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Showing posts with label battlefield preservation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label battlefield preservation. Show all posts
I wrote this post in 2011. With many United States Civil War battlefields and other historic places still in danger of development, I feel the post is still timely.
The Fort that Defends Home Depot
Today we, and many other people interested in the Civil War, gathered in
Manassas, Virginia for the commemoration of the 150th anniversary of
the Battle of First Bull Run, or First Manassas (depending if you are
from the North or the South). (the actual anniversary was yesterday,
but the commemoration continues through the weekend.) I will talk more
about about this on my normal Civil War Sunday post this Sunday, but
today I wanted to talk about a very serious subject: the preservation
of Civil War battlefields.
Time Magazine recently did an article on the Civil War. A very
important thing that they did (whether or not you agree with their
analysis of "if we are still fighting the Civil War") was highlight,
with the use of reinactors, various Civil War battle sites which have been swallowed up by urban neighborhoods and shopping centers.
It happens everywhere. Last year it almost happened in Virginia, and only in January were the plans to build a Wilderness Wal-Mart on 51 acres near the site (but, beyond the boundaries of the Battlefield) of the Battle of the Wilderness.
The Civil War Trust, a preservation group, estimates that 20% of the "hallowed ground" of the Civil War has already been lost.
And with that, I wanted to mention something I experienced today on the Manassas City Tour.
The Fort (or the 11 acres that still exist in an undeveloped situation)
was built (along with various other fortifications) to defend the
railroad junction at Manassas. The junction's strategic importance to
both sides(and its necessity of not falling into Federal hands)
triggered the Battle of First Bull Run. A Confederate Stars and Bars flag flies
over the Fort. (it doesn't look that different from the Union flag of
the era if the wind isn't blowing full, which was the case when I took
this picture at noon today.)
In
the blazing heat, it was hard to walk around, and we stayed in the
shade while the reinactors on the left side did an artillery
demonstration. (What you are also seeing are historical plaques,
explaining the history of the fort) In fact, while we were there, a
person was taken away by ambulance due to being overcome by heat.) What
you don't see is what the fort is now defending. This is on top of a
hill, and if you kept walking through the photograph to the edge, you
would see beneath it ...housing developments. And a Home Depot.
This is the other photo I took before we gave up braving the heat, and
left the site. This is a "Quaker gun" i.e. it looks like a cannon and
would have been painted black. Various Quaker guns
were displayed at the Fort to fool the Federals. (They were called
Quaker guns because Quakers are pacifists, and these guns could never be
used to fight a war.)
If
you look to the extreme right side of the photo, about 2/3 of the way
up, you see one of the apartment houses built around the Fort.
I want to make it clear that I am not against progress and not against
development. What I am against is the trivialization of our history.
Without our history, we lose our identity as a nation.
I am happy that the remains of the Fort was preserved.
And I am even happier that the Home Depot will never have to fear an attack from the Union Army.
I have not felt the greatest the last couple of weeks, but thought it was exhaustion from my job, which is in a busy time of the year. I needed a vacation - badly.
Monday, at about 5am, in a motel room in Raleigh, North Carolina, I got a familiar feeling- and, later that morning, I was waiting to see someone in an urgent care the desk clerk in my motel had recommended.
I have to say this - they have excellent walk-in urgent care facilities in Raleigh. But, between my particular infection, and the antibiotic treatment used for it, I can now write a book called "Many of the Restrooms Along Interstates 40 and 77 in the Carolinas, Rated."
(Sorry if this is gross. Last on that topic.)
So fast forward (yes, PLEASE) to today, where spouse and I were walking down a street in South Carolina. Normally we would have been walking fast, but today, I just couldn't.
We were admiring a house when a man, perhaps close to my age or a tiny bit older, came over. He had been doing yard work. He said "hi", we said "hi" back, and continued our walk. Then, after a little bit, I was tired enough where I didn't want to walk anymore. So we were heading back to our car, and the man came over again.
