Destroying the trees on the Gettysburg Battlefield (vanity)

Old Lady ^ | March 18, 2005 | Old Lady

[Old Phone Man]

If you care about the Gettysburg battlefield, drive out to Devil's Den and look at the beautiful old trees. You won't find many because the park service just cut most of them down.

Some of these trees were over a hundred years old. Some were "witness trees" when the Civil War veterans came back to dedicate their monuments.

The trees provided a place of shady contemplation in the hot summer sun for thousands of visitors. Many of us who care about the battlefield are sickened by their loss.

The park service plans to make the landscape look like 1863 so rangers can point to a hill and say "they came from there" without annoying trees getting in the way.

Would we allow the park service to go into the Gettysburg National Cemetery and destroy all the trees planted after Lincoln gave his Gettysburg Address? No, we wouldn't, and we shouldn't allow them to do that to the park.

When Congress established the Gettysburg National Park in the 1800's, they did not intend the park to be a war college, frozen in time so we could all study battle tactics. That was NEVER the purpose of the park.

Civil War veterans came back over decades to dedicate their monuments and to attend reunions, and they NEVER asked that whole forests be destroyed to make the landscape look like 1863.

The park has a deeper purpose--a place to honor the dead and reflect on war, a place of peace, healing and contemplation. That is why we have the monuments, the Peace Light Memorial, and why the veterans came for reunions.

The people behind the current plan to cut down thousands of trees don't understand this or don't care.

Later this year, the park service plans to cut down a large area of woods behind Devil's Den, which will be a terrible tragedy. Please find out about the park service's plans, complain to your representative in Congress or become active in other constructive ways before our woods are devastated.

I have plenty of photos but don't have a website to post them from onto Free Republic.

[Old Phone Man]

Re post 120 photo -- see all the woods in back of those stacked logs?

Those woods are due to go later this year.

[Old Phone Man]

Houck's Ridge, above the Triangular Field. There's more where this came from, baby.

[Fester Chugabrew]

Can you find out who is hauling those logs away and/or if any of them are for sale? I'd hate to see them go to a chipper. They need to be used for some fine furniture.

[Old Phone Man]

http://www.yourimg.com/?page=05/77/19/cutdowninDevilsDen.jpg Old Cedar, over 100 years old. In that general area, another 50 old cedars have been cut down. Almost every one of them was over 100-120 years old because we counted the rings.

[Old Phone Man]

Fester: an outfit called Pennington Tree Company, but I would imagine there's lots of graft and corruption and you-grease-my-hand-and-I'll-grease-your's going on with the park and the other contractors. It's called politics.

[Gator101]

I agree too.

I visited Fredricksburg about 10 years ago and was dishearteningly to see houses built over the fields in front of Marye's Heights and the Sunken Road. I am a realist though and I realize a town has to expand in 130-some years, but still, it was sad to think how many Union boys lost their lives on that field and now it's covered with houses.

Gettysburg is one of the few places where we have the room and the will to keep a battlefield looking closely like it did on the day of the battle that made it famous. I would just as soon we did.

It was a boyhood visit to Gettysburg that sparked my interest in history which, in turn, probably set me on the road to being a conservative.

[Old Phone Man]

I've been to Fredericksburg several times and have seen the commercial exploitation. It's a shame.

Over the past 50-80 years here at Gettysburg, much has been done to eliminate commercial endeavors on battlefield grounds -- ie, removal of a junkyard, a Stuckey's restaurant at the peach orchard, and the buying up of some private houses. That's as it should be and I'm satisfied with it.

My gripe is the devastation of the natural beauty that goes along with woodlots that have grown in abundance since the end of the battle.

To me, and to many others, the woods are renewal. The sacrifice was made here by the men of the north and the men of the south.

Military tactics could still be studied without having to devastate the woodlands.

Paths could have been constructed through these areas, and those who liked to walk (I do) could walk through the pristine woodlands and still see the ground up close and personal. I've learned much about the battle by walking the ground, and then come home and read about that very same ground.

