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.
Last time I drove through the battle appeared to still be going on.
"There will be no place here for the gaudy display of rich equipages and show of wealth; no place for lovers to bide tryst; no place for pleasure-seekers or loungers. The hosts that in the future come to the grand Park will come rather with feelings of awe or reverence. Here their better natures will be aroused; here they will become imbued with grand and lofty ideas; with courage and patriotism; with devotion to duty and love of country. "
Source: U.S. House of Representatives. Office Building for Commission, Chickamauga National Park. Report No. 786, 61 Cong., 2 Sess., 1910, p. 1. Further comments by the Secretary of War:
The work of restoring the field to its condition at the time of the battle has progressed rapidly. Seventeen State commissions have been organized to locate the positions of State troops, and the national commission expects that the remaining nine States which had troops engaged in the battle will create commissions during the coming winter. Several State commissions have already visited the park and established the positions of the troops of their respective States. Ohio has appropriated $95,000 for monuments, fifty-six of which will soon be erected; Minnesota has appropriated $15,000 for five monuments, and during the coming session legislatures of other States are expected to take similar action. Seven granite monuments have been erected in memory of the regular troops engaged at Chickamauga, and five observation towers have been erected, offering comprehensive view of the field of conflict.
Source: Report of the Secretary of War, 1893, p. 33.
Can you provide proof of this claim? Much of the tree cutting money is donated by a private philanthropical group dedicated to battlefield preservation and study of the Civil War. If other aspects of the park are neglected it is because of budgetary constraints. Cutting trees in most cases, comes from the private sector.
That's what Abraham Lincoln said about the Gettysburg battlefield. To paraphrase: we don't dedicate the battlefield...the battlefield dedicates us.
The very purpose of the battlefield and our reason for visiting it is to rededicate ourselves to the cause of liberty and government of, by, and for the people. A battlefield that evokes the summer of 1863 is best suited to that purpose.
The monuments weren't there in 1863, but many are located where the regiments commemorated actually fought and died, thus helping the pilgrim to rededicate him- or herself to the intended purpose.
The South fought fiercely at Gettysburg, despite an inferior battlefield position, because they knew that foreign powers were watching to decide whether to aid the South. Thus Gettysburg was the high-water mark of the Confederacy in more than one sense (geographically and politically).
That's not the trees being cut down. The post indicates that the park service is planning to cut trees that have grown since the time of the battles. This doesn't effect what trees may have been there at the time of the War.
A year ago I spent much of a day walking various battle sites spread over the sprawling battle ground of Chickamauga. It appeared to me that many of the actual fields-of-fire were as they had been.
That feature allowed me to mentally walk through my readings on this great event where both sides displayed their best and worst. I know that comforting surroundings, even if lately grown and different from historical are hard to leave behind. The confusion between change and preservation to a growing landscape can certainly be frustrating. But I hope those discomforted can lay it aside and perhaps see the surroundings anew by looking at them as if they had been there at the time.
Until they culled the deer herd at G'burg, you'd swear that you were looking at cattle from Little Roundtop, there was so darn many of them. I've never seen so many whitetail in one place and in the open. No fear. Try driving the battle lines when there are deer bolting in front of you in broad daylight.
Isn't Vicksburg the battle they portrayed at the beginning of Cold Mountain where the damn yanks tunneled under the Glorious Southron Defenders' lines like a bunch of damned palestinians and blew them up, then lost the battle by getting stuck in the hole?
If so there were a heck of a lot of timbers required for those trenches I would imagine.
No park will cut down trees that were present during the battle unless they become a safety hazzard. The park historians at our Civil War battlefield parks are some of the most professional and conscientious people I have ever met. They have a deep sense of responsibility for the history of the parks and sacrifices that were made there.
No, that was Petersburg.
Actually, the Battle of the Crater (July 30, 1864) at Petersburg, Virginia was what was portrayed at the beginning of 'Cold Mountain.' I don't think Vickburg as been done yet, except in the old 1980s miniseries "The Blue and the Grey."
Would you want the area of Pickett's charge to be a forest or an open field?
Not meaning to make an off topic tangent, but I would love to see a movie done about the Vicksburg campaign. US Grant really showed his genius and tenacity during that one.
There were no shade trees there in July of 1863! Perhaps you would have them enclose the whole area and erect an air-conditioned pavilion for your "tourists" instead?
Gods and Generals lost so much money that it has killed any interest in filming purely Civil War movies for quite some time.
Do you want the whole park to return to being one large overgrown forest?
I think a monorail running along the battlelines would be nice, that way we could have airconditioning and not disturb the happy trees and smiling deer.
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