This time, we chatted a few minutes, and then the magic happened. The man invited us into his (large!) yard, and then gave us a tour of part of his house, which has a distinguished ownership history. Part of his land is also located on a Revolutionary War battlefield. He gave us permission to take pictures of plants, but not his house.
If it wasn't for that infection, perhaps I never would have seen this tree on his property, or known its story.
This is a magnolia tree. He told us (which I am unable to independently verify) it is the widest magnolia in South Carolina. At one time, it was a lot taller, too, but Hurricane Hugo (1989) took care of that.
Several years ago I did a blog post on the Angel Oak near Charleston, SC and this tree reminded me so much of the Angel Oak.
I can mourn the loss of part of a battlefield, but the antebellum house this magnolia belongs to shows that battlefields weren't that respected, even more than 150 years ago.
Sometimes things happen for a reason. I would rather not have that infection. But sometimes, you just never know what is around the corner from where you may, except for the unexpected, never have been.
50 years before the United States Civil War our country fought another war, a war which tends to be swallowed up in the fascination our country has in the events that occurred between April of 1861 and April of 1865.
Today is the 200th anniversary of the writing of a poem of thanksgiving by a young lawyer, Frances Scott Key.
Too many Americans mumble their way through this poem that became our National Anthem, wondering why anyone cares if we can see in the dawn's early light, and hearing something about rockets, red glare, and bombs bursting in air. Too many Americans have little understanding about why the song was even written to begin with.
Today, I want to explore that poem.
And, best of all for my Sunday Civil War feature, there is a tie in with the Civil War.
It is well known that our National Anthem is difficult to sing, and every public performance becomes a moment of stress for the singer. The reputation of a singer, even a famous one, can hinge on whether the singer can survive the ordeal or not.
So why was such a song even chosen to represent our country,and what does that choice have to do with the Civil War? For that, we must go back in time to the year 1814.
I have a number of readers in Great Britain, and I appreciate every one of them. I consider them my cyber acquaintances. But, in 1814, my country was at war with their country.
Our treasury was bankrupt. Our capital was in ruins. Our President was running for his life. Things were not looking good for the United States.
Now, some three weeks later, the British were aiming to capture Baltimore, Maryland, a key harbor.
Enter an attorney practicing in Washington, DC, Frances Scott Key. Key, a religious man, had opposed the United States getting into what we call the War of 1812, but fought briefly in it. He was well respected.
A physician and college of Key, Dr. William Beanes, was taken prisoner by the British after the capture of Washington, DC and was being held in Baltimore.
Frances Scott Key was asked to negotiate with the British for the release of Dr. Beanes. With another gentleman, Colonel John Skinner, Key made his case and the British agreed to release Dr. Beanes. But first, the attack on Baltimore was beginning and the British decided they would not release Beanes until after the battle was over.
The British detained Key, Beanes, and Skinner on an American sloop for the duration of the battle. They also wanted Key to help negotiate the expected surrender of Baltimore, and Ft. McHenry, which was guarding Baltimore.
On the American sloop, Keys, Skinner and Beanes watched the engagement.
Through the night, the bombardment continued. On the American sloop, Key had a close up view
(he was about eight miles away) of what was happening, but he could not see if the fort had surrendered or not. Finally, after 25 hours, the British ceased their attack.
Key scanned the dawn skies - was the American flag still flying over Ft. McHenry?
Yes!
Key was an amateur poet, and he quickly wrote a poem called "Defence of Fort McHenry." which was published in the Baltimore paper.
Key died in 1843, at the age of 63. (Key, incidentally, also has a link with the City of San Francisco, perhaps a story for another time. I'll give you a hint: San Francisco cable cars.)
In 1861, as the Civil War began, there was another bombardment of a fort - Ft. Sumter, in Charleston Harbor (South Carolina), which became the first battle of the war. The "Defence of Fort McHenry." resonated with many loyal to the Union.
Over the years, there have been other interpretations. Wonder what Key would have thought of this one....
