Posted on 09/16/2004 3:26:44 PM PDT by yonif
(AP) - A portion of the battlefield where Gen. Robert E. Lee's outnumbered Confederate forces defeated Union soldiers in 1863 will be spared from development under a proposed deal preservationists call a model for other Civil War sites.
The agreement to set aside 57 hectares of the "core" Chancellorsville battlefield marks a breakthrough in a long campaign to save part of the land.
The national Civil War Preservation Trust compared the deal to the successful effort to defeat Walt Disney Co.'s plans 10 years ago to build a theme park near Manassas National Battlefield.
"We see this as the beginning of a trend of battlefield preservationists working with developers," trust spokesman Jim Campi said Wednesday.
Under the agreement, the trust would pay developer Tricord Homes of Spotsylvania $3 million for 57 hectares near Fredericksburg. Tricord Homes would forfeit its right to build retail space on its remaining property along a heavily travelled road nearby and also would agree to set back homes 300 metres from the road.
In exchange, Spotsylvania officials would permit Tricord to build 294 homes for adults on three parcels - roughly 220 more homes than allowed under current zoning.
The deal is subject to approval by the Spotsylvania Board of Supervisors.
From May 1 to May 3, 1863, Lee's forces stopped the Union from wresting Fredericksburg from the Confederacy. Chancellorsville also was the last battle where Lee and Confederate Lt.-Gen. Thomas J. (Stonewall) Jackson fought together. Jackson was mortally wounded on the second day of the battle.
"Historians refer to it as one of the most important battles of the Civil War," Campi said.
"It's often referred to as Lee's greatest military victory."
Although the 57 hectares are outside the boundaries of Chancellorsville National Battlefield, preservationists said parts are nonetheless historically significant. The property to be preserved includes an area east of what is known as Lick Run, where Union and Confederate troops clashed on the first day of the three-day battle.
Russell Smith, the park's superintendent, said the land provides "a green gateway to the battlefield."
Don't tag Virginians with Lincoln's murder ~ a Copperhead did it.
Hi. I haven't posted to you before, and I'm sure you're a nice guy.......but that's crap!
Andrew Johnson and the United States Government held Jefferson Davis in a federal fortress for years without trying him. Then they let him go. Why?
Because the poorest lawyer in the country would have cut the Government's case to ribbons, that's why!
"Forgiveness", my butt hurts!
Policy, is all it was. They held the South in their hands. They could have done whatever they wanted, even given flyblown Ben Butler the executioner job he so craved.
So don't give me this "well, we aren't going to give you a fair trial after all -- but just go on home and consider yourself guilty as charged". That's buncombe of the zeroeth magnitude and the rankest degree.
No Southerner was guilty of anything, for defending the South. Remember that!
Bingo. I'm proud to be a Georgian, a Southron, and an American.
Incorrect. Guilt was never established because it simply wasn't there. Here is what a northern abolitionist legal scholar had to say on the subject of prosecuting confederates for "treason"
To determine, then, what is treason in fact, we are not to look to the codes of Kings, and Czars, and Kaisers, who maintain their power by force and fraud; who contemptuously call mankind their "subjects;" who claim to have a special license from heaven to rule on earth; who teach that it is a religious duty of mankind to obey them; who bribe a servile and corrupt priest-hood to impress these ideas upon the ignorant and superstitious; who spurn the idea that their authority is derived from, or dependent at all upon, the consent of their people; and who attempt to defame, by the false epithet of traitors, all who assert their own rights, and the rights of their fellow men, against such usurpations.Instead of regarding this false and calumnious meaning of the word treason, we are to look at its true and legitimate meaning in our mother tongue; at its use in common life; and at what would necessarily be its true meaning in any other contracts, or articles of association, which men might voluntarily enter into with each other.
The true and legitimate meaning of the word treason, then, necessarily implies treachery, deceit, breach of faith. Without these, there can be no treason. A traitor is a betrayer --- one who practices injury, while professing friendship. Benedict Arnold was a traitor, solely because, while professing friendship for the American cause, he attempted to injure it. An open enemy, however criminal in other respects, is no traitor.
