I've sold monorails to Brockway, Audbinville, and North Haverbrooke, and by gum, it put them on the map! Well, sir, there's nothing on earth Like a genuine, Bona fide, Electrified, Six-car Monorail! What'd I say?
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.
Yeah, it would be a really good story of redemption too, since after his campaign of movement around Jackson and Raymond and during the siege, Grant went on a real bender out of boredom, so much so that his staff officers brought his wife down from Galena, Illinois to dry him out in time to accept Vickburg's surrender. Of course, Grant fully recovered and went on to greater things. It's too bad that no one has ever made a movie dedicated solely to him and his friend Sherman. It would be a good one.
So take them to a kiddy park next time. The Devil's Den area should relect the way it looked at the time. It was not created as a kid's playground. Perhaps you want them to add swing sets and monkey bars, but I don't.
Marszalek's book on Sherman would make a good movie. Not much action, but a fascinating character study.
Never seen Cold Mountain, wouldn't know.
I have heard that they considered rerouting the Mississippi.
That would have been a heck of a project.
The region grows good trees. It is the natural state. Pennsylvania--Penn's Woods.
Actually, the did try to rerout the Mississippi. You can see the remnants of the canal just off I-20 on the Louisiana side of the river.
There are some areas of the battlefield that was open ground in 1863 that are now dense forests. It's impossible to imagine what went on there as it stands today. I'm all for cutting down excess trees where they have overgrown battlefields. Did Pickett's charge occur in a forest or across an open field?
And coming to you in 2006 at NPS CW battlefields,courtesy
of Congressman Jesse Jackson,Jr.-displays on slavery as
the sole cause of the war. Quote-"for too many years the CW battlefields have had a Southern slant,I.E.,high water mark of the Confederacy at Gettysburg".
Yeah, it's too bad that G&G turned out as the bloated tribute to the Lost Cause that it did. By trimming out most of the neo-Confederate trappings and focusing upon the close working relationship between Lee and Jackson, it would have been a much better movie. G&G really did bury any future prospect of a real good Civil War film focused upon military and inter-soldier themes, such as "Glory".
The only rape of Gettysburg was letting it get overgrown and untended. It should be restored and preserved. It should not have forests where there were open fields just as it should not have baseball diamonds, soccer fields, or condominiums laid out over it.
If you want a natural park, not a military memorial, go somewhere else. There are plenty of natural parks to choose from -- but there is only one Gettysburg which should be as it was.
Some call G & G the "Virginia Monologues." lol
I've sold monorails to Brockway, Audbinville, and North Haverbrooke, and by gum, it put them on the map! Well, sir, there's nothing on earth Like a genuine, Bona fide, Electrified, Six-car Monorail! What'd I say?
I would be interested in getting an overall sense of other Civil War/History enthusiasts take on this. I know there are a lot of them on FR, Does anyone have a ping list?
They are all for restoring the park.
Heck, if someone can channel the dead veteran's thoughts, I can channel the Civil War/History enthusiasts thoughts as well.
Just say something bad about the causes of the war, Lee, and Grant, and they will inundate the thread. Of course, it will be hijacked into something completely irrelevant to the current discussion. lol
As the trees are cut they could introduce small goats to both keep the grass down and nip off any tree/shrub shoots as they come up. This would reduce or eliminate the cost of keeping the trees and shrubs from reclaiming their place
Agreed. The trees were really getting out of hand and needed to be thinned back substantially. I drove by Little Round Top and the Wheat Field the other day, and was amazed at how much you can see after the trees were removed. It gave me a much different sense about how the battle developed in that area and what the soldiers perceived as they fought a huge see-saw fight back and forth over that acreage.
Nah, that makes too much sense for the government to do. lol. Seriously though, that's probably the best way to do it so long as the goats do not lay any soil bare.
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