War history in the next eight years. "I could spend, conservatively in the next five years, $30-to-$50 million to save land just in Spotsylvania County," he says. At Chancellorsville, one-fourth of the core battlefield and less than one-tenth of the total ground has been protected. "Give me $10 million, and I will spend it at a fair market value to save that battlefield," Lighthizer vows.
The 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War is approaching, but federal and state plans for the 2011 Sesquicentennial are modest. None calls for the kind of investment that Lighthizer and other preservationists believe is needed to protect the places where so many died. Meanwhile, time is running out. Soon, given the pace of development in America, there likely will be no more Glendales or Slaughter Pen Farms to rescue.
"We are trying to get as much as we can done," Lighthizer says, "knowing we are not going to get most of it done." It's a glorious cause, he worries, that may be doomed to come up short.
John A. Farrell is the author of a biography of the late House Speaker Tip O'Neill and a forthcoming biography of Clarence Darrow. He lives in Montgomery County and can be reached at jaloysius1@gmail.com.
--(3) Saving a Civil War legacy in Shenandoah Valley -----------------------------------------------------
Saving a Civil War Legacy In Va.'s Shenandoah Valley
Deal Protects Land On Which a Decisive Battle Was Fought
By Nick Miroff, Washington Post Staff Writer
11/14/2008
Washington Post (DC)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/13/AR2008111303993.html
In 1762, the Huntsberry family settled the land along Redbud Run, outside Winchester, with a deed from Lord Fairfax. Eight generations later, Bob Huntsberry spent his summers there as a child, finding rusted Minie balls that had been fired from the muskets of Civil War soldiers. He grew up steeped in elders' stories of the day, late in the summer of 1864, when Union Gen. Philip Sheridan and 39,000 troops came marching in.
Now, Huntsberry, 80, has reached a $3.35 million deal with Civil War preservation groups to protect the land and with it, the little-known legacy of a decisive event in the war.
The sale will preserve 209 acres of woods and hayfields on one of Northern Virginia's most significant battle sites, where Yankee and Rebel forces waged brutal hand-to-hand combat for control of the Shenandoah Valley. Preservation groups will add the land to their holdings to create a 575-acre park with trails, interpretive signs and free public access.
"The historic significance of this site is huge in every way," said Elizabeth Paradis Stern, assistant director of the Shenandoah Valley Battlefields Foundation, describing the site as possibly the second-most important in Northern Virginia after Manassas National Battlefield Park. Her organization arranged the deal as part of a public-private partnership with the state and the Civil War Preservation Trust. A $1 million grant from the state will contribute to acquiring the land, and by May the two preservation groups will need to raise the remaining $2.35 million through grants and private donations.
"There is a lot of meaning in those farm fields," Stern said.
The National Park Service calls the clash, known as the Battle of Third Winchester or the Battle of Opequon, "a turning point in the war" and had deemed the battlefield a top preservation priority, writing, "Because of its size, intensity, and result, many historians consider this the most important conflict of the Shenandoah Valley."
The Huntsberry family was living there and tending its fields when Sheridan launched his scorched-earth Shenandoah Campaign in late summer 1864. Sheridan's forces met Lt. Gen. Jubal Early's Confederate troops Sept. 19, and the battle became the largest of the war in the Shenandoah Valley, with almost 9,000 casualties, according to the Park Service.
Park Service historians have described the close-quarters fighting that took place as extremely fierce and "sanguinary." One soldier called a wooded area along Redbud Run where 1,500 men died or were wounded a "basin of Hell."
Two future presidents, Rutherford B. Hayes and William McKinley, saw their first combat in the battle, according to the Civil War Preservation Trust.
Union forces sustained heavier losses but won the battle, the first step in wresting strategic control of the Shenandoah Valley from the Confederacy. "It ended the valley as a source of food for the Confederacy and an avenue of invasion to the North," said Jim Campi, spokesman for the Civil War Preservation Trust.