Neither does a man, who has once been my friend, become a traitor by becoming an enemy, if before doing me an injury, he gives me fair warning that he has become an enemy; and if he makes no unfair use of any advantage which my confidence, in the time of our friendship, had placed in his power.
For example, our fathers --- even if we were to admit them to have been wrong in other respects --- certainly were not traitors in fact, after the fourth of July, 1776; since on that day they gave notice to the King of Great Britain that they repudiated his authority, and should wage war against him. And they made no unfair use of any advantages which his confidence had previously placed in their power.
It cannot be denied that, in the late war, the Southern people proved themselves to be open and avowed enemies, and not treacherous friends. It cannot be denied that they gave us fair warning that they would no longer be our political associates, but would, if need were, fight for a separation. It cannot be alleged that they made any unfair use of advantages which our confidence, in the time of our friendship, had placed in their power. Therefore they were not traitors in fact: and consequently not traitors within the meaning of the Constitution. Furthermore, men are not traitors in fact, who take up arms against the government, without having disavowed allegiance to it, provided they do it, either to resist the usurpations of the government, or to resist what they sincerely believe to be such usurpations.
It is a maxim of law that there can be no crime without a criminal intent. And this maxim is as applicable to treason as to any other crime. For example, our fathers were not traitors in fact, for resisting the British Crown, before the fourth of July, 1776 --- that is, before they had thrown off allegiance to him --- provided they honestly believed that they were simply defending their rights against his usurpations. Even if they were mistaken in their law, that mistake, if an innocent one, could not make them traitors in fact.
For the same reason, the Southern people, if they sincerely believed --- as it has been extensively, if not generally, conceded, at the North, that they did --- in the so-called constitutional theory of "State Rights," did not become traitors in fact, by acting upon it; and consequently not traitors within the meaning of the Constitution.
That's why the Yanks let Jeff Davis sit in jail for a couple of years - they wanted a quick trial.
Having trouble making up your mind again? A few moments ago you blamed the entire south for it. Now you say Virginia should not be blamed. Of course the real point of that post was not the state represented but rather the meaning of its seal. Take as long as you like to think about that one.
I waiting for the revisionists to produce a trumped up WBTS doc with Times-New Roman font! < Bracing >
Back when we lived in Tennessee, just about everywhere we went was battleground, including the little development where we were renting a house. My oldest daughter asked me one day (after I'd had to stop the car on a low-clouds-and-drizzle day near Lookout Mountain, because I had the howlin' heebie-jeebies) if all the dead soldiers were in Heaven. What I told her, and what I believe, is that, on both sides, they sacrificed themselves for what they believed was right, for the honor and defense of their communities, and ultimately, for the men standing with them on the field. Those are people who deserve the mercy of God.
"Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." With a few exceptions (guerillas on both sides, generals who let men die out of pure indifference) I respect all of them, and I teach my children to do the same.
LOL!
ROTF!
Enjoyed reading the article . . . Post #9 reminded me that it's not illegal to be ignorant. God bless and long live Dixie!
Who was your quote author, by the way?
Amen.
Lysander Spooner
:-).
I'm always impressed by the faith of the Civil War soldiers, both Confederate and Union. With the state of medical science in those days, even during peacetime, they lived closer to death than we do, and saw Heaven as their true home more clearly. Lots of people I'm looking forward to meeting!
Well, that was just about half the nation at the time..... to call half the nation traitors doesn't wash. If you had a renegade state or a small insurgency you would have a point. There were significant problems that were serious enough to divide the nation at the time... your label just doesn't stick.
Amen. Especially for them to advance (walk) under fire watching folks around them die - what courage that took!
I pray that my sons will never have to follow the example of their ancestors, and charge into artillery fire, and yet I hope that they will have the selfless spirit that allowed young men to do that, if it's necessary.
From a mother's perspective, the Civil War is a pure epic tragedy!
From a mother's perspective, the Civil War is a pure epic tragedy!
An avoidable tragedy, I agree. But what heros she gave us!
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