The battlefield administrators constantly say they don't enough money for basic park maintenance, and they have let personell go.

In reality, they are spending millions cutting the woods, ruining the habitat for wildlife, and in the long run creating an erosion problem in the Monacacy River, which receives all the tributaries that run through the battlefield lands.

In the realm of the spiritual, it's a sin. A mortal sin. That's all I can say.

[FreedomCalls]

Thanks for the photos. Those are some big trees!

[Old Phone Man]

Those trees are only the tip of the iceberg. They had another cutting over the past 3 months up on the south side of Little Round Top, along Sedgwick Avenue if you are familiar with the battlefield. I estimate they cut down 200 trees or more all about the same size as the ones I showed here.

The scary thing are the woods in back of the logs shown in these photos. Those woods are next. It will be utter devastation, believe me.

[FreedomCalls]

visited Fredricksburg about 10 years ago and was dishearteningly to see houses built over the fields in front of Marye's Heights and the Sunken Road.

That has happened in a lot of places. Here is a picture of the Pyramids in Egypt showing how close the city is.

Most of the pictures you see are taken from the other side, so that you see only desert. But on the city side, the buildings come right up to the edge of the plateau.

Here's the opposite view from the Great Pyramid looking out over the Sphinx towards Cairo. See how close it is?

[flying Elvis]

an outfit called Pennington Tree Company, but I would imagine there's lots of graft and corruption and you-grease-my-hand-and-I'll-grease-your's going on with the park and the other contractors. It's called politics.

Do you have evidence of this? Have you asked the park who is paying for the cutting? I know for a fact that at some Civil War parks the funding is paid for by private individuals who donated money for the specific purpose of restoring the parks to wartime conditions. I've posted excerpts on this thread by the men who set up these parks including the Secretary of War telling how they want to restore them to what they looked like at the time of the battles, as well as a statement saying that the park was not for love birds and recreation but rather for remembrance and study. Yet you still persist in making scandalous statements about their motives.

Gettysburg was not made into a park for your daily walks and commune with nature. It was founded to memorialize those who have fallen and for future historians and military men to study.

[Scotswife]

It isn't just the kids who could use some shade on a hot summer day (which is when most people travel to Gettysburg)
It's also the elderly. Pregnant women.
You get the picture.
Nothing wrong with leaving a little shade.

Having a bad day are you?

[FreedomCalls]

It isn't just the kids who could use some shade on a hot summer day (which is when most people travel to Gettysburg) It's also the elderly. Pregnant women. You get the picture. Nothing wrong with leaving a little shade.

Bring an umbrella. Wear a hat.

What do they do on the beach? There's no shade trees there either.

[flying Elvis]

July is the hottest month of the year in Gettysburg with an average high temp of 85.9 degrees. Where are you from, Alaska?

[Old Phone Man]

Tell that to Joshua Chamberlain, a man of integrity who if he walked the battlefield the past 3 months and saw the desecration and upheaval I'm sure would weep.

Gettysburg is hallowed ground. Its soil was consecrated with the lifeblood from the men of the north and south.

There are just as many of us who respect the battlefield, study the battle, and walk the ground who say the land should be a memorial to the men who died here.

I'm retired and bought a home here. Every day of my life when I wake up or when I go to bed, I think of the sacrifices made here. I would match my knowledge with anyone concerning the ground and the tactics that took place on that same ground.

A hundred and forty-three years of healing should not be raped and put asunder so that some historians can point out battle tactics.

In case of Gettysburg, other measures could have been taken rather than desecrate the woodlots that were not here at the time of the battle (walking trails should have been employed through the woodlots -- I've walked everywhere on this battlefield, through briars, poison ivy, bogs, and there's not a piece of the ground that I don't personally know). The park would not listen.

I'm sick and tired of listening to "experts" who are desecrating over 600 acres of timber just to get their point across, but most of all to get federal money to cut down trees instead using that same money for park maintenance -- the cannons are rusting and many other things are neglected.

