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.
Great post.
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Agreed. It's not a theme park, it's an important part of our nation's history.
‘100 year old trees (some older than that) lying in their death throes’
LOL
I agree, although that should be “Sharpsburg, by contrast..” :)
McClellan had no business winning that one.
How interesting. It would have been something to own the Codori farm. The house is appealing, attractive brick with apple green trim. They no longer have cows; the park service cut down most of the shade trees in the pasture behind the farm, and took down some of the fencing.
Another farm, the George Spangler farm a few miles away near the new museum/visitor center, is now for sale — 80 acres, a falling down barn and stone civil war house in horrible shape — can be yours for $2 million. Armistead died there. The place was a civil war hospital and they buried bodies (officers) in the basement of the house.
Of the Civil War battlefields I’ve seen, Gettysburg is by far my least favorite. A monument every 6 feet, etc....Can’t imagine the battle.
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That’s just The Angle at Pickett’s Charge field by the old visitor center and museum. The battlefield includes thousands of acres, woods, etc., in several locations around and including the town.
my kids loved Devil’s Den - they’d get hot and sweaty climbing on the rocks, but they could always sit under the trees to cool off and eat lunch.
Now we’ll have to head back to the van to cool off.
Too bad.
Thanks for your post. Last comments before I sign off:
The park service wants people to “see what the soldiers saw” and so they are chopping down thousands of trees so you can have the same sight lines.
My objections:
(1) they are ignoring the memorial aspect of the battlefield. They are removing trees behind monuments and exposing junk, telephone lines, and the ugly backs of stores (where you have no sight line because modern buildings or construction on private property block it). I am appalled at what they are doing on Culp’s Hill.
(2) In the 1980’s it was park policy to allow a buffer of trees to grow up between the town and the battlefield, screening out modern construction. They planted and solicited the donation of thousands of trees. Now they are cutting all these trees down. What did all of this cost?
(3) The waterways running through the battlefield end up in the Chesapeake Bay, which has a silt problem. Scientists have worked for years to save the fish etc in the Bay. The Cheaspeake Bay Foundation calls the park service “absolutely crazy” for cutting down thousands of trees. It will add silt to the waterways and cause all kinds of damage. The park service says it is doing plantings of grasses etc, to counteract this, but what they have done is minimal.
I am fully supportive of keeping Gettysburg as green and treed as possible....its a beautiful setting that is not only historical but also breath taking and quiet and relaxing and a birders wonderland....
“Another farm, the George Spangler farm a few miles away near the new museum/visitor center, is now for sale — 80 acres, a falling down barn and stone civil war house in horrible shape — can be yours for $2 million. Armistead died there. The place was a civil war hospital and they buried bodies (officers) in the basement of the house.”
Wow. Unintended consequences of Ken Burns, and the movie ‘Gettysburg’ perhaps?
Of the Civil War battlefields I’ve seen, Gettysburg is by far my least favorite. A monument every 6 feet, etc....Can’t imagine the battle.
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That’s just The Angle at Pickett’s Charge field by the old visitor center and museum. The battlefield includes thousands of acres, woods, etc., in several locations around and including the town.
Those aren’t my words. I found Gettysburg to be magnificent, clearly the A1 of CW battlefields.
Its my hope to find the time to tour the western theater battlefields, particularly Shiloh, in the near future.
That's a good point. I remember going to Shiloh, and the Park Ranger pointing out a field across which the two sides fought. He said that at the beginning of the battle, it was a peach orchard, but by the end of the day, not a tree was standing above 4' because of the intense gunfire between the two groups. He said that the soldiers diaries said it looked like it had snowed because all the blossoms were on the ground beneath the stumps.
It's also possible that the Park Service at Gettysburg is looking to reduce the possibility of an out of control fire jumping from tree to tree in a crowded area, so close to the battlefield. Removing older, possibly diseased, trees and undergrowth will do that; it removes the fuel.
We've been to Gettysburg, and sitting up on Little Round Top, among those trees, it's fascinating to think about the actions of those men, over those days of the battle.
Since the farms where the main battle took place are not being worked, the forest should be allowed to return.
The best time I had was to visit Appomattox one Sunday morning in early Spring.
The silence of Sunday AM added a sense of reverence to the battlefield(s).
I’ve gotta get by Antietam soon.
Are you saying that the antebellum environment was worse than today's?
(That'll rile Al Gore up pretty good)
I've only been to Gettysburg once and don't claim to be a real scholar.
But, the guides were constantly repeating that you would be able to understand better if the huge numbers of postwar trees were not in the way.
The Devil's Den itself is a good example:
you couldn't even see where the original assault came from or the ground it covered.
IIRC, there was a single opening cut into the trees in front of the main Union lines so you could get a feel for the actual distance that Picket's troops had to cover while under flanking fire.
Who dreams up all these crazy ideas?
Who approves them?
I’m fully in favor of restoring the battlefield to what it looked like in 1863, sorry. “
Don’t forget the cannons, horses, and the corpses.
I agree...keep the battlefield as it was on the day the battle was fought.
It would seem to me that a “witness tree” would have been a sapling at best at the time of the battle. Additionally, trees have a life span, they don’t last forever.
“I’ve only been to Gettysburg once and don’t claim to be a real scholar.
But, the guides were constantly repeating that you would be able to understand better if the huge numbers of postwar trees were not in the way.”
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In the 19080’s it was park policy to allow a band of trees to grow up between the park and development/the town. The park service solicited and accepted donations of thousands of trees.
Now they are cutting down these trees so “you can see what the soldiers saw.” (plus cutting down lots of other trees)
EXCEPT you will not see what the soldiers saw. Your sight line will be obstructed by lots of things that were not there in 183 — shopping centers, subdivisions, McDonald’s, Friendly’s, the junky back end of museums, etc. etc., plus all the trees on that private property.
The park has no sense of the memorial aspect of the battlfield.
Where the sight line will not be improved and cutting down trees will only expose junk and private buildings that block the view, the trees should remain.
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