And, there is one more little tidbit to be mentioned. This really has nothing to do with our National Anthem, but makes a good story. Key had 11 children. One of Key's sons, Philip Barton Key, had an affair with the wife of a U.S. Congressman from New York. In 1859, the Congressman found out about the affair, got his wife's confession, confronted Key on the street and murdered him.
The Congressman's name was Dan Sickles. Sickles fought for the Union in the Civil War, receiving the rank of Major General, and lost his leg in the Battle of Gettysburg. The leg, incidentally, is on display in a medical museum (no, I haven't gone to see it.)
If you've ever been to Gettysburg and visited the battlefield, you can thank Dan Sickles, who was instrumental in preserving it for history.
They are racing against time, the researchers from the University of South Carolina. Some of them are descendents of Civil War veterans (more on that later).
In December, the researchers were given four months to excavate part of the 165-acre grounds of the former South Carolina State
Hospital to study a Union prisoner of war camp holding Confederate prisoners in the heart of the Confederacy from December of 1864 to February of 1865, ‘‘Camp Asylum.’’ Officers were held there. It was considered a perfect POW site due to the high walls built to keep residents of the asylum from escaping.
The site was sold for development in July of last year. Maybe it will become a mixed development of shops and apartments, something being considered for a ruined industrial site in my neighborhood in upstate New York (more on that later in March). After the research is done in this limited time frame, a piece of Civil War history in the capital of the state of South Carolina will be destroyed. After all, we can't stand in the way of progress.
This is the fate, way too many times, of Civil War related sites in our country, even as an organization, the Civil War Trust, fights for preservation of battlefields. I don't, however, know of any organizations fighting for preservation of non battlefield sites - I hope there are.
"Chief archeologist Chester DePratter said researchers are digging
through soil to locate the holes — the largest being 7 feet long, 6 feet
wide, and 3 feet deep — as well as whatever possessions the officers
may have left behind.
‘‘Almost everybody lived in holes, although the
Confederacy did try to procure tents along the way, as they could obtain
them,’’ said DePratter, a research archeologist with the University of
South Carolina’s Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology.
DePratter said he has been able to track down about 40 diaries
written by camp survivors, telling tales of suffering and survival, as
well as dozens of letters written by the prisoners about their
experiences.
‘‘It’s hard to imagine. They all talk about their clothing being
threadbare, many of them had no shoes. They shared the blankets they
had, three or four together spoon fashion and put a blanket over them’’
to stay warm, DePratter said."
What are the researchers hoping to find? Parts of uniforms, buttons, insignia, and perhaps personal affects from the 1,200 some odd prisoners held there until General Sherman's approaching Union army forced evacuation in February of 1865. Sherman's army, fueled by alcohol, burnt Columbia (not one of the finer moments of our history) and some residents of the city, now refugees, sought refuge on the grounds of the asylum.
The thought of those holes haunts me. It reminds me of a Civil War POW camp in Elmira, New York, an hour from where I live, so hellish that its Confederate prisoners called it Helmira.
It's funny that it should remind me of Elmira, because both DePratter and Long each had an ancestor held as a POW at Elmira.
The Civil War united us in ways we still don't completely understand.
Yesterday was the 151st anniversary of the Battle of Prairie Grove in Northwest Arkansas.
Today, rather than talking about the battle, I would like to talk about the park that exists where the battle of Prairie Grove was fought on December 7, 1862. I lived about 15 miles from this park in the early 1980's, I got to see it again during a brief visit to Northwest Arkansas in August of this year. I am pleased to say that Prairie Grove State Park is a nice example of how battlefield preservation can succeed. This battlefield is considered one of the most intact in the country, and, to top it off, admission is free. (a guided tour is $5.00).
So many Americans who live in the eastern part of our country don't spend enough time investigating the western theaters of the Civil War. I hope to be able to visit some more battlefields away from the East Coast next year.
First a little bit about Prairie Grove and the battle.