His foundation owns 222 acres on the site that are contiguous with 144 acres owned by the Shenandoah Valley Battlefields Foundation, and interpretive trails on those portions opened to the public last year. But Campi said the purchase of the Huntsberry family's 209 acres will make the site into a bona fide tourist destination.
"Prior to this, folks would visit for a half-hour or less," he said. "Now people will be able to go out and get lost for hours in the history and beauty of the property. It has essentially been kept as pastureland for 150 years, so it is very much like it was at the time of the battle."
Campi said the preservation groups would conduct extensive archeological and resources studies on the property before hosting any large-scale events, such as battle reenactments. The fields will continue to produce hay for the sake of historical accuracy and to help offset maintenance costs.
Kathleen Kilpatrick, director of the Virginia Land Conservation Foundation, called the deal "a hugely important milestone for Virginia and the nation" and described the "spiritual benefits" of historic preservation. "It is the history in our communities that we can see and touch and experience that really, truly connects us to our story and to one another by telling us that we are part of something larger than ourselves," she said. About 50,000 acres of Civil War battlefield land in Virginia remain unprotected, she said. "Once that land is gone, it's gone forever."
Huntsberry, of Winchester, said he had mixed emotions about selling land that has been in his family for so long. "It'll be preserved, so that's a good thing," he said.
--(4) Battlefield Groups Sign $3.35 Million Contract -----------------------------------------------------
Battlefield Groups Sign $3.35 Million Contract
By Preston Knight
11/13/2008
Northern Virginia Daily (VA)
http://www.nvdaily.com/news/293626350691234.bsp
The word of the day Wednesday at the Third Winchester battlefield was "partnership."
Jim Lighthizer, president of the Civil War Preservation Trust, spoke about his longtime partnership in buying land with Irv Hess, chairman of the Shenandoah Valley Battlefields Foundation. Kathleen Kilpatrick, the director of the Virginia Department of Historic Resources, mentioned the importance landowners had in helping preservationists achieve their goals.
And historian Garry Adelman, while touring the battlefield, discussed the link that preserving one parcel of land had with another at Third Winchester.
"One without the other doesn't make any sense," he said.
This is why the foundation and trust on Wednesday afternoon announced the signing of a $3.35 million contract that would save 209 acres of the Winchester battlefield. Hess signed it with heirs of C.E. Huntsberry last week.
"By a significant margin," Lighthizer said during a press conference, "this is the biggest deal they've ever done."
The trust owns about 220 battlefield acres adjacent to the Huntsberry property on the opposite side of Red Bud Run. Among the significance reasons for bringing those two pieces together is to save part of the "Middle Field," where more than 2,000 soldiers were killed, wounded and captured, Adelman said. About 30 acres of that field, which he calls the "bloodiest spot in the Shenandoah Valley," sits on the Huntsberry land.
The land is also important because it held a hospital and served as a cemetery, in which soldiers would bury their fellow fallen and later move the deceased, Adelman said.
Bob Huntsberry, one of the heirs in attendance Wednesday, said it was bittersweet to lose a piece of his family's history. However, he said he was pleased to be losing it in the name of preservation.
"We've come to the right conclusion," said Huntsberry, who co-manages the estate.
The purchase will be funded through various means — $1 million from a state grant awarded to the foundation through the Virginia Land Conservation Foundation, $1.61 million in federal grants and private donations through the trust and $690,000 to be raised by the battlefields group. The latter is also spending $50,000 from its Carrington Williams Preservation Fund.
The purchase is expected to be completed by May. That will be contingent upon the foundation's ability to raise the money needed, and a campaign has begun for that purpose.
Kilpatrick said a lot of credit must go to the Huntsberry family for getting the purchase to Wednesday's announcement.
"Like all preservation," she said during the press conference, "this is not about the past. This is about the future."
After her speech, Kilpatrick said that while the Third Winchester piece was an "important milestone," state preservationists still have a long way to go to. She said there is more than 50,000 acres of unprotected battlefield land in Virginia, with 17,000 of that in the valley.
At Third Winchester, 600 acres of the 4,900-acre battlefield has been protected in recent years, Lighthizer said during his speech. Adding the Huntsberry property to the list is a victory for the battlefields foundation, he said.
