Just got back from a the Monumental City Fife & Drum Corps ‘mini jam’ in Patapsco Valley Park, Ellicott City.

I took my postcards, and displayed a poster inviting the musicians to meet for the First (?) Annual Remembrance Day ‘ceremony’ honoring B.G. Elon Farnsworth ….I asked folks to gather at the 1st VT Cavalry monument in the D shaped field at 5 pm. on the 22nd. (that’s right, in its present location! LOL)

I am selecting some Civil War tunes to be played, and I THINK we will have fifers AND drummers (in various states of sobriety, their having been jamming at O’Rourkes since the end of the parade…)

How GRAND if we could find a BUGLER to sound a charge at 5:30! Do you know any? I hope to read my new poem as we SHIVER together remembering this brave young Union hero. Rae Ann is hoping to make it, as well. Can you get the word out in your circles? on here maybe? Also, I’ll try to let J.D. know.
We may never get an ACTUAL monument erected, but Elon’s monument CAN live in the HEARTS of THE PEOPLE. That’s us. I honestly hope that this will be the beginning of a lasting ‘monument’ to him, long after you and I are gone.
Thanks, and I hope to see you there to say a few words!
Phoebe

How GREAT would THAT be?

If I remember correctly, there are twelve sections. Three dealt directly with the battle with I believe a pre-battle and post battle sections. That left seven sections that were non-battle related. At best you are looking at a 50-50 split. In my view that isn’t acceptable. And based on watching other people that day, most weren’t interested in the non-battle items either. One section for causes, one for after effects, one for The Gettysburg Address, and the rest for the battle seems more properly focused. Just like the movie, there was way too much focus on things that should not be the focus of the VC. And the movie does even a poorer job than the exhibits.

Slavery is a complex historical issue. Trying to increase the focus on it only causes unneeded arguments at the Gettysburg site. People aren’t going to Gettysburg to hear about slavery except at a cursory, slavery was one of the war’s major causes, level at best.

There are really a couple of different issues being discussed here:

!) should the VC include Context, i.e. slavery? Some yes, some nos, but it seems to me that no one has really made a case that the VC has sacrificed display space to overly long renditions of causes and thus slighted the battle. Some context is necessary, I think.

And it is also clear for some that ANY mention of slavery is too much – A return to the moonlight and magnolia days of Gone with the Wind. I met one of those types at Chickamauga a couple of weeks ago. I think their presence is the strongest argument for the need for context.

2) the other issue centers on the way the VC interprets the battle. Based on what I’ve read, the raw space is not a problem – the way it is used is. I have no quarrel with those arguments – I think more of the artifacts should be on display, if only to give folks an idea of the shear immensity of the battle and the aftermath.

I also have issues with the idea of charging, given how the new VC was sold to us in the first place – better, cheapter, nicer, etc.

Less books in the bookstore? That flies directly in the face of the educational mission of the NPS, and thus contradicts the idea that we include slavery. Frankly, wnen I walk into an NPS bookstore at a given park, I want that store to be the BEST resource in the area for the park’s particular focus. It it’s not, they have failed.

Dave Powell

1. The new movie is pretty much a waste of time and money. My expectations were that the movie would provide a great overview of the battle. Instead I felt like I was being given a lecture on slavery and civil rights. The between 5-10 minutes spent on the battle was disappointing and I felt that my $48 spent so the family could see it was wasted.

2. The exhibit area was a maze. Whoever described it as being herded like cattle is correct.

3. The ratio of material in the exhibits was disproportional for why people are there, to learn about the battle. I was so frustrated by going through section after section of slavery and not Gettysburg items, that by the time I got to the battle exhibits I was losing interest.

4. Whoever thought putting movies describing the battle in each of the battle day sections is nuts. First, if you don’t show up at the right time, you are stuck in an exhibit area which channels people through. That makes it a little hard to stand around waiting. Second, you’re trying to watch a movie with people milling around and talking. That makes it an awful environment to actually try and digest material. Chickamauga correctly put their nice movie in the theater.

5. I do agree that the material on display is pretty sparse, but I don’t agree that it needs to be a collection display.

6. Some of the displays concerning organization of ACW units and what to take on your campaign were nice.

7. The “book” store is atrocious. I was depressed by the lack of selection for Gettysburg and ended up buying a book on Stones River.

In some ways what was attempted was nice, but it falls very short of being successful. My humble opinion is that the whole concept needs redone. To start with, the pre-battle and post-battle exhibits should consist of one area apiece. There is too much of an imbalance now and it detracts from why most people are there, to learn about the battle. Next, the exhibit areas need redone so you can actually go to the one you want without walking the maze. Having to plow through the crowd to return an interesting section is poor design. Also, for the die hard artifact people, there needs to be an exhibit area that is regularly displaying different parts of the collection. Third, add a movie that is solely about the battle. You can keep the current one but there needs to be one that actually focuses the battle itself. Of course, having an actual movie about Gettysburg is going to kill what little traffic there is for the current movie. Finally, the bookstore needs to have a far greater selection of books about Gettysburg.

Another major problem is that the old VC *did* cater to the scholar as well as the tourist, especially with the wealth of artifacts that were on display. To say that this present VC is better and is “as it should be” smacks of the recent trends of dumbing things down to the general public and thinking they’re doing them a favor.

Meanwhile, of course, the North had “black codes” which forbid blacks from living or in some cases even ENTERING those states. Massachusetts, for instance, had the office of “Negro Whipper” which was used when a black “overstayed” his welcome in that state. Ohio and Illinois had “black codes” and the most rabid abolitionist certainly did not want liberated slaves anywhere near his own town or home. Like so many other “do-gooders”, their “compassion” was a thing of ideology and not humanity.

So let’s just admit what cannot credibly be denied, shall we? That is, that slavery has existed as long as mankind (and still exists), that it was used by all concerned from the black chieftains in Africa to the Yankee slave ship captains to the slave owners BLACK and WHITE in the North and the South. As the title of a famous author’s book on another issue entirely put it, “there is blame enough to go around”.

Let’s also admit – if you are able to overcome your own prejudices enough to do it – that slavery was legal and constitutional while the war waged by the North against the states in the South that legally and constitutionally seceded from the Union was IL-legal, UN-constitutional and, in fact, barbaric. You may not like those facts, but they are just that FACTS.

Even references to the issue of slavery fail to recognize and inform about the calls by radical abolitionists like John Brown and those who supported and financed him for slaves to rise in armed revolt against their masters and other whites in the manner of the Nat Turner massacres. No wonder non-slave owning Southerners – white and black – were incensed at Northern federal representatives for not speaking out against what were essentially calls for anarchy and mass murder.

While it is no doubt possible to present an objective presentation on a particular battle, it seems that the Parks Department and other so-called “historical” institutions have a very real agenda in their presentation of the War of Secession (it wasn’t a “civil war”!) and I for one object to my tax dollars financing this skewed and mendacious presentation of “history” according to the current politically correct viewpoint.

My problem with the attitude you espouse is that it is very similar to someone saying he likes going to school, but he only wants to be taught what he wants to learn. None of this boring English grammar stuff! If we see the battlefield parks as having an educational purpose (and I do), then it is well within the purview of the NPS to teach the whole story at those parks where it is appropriate. I would say that Gettysburg is one of those parks, for a number of reasons: (1) As the “flagship” park, it is the only Civil War battlefield many folks will see; (2) Because of the Gettysburg Address. No one is making anyone go to those parts of the exhibit space that deal with race, slavery, and the causes of the war. There is the issue of funding, of course. But I think we would fail the public at large to miss this chance to educate people.

JFE