Prairie Grove, the nearby small city of about 4600 people, did not exist until after the Civil War. Prairie Grove celebrated its 125th birthday on July 9, 2013. Rather,the battle was named after the nearby log Prairie Grove Church that sat on high ground.
On December 7, 1862, the Confederate Army of the Trans-Mississippi, commanded at the battle by Major General Thomas C. Hindman, fought the Union Army of the Frontier, co-commanded at the battle by General James Blunt and General Francis Herron, leading to a Union victory.
Arkansans fought in both of these armies, as did soldiers from Missouri. In this battle, Native Americans, notably Creek and Cherokee, also fought.
There were approximately 2,700 casualties (dead, injured, captured, missing) in the battle. The Confederate Army, muffling the wheels of its wagons, retreated under cover of night, leaving northwest Arkansas and also Missouri (a Union slave state with a strong Confederate sympathy) in Union possession, although the battle was a technical "draw". The Confederacy would never regain control of the area.
View of Union position from Confederate Lines
Today, this battlefield looks so peaceful.
So, how does a battlefield get preserved?
In the case of Prairie Grove, the United Daughters of the Confederacy bought nine acres to create a commemorative park. Reunions of veterans continued every December 7 (it appears the last reunion with Confederate survivors in attendance was in 1938) until the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and the subsequent World War II, brought the reunions to an end.
But the park continued to grow, little by little.
In 1965, a donation of $100,000. came from the estate of Biscoe Hindman, son of Major General Hindman. The visitors center and museum on the grounds, dating from 1965 and renovated in 2010, is called Hindman Hall.
When we lived there in the 1980's, the park had just recently experienced an expansion to 130 acres, and that was the park we used to pass twice a day in our commute to and from work. The park, along U.S. Highway 62, was bordered with redbud trees. Their bloom every April was a delightful sign of spring. We would visit the Clothesline Fair held on the park grounds every Labor Day weekend. I still have art work and other items I purchased over the years at the Clothesline Fair.
When we returned in August of this year, we had already been amazed at the population growth in Northwest Arkansas. When we saw the park, for the first time in 27 years....
...the park had grown to some 838 acres.
We spoke to park staff (very helpful, and knowledgeable), and we were told that when we lived there much of the present battlefield park was privately owned, but the owners were elderly, and were dying. The park was fortunate to be able to get a mixture of state, federal and private funds to buy more land from the families involved, which brought the park to its present size.
It was so hot the day we were there that we only spent an hour or so at the park. We returned several days later for the Clothesline Fair, which still exists and is just as good as ever.
I will share more about the Clothesline Fair in the near future, and also hope to share more of my battlefield photos with you.
Next Sunday, Civil War Sunday will be on hiatus as it is the 15th of the month, and time for Garden Bloggers Bloom Day.
This post may veer towards the political, and if so, I am going to try to make it as non partisan as possible. I have friends, both in "real life" and on Facebook and they are on (as we like to say) "both sides of the aisle". My blog readers are also found all across the political spectrum, and a number are citizens of other countries.
It's too bad I have to get you involved in our national politics today, but it ties right in with our study of the United States Civil War. There are many unsung heroes of the war, which ended 148 years ago, and many of them are alive today. Don't believe me? Read on.
Have you ever seen the Federal Government of the United States as a keeper of history? Consider this: citizens from all over our country, and all over the world, come to the United States to explore our history through visits to national parks, national military parks and national monuments. Many more travel in cyberspace to the National Park Service website. These places are all maintained by federal employees. But our government is shut down and, hence, so are these parks and monuments, and the website - with the exception of unpaid park rangers and others trying to maintain public safety.
Folks, rangers aren't there just to direct traffic, tell you where the bathroom is and answer questions for the tourists. They have very real, very dangerous jobs, and if you don't believe it, realize that they sometimes are murdered in the performance of their duty.
If you visited the NPS (National Park Service website) today, you would find the following. I am taking the liberty of copying and pasting it, which I normally would not do, to prove a point. Read, especially, the last paragraph.