"This really, really is a big deal," Lighthizer said.
--(5) Shenandoah Valley Battlefield to Be Preserved -----------------------------------------------------
Shenandoah Valley Battlefield to Be Preserved
By Steve Szkotak
11/12/2008
Associated Press (NAT)
http://www.mcall.com/news/nationworld/sns-bc-va--civilwarbattlefield,0,4092516.story
A 209-acre field in the Shenandoah Valley where one of the fiercest battles of the Civil War was waged will be preserved under a $3.35 million public-private purchase agreement.
The deal will create a 575-acre preserve that remains much as it was nearly 150 years ago when the Third Battle of Winchester was fought by tens of thousands of Union and Confederate soldiers.
The purchase agreement announced Wednesday will be funded through a partnership among the Shenandoah Battlefields Foundation, The Civil War Preservation Trust, the state of Virginia and private partners. The sale depends on raising $690,000 in private funds to reach the purchase price.
The property, called Middle Field, was part of the Third Winchester battlefield. On Sept. 19, 1864, the Union's 19th Corps lost 40 percent of its men and all of its regimental commanders were either killed or wounded.
In a National Park Service study, historian David W. Lowe described the Third Winchester as "the largest and most desperately contested battle of the Civil War in the Shenandoah Valley."
He wrote that the property east of Winchester ranked among the bloodiest fields of the Civil War, with more than 3,000 casualties.
James Lighthizer, president of the Civil War Preservation Trust, said the 209 acres remain virtually untouched today.
"This is a stage where a great event occurred," he said in an interview. "It's a place where people will come and imagine what happened here. They're actually walking where these people walked."
The preservation deal was struck with the heirs of C.E. Huntsberry, who trace their ancestry back centuries in northern Virginia. Bob Huntsberry, great-grandson of the late C.E. Huntsberry, said the family recognized the Frederick County property's historic importance.
"We felt pretty strongly that it needed to be preserved so we are very happy that it will end up in good hands and that people will someday be able to come and learn about what happened here," he said.
A fundraising campaign to complete the purchase is expected to be completed in May.
Despite the purchase, only a fraction of the core area at Third Winchester has been protected. In the Shenandoah Valley, more than 17,000 acres of core battlefield land remain vulnerable to development, preservationists said.
Kathleen S. Kilpatrick, director of the Virginia Department of Historic Resources, said development is the biggest threat to the 50,000 acres of unprotected battlefields throughout the state.
"We have to be very conscious that the hour is getting short and we have little time to preserve," she said.
More than 54,000 Americans fought at the Third Winchester battlefield in the opening volley of Union Gen. Philip Sheridan's Shenandoah Campaign. The campaign left a trail of burning and destruction nearly 100 miles to the south, in Staunton.
Once the purchase is completed, the preservation groups will create interpretive trails.
--(6) Lincoln Statue Unveiled on Cottage Lawn -----------------------------------------------------
Lincoln Statue Captures a Moment in Time: Statue Unveiled on D.C. Cottage Lawn
By James R. Carroll
11/11/2008
Louisville Courier-Journal (KY)
http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20081111/NEWS01/811110411
WASHINGTON, DC - For the first time in more than 143 years, Abraham Lincoln and his horse were standing yesterday in front of his cottage overlooking the nation's capital.
A 2,500-pound, waxed bronze sculpture of the Kentucky-born president and a standardbred horse was lowered into place on the lawn facing the Gothic Revival house where Lincoln spent the last three summers of the Civil War.
On a sunny but brisk morning, the likeness of the 6-foot-4-inch Lincoln, attired in his trademark stovepipe hat and frock coat, stood looking toward the cottage, one hand resting on his horse's saddle.
With a hint of a smile on his face, the 16th president looked as if he were about to jump up onto his steed for his customary three-mile ride down to the White House.
The sculpture is just the latest of many tributes being unveiled to commemorate the 200th anniversary of Lincoln's birth near Hodgenville, Ky., on Feb. 12, 1809.