Sorry, Bub, I just don't buy your spiel.

[contemplator]

flying Elvis - Thank you for making the point about the parks being used by military men to study. That is precisely the reason I continue to return there. Being able to understand why so many die in a certain spot or why one side is able to to prevail when all logic tells you it should be otherwise is very important.

The key to understanding many battles is understanding the effects the terrain has on the events. A slight dip in the ground can be enough to allow a large part of a regiment to survive until reinforcements can help turn the tide of a battle. One of our tasks in OCS was to break apart that battle day by day and study it in depth. I can tell you that until I walked the ground, I had no way to apply or truly understand the facts I had learned.

Until I stood on Little Round Top and looked over my left shoulder at that sharp drop I didn't have a good appreciation of exactly why the Confederates could not simply go just around a little further to their right and come up from behind. I didn't need the trees removed to make that particular observation, but other events especially in the area of Devils Den were not so easy to grasp.

If one of our future or current leaders walks away with some insight which allows them to win a battle or engagement or save the lives of their men, then in my opinion it was worth the sacrifice of shade or some trees.

[Old Phone Man]

Walking the ground is everything. So are maps. On the Library of Congress website you can log onto 1863 maps of Gettysburg. It's a new feature. If you live on a battlefield like Gettysburg, as I do, and you walk the ground, and you refer to the 1863 maps, you pretty much understand the lay of the land.

I'm fortunate because I live here. The wooded areas that are being desecrated now did not stop me from understanding the terrain features because I've WALKED them.

Modern technological society has so many training aids now, such as topographical maps in three-dimensions. There is no real need in Gettysburg to annihilate 600 acres of trees and other vegetation to get one's point across. Leave the land as it is -- it's been renewed by a bloody sacrifice once, which is enough.

[flying Elvis]

Tell that to Joshua Chamberlain, a man of integrity who if he walked the battlefield the past 3 months and saw the desecration and upheaval I'm sure would weep.

So you are channeling Chamberlain now? lol

A hundred and forty-three years of healing should not be raped and put asunder so that some historians can point out battle tactics.

The soldiers who fought there disagree with you, and I am not channeling either. It is written in historical documents by the men who served there.

In case of Gettysburg, other measures could have been taken rather than desecrate the woodlots that were not here at the time of the battle...

That is a very subjective statement. You are using hyperbole to to create an emotional response to disguise the fact that the real descration would occur if the park staff did not comply with the wishes of the founders and allowed it to revert to nature in places where it was not intended to. Maybe you never bothered to read the sign at the entrance stating Gettysburg National Military Park? It does not say Gettysburg Nature Park, or Gettysburg Recreation Area. It does not say Gettysburg National Forest.

If you see so much neglect, why don't you volunteer to paint cannons or pick up trash?

Nevertheless, you still refuse to back up your claims of corruption by park officials and contractors as well as address the primary sources I posted earlier where the Secretary of War at that time specifically stated the goal was to restore the parks to their wartime condition.

If you are to retain a shred of credibility on this issue stop emoting over cut trees you provide proof of corruption, and an official document explicitly stating that the mission of the military and battlefield parks has changed from memorial and study.

[FDNYRHEROES]

The park service plans to make the landscape look like 1863........... Sounds like a good plan.

OK Everybody...Hold on one minute...While the National Park service wants to cut down viable living trees for the sake of "realism", then perhaps they should get rid of all those cannons lying all over the park stamped with the year 1864 on the end of their barrels. The markings on cannon barrels give the year of manufacture and the iron works or foundry marks where they were made...These particular cannons were not around in 1863 either...Check it out the next time you are in the park.

[Scotswife]

The last 2 years have FELT like Alaska!!
(so much for global warming!)

But no...upstate NY.
I've been to Gettysburg on 100 degree days AND pregnant :)

So...I have a soft spot for folks who would like a little shade.
Didn't realize the notion would get people so riled.