Because of the federal government shutdown, national parks are closed
and the National Park Service website is not being maintained....
We sincerely regret any inconvenience the closures cause and look
forward to once again welcoming you to your national parks. In the
meantime, we
respectfully request that you honor all park closures. With more than
20,000 National Park Service employees furloughed, the staff that remain
on duty
are focused on protecting park resources and human life and safety and
cannot provide the visitor services that you have come to expect from us
for
nearly 100 years.
Thank you for your support during this time.
Dear readers: The National Park Service is not the enemy. I've read reports that the Park Service employees are going beyond the "call of duty" in shutting sites down. I really don't care if that is true or not. I am sickened to read about verbal abuse of, and even physical assaults, to unpaid federal rangers and others caught in the shutdown.
I, in turn, want to thank each and every one of these rangers, and I hope you will join me in this, whether you are a Republican or a Democrat. The shutdown is NOT a reality show. People are being hurt. Military, children with cancer, and - yes, local economies wherever one of these parks or monuments exist. So much so that the State of Utah, rich in National Parks, is paying to temporarily reopen eight national sites.
If you want the shutdown stopped, call your congressman or senator and express your opinion. Or give money to the political party of your choosing. That's your right. Making life difficult for rangers is not your right.
I hope the shutdown is over by next Sunday, so I can go back to blogging about the Civil War itself. In the meantime, I'd like to thank the employees of the sites I visited this past August and September, including Wilson Creek, Pea Ridge (Elkhorn Tavern), and the George Washington Carver Birthplace. I, further want to thank other employees from sites I've visited since just before the 150th anniversary started: Ft. Sumter, SC, Ft. Pulaski, GA, Antietam (twice), Harpers Ferry,WV Monocacy, and Manassas (Bull Run). And even those visits before the 150th: Andersonville (home of a wonderful, and free, POW museum which honors POWs of all wars), Gettysburg, Fredericksburg, and others.
Your knowledge, your well run visitors centers, and your passion for the Civil War, have enriched my life and increased my knowledge.
And next week, hopefully, I will switch attention to a battlefield in Arkansas, one that is not a federal park, or even a state park.
A week ago, I was inside this church building near Sharpsburg, MD, along with a crowd of people visiting for a certain anniversary.
As we heard cannons booming nearby, a speaker spoke to us:
Imagine yourself inside this church, 150 years ago this week. You are a member of the Old German Brethren, called "Dunkers" by the locals. Things have not gone easy since the War Between the States broke out almost 1 1/2 years ago. Your home state, Maryland, is under military occupation by the Federals. And the Confederates have invaded. Rumor has it that they are nearby. Everyone is nervous, at the Sunday service. If you say the wrong things, you can be arrested.
But you, and your brethren, are pacifists. What can you do?
A few days later, the church is empty. It is early morning.
Suddenly there is gunfire and a battle is raging around your church.
(Photos taken 9/16/12 at the Dunker Church, Antietam Battlefield near Sharpsburg, MD, courtesy of AM).
By the time darkness falls, there will be some 23,000. casualties on both sides (dead, injured, missing). The name will live on in history....Antietam.
We are so fortunate that this battlefield has been preserved (unlike so many others) and we can walk its fields.
To quote from the New York Times review of the exhibition:
But there is a poetry in the scene that no green holds or smiling
landscapes can possese. Here lie men who have not hesitated to seal and
lamp their convictions with their blood, -- men who have lung themselves
into the great gulf of the until own to teach world that there are
truths [???] than life, wrongs and shames more to be dreaded than death.
And if there be on earth one spot where the grass will grow greener
than on another when the hunt, Summer comes, where the leaves of Antumn
will shop more lightly which they fall like a benediction upon a work
completed and promise fulfilled, it is these soldiers' graves.
The exhibition was called, simply, "Pictures of the Dead".
But it would not prevent the war from continuing. Or, the issuing of the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation 150 years ago yesterday, September 22, 1863, in the wake of that bloodiest of days.