"We wanted this not to be a monumental Lincoln, but a very personal Lincoln," said Frank Milligan, director of President Lincoln's Cottage at the Soldiers' Home.
The house opened to the public in February after a seven-year, $15 million restoration by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
Ivan Schwartz, founder and director of Studio EIS in New York, where the sculpture was created, watched his work lifted from a truck by a crane and placed on its base.
Lincoln could be either about to mount or at the end of dismounting, Schwartz said. He said the president looks as if he could be hearing a call from his wife, Mary, or from his children, or perhaps from the troops who camped around the house.
"It's a little less formal," he said of the sculpture. "It's a moment that is out of earshot or photo shot of the time. We think of it as a small revelation about the man -- it's very soulful."
Schwartz said extensive research went into creating a Lincoln that visitors will be able to touch.
Lincoln's hat and one of his frock coats, in the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, were measured.
The president's face and hands were based on life casts and all known photographs of him.
"I hope people will think of Lincoln as a real person who is in one moment of his life here," Schwartz said. "There is an essence of the real man here we tried to find."
Lincoln escaped the heat and crowds of Washington by living at the cottage in the summers of 1862, 1863 and 1864. Historians estimate that a quarter of his presidency was spent at the retreat. He last visited the cottage on April 13, 1865, the day before his assassination.
The president sometimes worked at the cottage, but most days he commuted by horse or carriage between his 34-room hideaway and the White House.
The commute had such relevance to the cottage site that the sculpture evolved to include Lincoln's horse, Milligan said.
The president's favorite horse, Old Bob, stayed behind in Springfield, Ill., when Lincoln went to the White House.
He rode various horses during his time in Washington, and the horse in the sculpture is meant to represent them. It belongs to a breed likely used for Lincoln's transportation, based on research that included consultation with the International Museum of the Horse in Lexington, Ky.
"Lincoln loved to ride," Milligan said. "This was his release, his relief, from the White House."
--(7) Corinth Honors Civil War Fallen -----------------------------------------------------
Corinth Honors Civil War Fallen
By Danza Johnson
11/9/2008
Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal (MS)
http://www.djournal.com/pages/story.asp?ID=281755&pub=1&div=News
CORINTH, MS - The 8,000 luminaries spread out throughout historic downtown Corinth aren’t for decoration, they are for remembrance.
Dozens of volunteers helped pull off the astonishing light show on Saturday that illuminated a dozen historical sites, tourist attractions and downtown streets throughout the small town that’s famous for its rich Civil War history. Living history programs continue today for the remembrance weekend.
Shiloh National Military Park Superintendent Woody Harrell said the luminaries are symbols of the 8,000 casualties during the October 1862 Battle of Corinth in which Union forces defeated the Confederates.
Despite the long hours and many volunteers it took to make the day possible, Harrell said the effort was worth the message.
Harrell manages Shiloh National Military Park and its subunits, the Corinth Civil War Interpretive Center and Corinth Contraband Camp. The Interpretive Center staff advanced the idea of planning the grand illumination when the National Park Service received a Lower Mississippi Delta Initiative grant of $8,000 that would finance the event.
“We want people to remember the men who died here,” said Harrell. “We hope they will see the human sacrifice that was made for just one battle during the Civil War. This has been a long process, but it is worth it.”
Mary Anne James helped light the 8,000 luminaries. Because of all the bending over, she said her back was killing her, but that didn’t hold her back. As she went up and down the field lighting the bags, only stopping to stretch her aching back, James said seeing all the bags shining brightly in the night gave her chills.
“History is very important to people around here,” said James. “Our area played a big part in the war and we want people to remember that. My back pain is a small price to pay if we can teach a history lesson to those who don’t know our history. I can’t think of a better reason to be out in this cold with an aching back.”
Rick Banks and his wife, Allison, walked the historic downtown area with their sons, Codi and Kyle, to admire the lights.
“People put in a lot of work to make this possible so I think the least we can do is enjoy it,” said Rick Banks. “I can’t imaging making and lighting and picking up 8,000 luminaries. That just shows how committed our citizens are to acknowledging and remembering our Civil War history.”
