Posted on 03/18/2005 10:44:28 AM PST by 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.
What makes you such an authority? You just want to fight. It's not worth it to me.
Screw the Secretary of War, too. How many times did he walk the battlefield here at Gettysburg? I'm here, right now, living on what was once a skirmish line. What do I care about the Secretary of War, or hyperbole, or any other b-s.
I'm a realist, and I react to things, and I don't see good things coming out of the Gettysburg park management right now -- and I am not alone. Many of us who walk this hallowed ground are disgusted by the shenanigans created by the latest batch of "experts" overseeing this national treasure.
I have hundreds of photos taken in the last year to prove it. You will never change my opinion on this subject, as I won't change yours.
Some things you just can't control. There are not enough cannons to go around now days. They found out early on that using wooden gun carriages did not last very long and switched to cast concrete. The best they can do with a gun emplacement is to put a few representative guns in the original positions. Sometimes size does matter and they at least attempt to get one of similar size to the original and wartime vintage. In short there are only enough Rodmans, howitzers, and columbiads to go around. And no taxpayer wants to pay for the govt. to start manufacturing columbiads again. A full set up for a reproduction Bronze Napoleon costs around 30k. Multiply that by a thousand and you are talking serious money. lol
That's a good one about the cannons.
Here's an even better one:
For years the park hired some people (I don't know how many) to maintain the cannons. I was told that they received minimum wage or thereabouts. They did a good job and the cannons were never in a state of utter deterioration.
The park let those employees go. Now many of the cannons are in terrible shape. I heard that now the park ships the cannons out to be maintained at a very high cost, thousands more than if they'd kept these people on the job.
The surrounding community of Gettysburg does not have many jobs, and a job with the national park, even low-paying, is better than no job at all.
When you walk the battlefield daily, you pick up scuttlebutt like this.
In the spirit of conciliation, we'll just have to agree to strongly disagree on this issue. I commend you for your passion for the battlefield, I wish many others saw the same value in it that you do. Maybe we'll meet again on FR when we strongly agree on a subject and fight on the same side.
Sounds good to me.
That part about channeling Chamberlain, though, is totally wrong. I own a couple of his books. There is much spirituality in his writings, and for the life of me if he were alive today I believe he would agree with me -- maybe not on some of the things I've said here, but on the issues pertaining to the battlefield.
I hope that someday we do meet on here again, and we're on the same side.
I apologize for the Chamberlain remark, it was a rather cheap shot. Anon, Flying E.
sounds good to me
Nobody is talking about cutting down trees that were there during the battle. ("The park service plans to make the landscape look like 1863 ..."
The park service may not be talking about cutting down trees present at the time of the battle, but they have done it.
(1) Behind the Wentz house foundation ruins (by the Peach Orchard, one of the sites of the second day's fighting), the park service cut down a massive, healthy looking shade tree that had to be several hundred years old. It was the only shade tree in the area (the peach trees in the orchard are small trees, periodically replaced so they will keep bearing fruit).
We heard from someone who works for the park service that it was "a mistake" to cut down the massive old shade tree. We wonder about that -- the park just planted seedlings for another orchard at the same site, and we wonder if they cut down the large old tree because its shade would have prevented the new seedlings from growing.
(2) Environmentalists examined the rings and cores of several trees cut down behind the Cordori farm, and said some trees were present at the time of the battle.
(3) The park service plans to cut down thousands of trees. Some of the trees they've already cut down were massive. We've walked through a forest they plan to cut later this year and some massive trees were not marked with the "do not cut" tape. The park service looks at old photos and old maps, but those maps and photos don't show every tree.
(4) Why is the park service planting new tiny trees by monuments such as the Father Corby monument -- trees that were not there at the time of the battle -- yet cutting down trees over a hundred years old near monuments in areas like Devil's Den -- small old trees like cedars that provide shade and do not interfere with understanding of the terrain?
who owns the land
The government/the taxpayers
Bump.
Bump.