That bloodiest of battles, that began at a church of people believing in peace.
Did you know that many of our Civil War battlefields, forts, and other sites are in danger of being swallowed up by development?
Actually, this has been happening for a long time.
The Civil War Trust, a preservation organization, estimates that at least 20% of our Civil War battlefields are already destroyed. In some states, the figures are more dire. For example, in Texas, only about 21% of Civil War acreage remains.
4. This one may surprise you - Gettysburg, the battlefield that was the turning point of the Civil War in 1863 - a proposed casino. (this, by the way, is not the only endangered site in Pennsylvania)
I also blogged recently about Camp Elmira, a notorious Civil War prisoner of war camp, which is partially in a residential neighborhood of Elmira, NY.
So....why should we care?
Because it is our history?
Because it is our heritage?
Because, in some instances, these sites were where our ancestors died?
Because those who don't care about their history are truly rootless?
My ancestors came to this country after the Civil War but I still feel that pull, that tug, to study it. Going to where history happened makes it come alive. It isn't at all like a dry textbook. It gives context. It allows you to smell, to feel, to see, what happened. It allows you to use your imagination. It is the best way to teach young and old alike.
How ironic, during this commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, we are still fighting the Battle of Preservation.
Unlike the Civil War, which lasted from 1861-1865, we will be fighting this Battle of Preservation for many years to come.
Today we, and many other people interested in the Civil War, gathered in Manassas, Virginia for the commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the Battle of First Bull Run, or First Manassas (depending if you are from the North or the South). (the actual anniversary was yesterday, but the commemoration continues through the weekend.) I will talk more about about this on my normal Civil War Sunday post this Sunday, but today I wanted to talk about a very serious subject: the preservation of Civil War battlefields.
Time Magazine recently did an article on the Civil War. A very important thing that they did (whether or not you agree with their analysis of "if we are still fighting the Civil War") was highlight, with the use of reinactors, various Civil War battle sites which have been swallowed up by urban neighborhoods and shopping centers.
It happens everywhere. Last year it almost happened in Virginia, and only in January were the plans to build a Wilderness Wal-Mart on 51 acres near the site (but, beyond the boundaries of the Battlefield) of the Battle of the Wilderness.
The Civil War Trust, a preservation group, estimates that 20% of the "hallowed ground" of the Civil War has already been lost.
And with that, I wanted to mention something I experienced today on the Manassas City Tour.
The Fort (or the 11 acres that still exist in an undeveloped situation) was built (along with various other fortifications) to defend the railroad junction at Manassas. The junction's strategic importance to both sides(and its necessity of not falling into Federal hands) triggered the Battle of First Bull Run. A Stars and Bars flies over the Fort. (it doesn't look that different from the Union flag of the era if the wind isn't blowing full, which was the case when I took this picture at noon today.)
In the blazing heat, it was hard to walk around, and we stayed in the shade while the reinactors on the left side did an artillery demonstration. (What you are also seeing are historical plaques, explaining the history of the fort) In fact, while we were there, a person was taken away by ambulance due to being overcome by heat.) What you don't see is what the fort is now defending. This is on top of a hill, and if you kept walking through the photograph to the edge, you would see beneath it ...housing developments. And a Home Depot.
This is the other photo I took before we gave up braving the heat, and left the site. This is a "Quaker gun" i.e. it looks like a cannon and would have been painted black. Various Quaker guns were displayed at the Fort to fool the Federals. (They were called Quaker guns because Quakers are pacifists, and these guns could never be used to fight a war.)
If you look to the extreme right side of the photo, about 2/3 of the way up, you see one of the apartment houses built around the Fort.
I want to make it clear that I am not against progress and not against development. What I am against is the trivialization of our history. Without our history, we lose our identity as a nation.
And I am very glad the remains of the Fort was preserved.
And I am even happier that the Home Depot will never have to fear an attack from the Union Army.
