Do you have evidence of this? Have you asked the park who is paying for the cutting? I know for a fact that at some Civil War parks the funding is paid for by private individuals who donated money for the specific purpose of restoring the parks to wartime conditions. I've posted excerpts on this thread by the men who set up these parks including the Secretary of War telling how they want to restore them to what they looked like at the time of the battles, as well as a statement saying that the park was not for love birds and recreation but rather for remembrance and study. Yet you still persist in making scandalous statements about their motives.
Gettysburg was not made into a park for your daily walks and commune with nature. It was founded to memorialize those who have fallen and for future historians and military men to study.
Tell that to Joshua Chamberlain, a man of integrity who if he walked the battlefield the past 3 months and saw the desecration and upheaval I'm sure would weep.
Gettysburg is hallowed ground. Its soil was consecrated with the lifeblood from the men of the north and south.
There are just as many of us who respect the battlefield, study the battle, and walk the ground who say the land should be a memorial to the men who died here.
I'm retired and bought a home here. Every day of my life when I wake up or when I go to bed, I think of the sacrifices made here. I would match my knowledge with anyone concerning the ground and the tactics that took place on that same ground.
A hundred and forty-three years of healing should not be raped and put asunder so that some historians can point out battle tactics.
In case of Gettysburg, other measures could have been taken rather than desecrate the woodlots that were not here at the time of the battle (walking trails should have been employed through the woodlots -- I've walked everywhere on this battlefield, through briars, poison ivy, bogs, and there's not a piece of the ground that I don't personally know). The park would not listen.
I'm sick and tired of listening to "experts" who are desecrating over 600 acres of timber just to get their point across, but most of all to get federal money to cut down trees instead using that same money for park maintenance -- the cannons are rusting and many other things are neglected.
Sorry, Bub, I just don't buy your spiel.
flying Elvis - Thank you for making the point about the parks being used by military men to study. That is precisely the reason I continue to return there. Being able to understand why so many die in a certain spot or why one side is able to to prevail when all logic tells you it should be otherwise is very important.
The key to understanding many battles is understanding the effects the terrain has on the events. A slight dip in the ground can be enough to allow a large part of a regiment to survive until reinforcements can help turn the tide of a battle. One of our tasks in OCS was to break apart that battle day by day and study it in depth. I can tell you that until I walked the ground, I had no way to apply or truly understand the facts I had learned.
Until I stood on Little Round Top and looked over my left shoulder at that sharp drop I didn't have a good appreciation of exactly why the Confederates could not simply go just around a little further to their right and come up from behind. I didn't need the trees removed to make that particular observation, but other events especially in the area of Devils Den were not so easy to grasp.
If one of our future or current leaders walks away with some insight which allows them to win a battle or engagement or save the lives of their men, then in my opinion it was worth the sacrifice of shade or some trees.