One of my most prized possessions is a book from Chamberlain’s personal library, with his signature on the flyleaf: ‘Maine at Gettysburg: Commissioners Report’ – 602 pages recounting the contributions to the battle of the fifteen Maine regiments, battalions, batteries, or other commands of Maine troops. It’s a fascinating book, in which is contained one of Chamberlain’s most notable, heartfelt quotes, delivered upon the dedication of the monument to his beloved 20th Maine:
In great deeds something abides. On great fields something stays. Forms change and pass; bodies disappear; but spirits linger, to consecrate ground for the vision-place of souls. And reverent men and women from afar, and generations that know us not and that we know not of, heart-drawn to see where and by whom great things were suffered and done for them, shall come to this deathless field to ponder and dream; and lo! The shadow of a mighty presence shall wrap them in its bosom, and the power of the vision pass into their souls …. This is the great reward of service. To live, far out and on in the lives of others …. To give life’s best for such high stake that it shall be found again unto life eternal.
Chamberlain was a true ‘liberal’ long before that label was co-opted by men whose words belie their actions. He was a genuine altruist, and a believer in the dignity of man and the defense of individual liberty. And, unlike many modern history ‘experts’, he understood the difference between genuine substance and meaningless symbolism.
About five years ago, we visited The Wilderness battlefield outside of Fredericksburg. As we drove through Fredericksburg itself, on I-95, on our way to The Wilderness, we stopped to read a monument dedicated to Sedgwick’s Sixth Corps, on the side of the road. The monument sat on a tiny patch of grass, surrounded on four sides by the interstate, asphalt parking lots and strip malls. All over the east, many such historically meaningful spots where valiant blood was spilled have been replaced by an ocean of concrete and steel, plastic and neon. And most of those who drive by, narrow-mindedly focused on more ‘material’ concerns, will never take the time to contemplate what once happened there. And it is this mindset that is causing the gradual, permanent erosion of our hereditary roots.
Here in Lancaster, we lost a long and heartbreaking battle to save the home of General John Reynolds (the most respected man in the Army of the Potomac at the time of Gettysburg, where he met his death. Not one negative comment by his contemporaries is recorded about him.). The Reynolds home has been gutted and is now a community eyesore – an adult video and bookstore.
But there is a world of difference between desecrating hallowed ground by placing the quest for the almighty dollar, or political power, ahead of preserving the land where valiant blood was shed, or where valiant men once lived and served … and allowing nature to take its course. The ‘shadow of a mighty presence’ about which Chamberlain wrote is not a visual thing; it is a spiritual experience. The stark, cold environs created by manmade asphalt and concrete, plastic and neon, have a way of interfering with the experiencing of such a ‘connection’. Trees, grass, blue skies, and fresh air do not.
Joshua Chamberlain would not care that portions of the Gettysburg battlefield are naturally evolving. That trees are growing where there once were none. Anyone who has sat in contemplation on a Civil War battlefield, and who has been enveloped by the ghosts of those who went before, knows full well that Chamberlain’s ‘shadow of a mighty presence’ is not deterred by new vegetation, or swales that result from rainwater, or naturally evolving changes in topography. The only thing that can destroy that ‘presence’ is a people who no longer care – a people who rush by without so much as a thought about what was long ago suffered for them by men who knew firsthand the precious price of liberty.
~ joanie
We have plenty of forests. We don't have to turn the battlefields into squirrel ranches.
this is another blatant attempt of the federal government overstepping the boundaries and infringing on the rights of the great state of pennsylvania to honor its surviving citizens by erecting a strip mall on very desirable lands...
secession is the only key to maintaining the sovereignty of the will of the people in this failed political experiment we call federalism.
secession now... secession tomorrow... secession always...
personally, put in a holographic stadium seating theatre and wow the visitors into a truly reflective and awe inspiring experience... the park service is all about making money and the trees and rights of the land owners are in the way...
teeman
As a Pennsylvanian who lived near and spent many afternoons and early evenings on the Gettysburg battlefield, it pains me to admit the truth: there's entirely too much emphasis on the Civil War fought in the Northeast--mostly Virginia. Gettysburg may have been the high water mark of the Confederacy, but after Vicksburg the South was split in two, and (coupled with the defeat at Gettysburg), its morale was never restored.
And as a former local, I disagree with the poster. Devil's Den in particular was completely overgrown. Restoration of the park is long overdue. I love trees, and I'll plant a couple more in the back forty along the fence as a tribute to the old fellows who went down this week, but they shouldn't have been allowed to grow on the battlefield in the first place.
Finally--in the last two years--you can see some rehabilitation of Grant in some new and excellent biographies.
BTT!!!!!
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