Harrell said this is the first year for the event and he hopes to make it an annual event.
--(8) Antietam Memorial Illumination Named Top 100 Event -----------------------------------------------------
20th Annual Antietam National Battlefield Memorial Illumination Named Top 100 Event in North America
11/9/2008
Picket News (MD)
http://www.picketnews.com/articleDetail.asp?cID=1&id=9342
HAGERSTOWN, MD - The Hagerstown-Washington County Convention and Visitors Bureau (CVB) is chartering two buses on December 6, 2008, for the 20th Annual Memorial Illumination at Antietam National Battlefield. One hundred tickets will be sold for anyone interested in taking a guided bus tour of the event.
"The Antietam Illumination is awe-inspiring. This is a definite must-see event, which is very popular with visitors and residents alike," said CVB President Tom Riford. "We are excited about chartering buses and offering special guided tours of the event. This should be a great trip, and one of the best parts is the opportunity to avoid having to wait in the long line of traffic to get into the battlefield." Riford added. The specially-chartered buses will be brought to the front of the entrance area, according to the organizers of the Illumination.
Charissa Stanton, the CVB's Public Relations Specialist, and Betsy De Vore, Director of Sales for the CVB, will be the tour guides for the evening. They will share a collection of quotes from soldiers and civilians about the 1862 Battle of Antietam, as well as a complete overview of the Civil War battle.
Last year was the first time the CVB offered guided bus tours of the illumination. The initial plans in 2007 were to charter one bus to see if there was any interest from the public. The CVB ended up chartering a second bus because of the popularity.
"Both buses were filled to capacity and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves immensely," said De Vore. "It quickly became clear that this was something we should offer every year." Several people from outside of Washington County participated last year, including United States Senator John W. Warner's family and members of the management team of the Journey Through Hallowed Ground National Heritage Area.
A new addition for the CVB bus tours this year is that everyone who purchases a ticket will receive a special candle. The candle is one of the "Antietam" candles, manufactured by the A.E. Root Candle Company specifically for the Antietam Illumination because of its long-burning capability.
The Convention and Visitors Bureau has also announced that along with being the main financial sponsor of the annual illumination, that the American Bus Association (ABA) has designated the Antietam Illumination as one of the Top 100 Events in North America for 2008. "To have this event be selected as among the best 100 events in North America is a feather in the cap for Washington County," said Tom Riford. The Illumination was selected by an elite tourism industry committee. Inclusion in the Top 100 list, published as a supplement to the September/October issue of Destinations Magazine, indicates that the Annual Antietam National Battlefield Memorial Illumination offers excellent entertainment value to both tour groups and individual travelers from around the world.
"The annual Illumination is absolutely breathtaking," Stanton said. "There is no better way to see it than from the elevated windows of a comfortable bus!" Stanton said that the view from the bus last year was better than she had seen in years' past from a car.
Since 1989 an annual remembrance of the battle of Antietam has been held the first Saturday in December. It is signified by 23,110 luminaries, one placed every 15 feet along a 5 mile route, throughout the fields, and around monuments.
More than 1,300 volunteers from throughout the nation come to Antietam, and systematically set up the luminaries throughout the day, and candles are lit starting at 3 p.m. According to the National Park Service, more than 25,000 people experience the Illumination, from 6 p.m. until midnight. Cars wait at the Route 34 entrance, and travel the route with headlights turned off.
---------------------------------------------------------
Links of Interest:
Huntsberry Farm Fundraising Campaign
http://www.civilwar.org/winchester08/
Glendale Battlefield Fundraising Campaign
http://www.civilwar.org/glendale08/
Animated Map Battle of Chantilly
http://www.civilwar.org/chantilly/
---------------------------------------------------------
Jim Campi
Policy and Communications Director
Civil War Preservation Trust
1331 H Street NW, Suite 1001
Washington, DC 20005
Phone: 202-367-1861
Fax: 202-367-1865
http://www.civilwar.org