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.
I've been there, and have sat on Little Round Top and meditated on the events there on several occassions. I have walked up those slopes as the Alabama Regiment did and tried to imagine Col. Chamberlains bayonet charge. I have seen pictures of what the battle scarred slopes with the tops of all of those trees gone leaving jagged trunks scattered everywhere and the sides of that slope looking like some hellish scene. I also know how many trees are there now, and have enjoyed their shade.
I realize that tourists may not be comfortable in the summer sun if the trees are removed, but the combatants were not comfortable either. I'm all for anything that will add to realism.
One could make the argument that experiencing that heat is but a small taste of what those men endured in July 1863.
I can remember walking the whole route of Pickett's Charge as a young boy of 14. I wanted to get a sense of what it was like. I am actually glad there were no trees to shade or obstruct me...like it was for them.
"I guess they'll need to scatter a few thousand rotting corpses around too. Just for authenticity mind you. </sarcasm>"
Well, I guess that will be easier to do today,per a dumbass judge in FL.
But "realism" was not the point of establishing the park.
If you want realism, tear up the paved roads, the public bathrooms, stop cutting the grass, get rid of the visitor center, and get rid of the park service, because they weren't there in 1863.
The park service killed all the deer. The deer were authentic. Plenty of deer were there in 1863.
The park was established to honor the dead, to understand what happened, and for healing and reflection.
When you look at the videos of the old veterans coming back and shaking hands over the stone walls, it is hard to imagine they would have wanted hundred year old trees destroyed.
Actually I seriously doubt that. By the latter part of the 19th century the deer population in the US was shockingly tiny.
I vote for chopping them down.
I and my wife also visited the Vicksburg battlefield last May and I came to the same conclusion.
I think removing the trees and just having grass would increase the educational and historical value of the place because it would allow a much more accurate view of the way it was and therefore an appreciation of how exposed the Union attackers were to the Confederate defenders when they tried to make assaults as opposed to just waiting and starving them out. As it was I just had to imagine how it might have looked like without the trees and brush. I am sure there is no money available for tree and underbrush removal but I'll bet they could eventually get it done just by asking area Boy Scout troops to do it as a service project.
what was?
You have no idea what they would have wanted.
Wait! You can't mix Pennsylvania and Florida politics. That'll stir up all kinds of bad Karma.
Still does.
to understand what happened,
Easier to do with the trees chopped down.
and for healing and reflection
Not sure who is being healed, as the vets are all dead now, but chopping down the trees doesn't prevent reflection.
Remove and do not replace dead or unhealthy trees that were not there in 1863.
Do not plant new trees or allow them to take root where there were none.
Replace fence lines, lanes, battlements etc. Remove wooded areas or underbrush was not there.
I agree with the article is the gist is to protect manificent or monumental old trees and not wontonly mow them down just for the sake of authenticity. Mark grand trees that don't belong historically. When they die, take them down and don't replace them.
Interestingly enough, much of the information they are talking about now being able to provide visitors used to be readily available in the Cyclorama (which the National Park Service has fought to have REMOVED).
I've stood on battlefields in Europe that were of tremendous importance to the history of the world ~ although they looked like ordinary cityscapes, I knew where I was because of the historic marker.
The only reason we can "preserve" the battlefields here is that we have a vast amount of land that simply doesn't need to be used for anything else. It's rather like the old Chinese graves and shrines that eventually ate up 10% of the arable land. The Chicoms bulldozed most of them out of the way.
Last thing this country should get into is venerating pieces of land, and having the federal government create and tend sancrosanct sites.
Are they going to make it look like June 30, 1863 or July 4, 1863?
As long as they're not cutting down the "clump of trees", i'm ok with restoring the battlefield to it's 1863 status.
The park service plans to make the landscape look like 1863........... Sounds like a good plan.
I live in Gettysburg, and this article is completely misleading. The Park Service is currently implementing a multimillion dollar program to restore the battlefield as much as possible to its 1863 appearance. That requires the removal of hundreds of trees that are there now but were not in 1863. In fact, most of the battlefield had been largely cleared by local farmers at the time, with the second and third growth trees appearing much later on. The Park Service has very carefully analyzed period photographs from the Library of Congress and National Archives and other repositories to try and determine which specific trees did exist during the battle (not many remain) and to then preserve them during the current removal operations. The Rangers' efforts are most certainly not the indiscriminate and wanton destruction of trees that the author of this piece would have you believe.
Our understanding of history changes through the lens of things which have happened since and will change through the lens of events yet to come. Things erected for one purpose often take on completely new purposes as time goes on. When the Gettysburg Park was established, very few had a sense that it would become recognized as such a historically significant place. The term 'High Water Mark of the Confederacy" had not been bandied about much yet.
To say that 'This was not the purpose the founders had in mind' may very well be true; however these monuments belong to the present generation as much as it did to those generations of the past. As each successive generation takes ownership of these places, they have a right to enjoy them in their own fashion each in their turn.
In this case of what is going on now, the original intent of this place is not harmed by restoring the scene to its original state as much as possible. It is rather enhanced by it insomuch as visitors will be better able to appreciate the scene as it actually appeared unhindered by the obstructions which have sprouted up since.
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