Stark Contrasts

I’m back from Gettysburg. It was a fun but terribly exhausting weekend. We were really kind of overprogrammed for the time we were there. Friday was an incredibly long day. We were up at 5:00 AM for a 6:00 departure to take Dale Gallon to tour the Trevilian Station battlefield. It took 3 1/2 hours to get down there, we spent a little more than 3 hours on the battlefield, and then another 3 1/2 hours to drive back to Gettysburg. All told, it was nearly a twelve hour day, followed by another very long day yesterday. Today, I had a six hour drive home after about four hours of battlefield stomping.

One thing really struck me during my time at Gettysburg this trip, something I’ve never really noticed before. The National Park Service is spending oodles of money at Gettysburg cutting down trees that have grown up there where there weren’t trees during the war, and in re-planting some historic tree lots, such as orchards, that were there at the time of the battle but which have been lost over the years. Now, don’t get me wrong–I love the vistas and I love being able to see things the way they were at the time of the battle. Acres and acress of trees have been cleared out between Devil’s Den and the Slyder farm, which opens the place up and gives an entirely different perspective on things. I do love it.

The park is also spending vast amounts of money restoring historic fence lines. Worm rail fences are being restored, as well as plank and board fences that were torn down or eliminated decades ago are being rebuilt and replaced on the field. Again, the restoration of these fences so as to restore the historic appearance of the battlefield is important work, and I don’t mean to downplay it. However, none of it does a thing to preserve an inch of threatened land, and none of it does a thing to preserve more of our heritage for future generations.

At the same time, there are stark contrasts.

Late on the afternoon of July 2, a nasty little cavalry engagement took place at Hunterstown, about six miles from Gettysburg. The combatants were Custer’s Michigan Cavalry Brigade (supported by Elon Farnsworth’s brigade) and Wade Hampton’s Confederate cavalry brigade. Until about five years ago, the battlefield was pretty much completely pristine. Only one small Twentieth Century structure had been built on the battlefield, and the rest was open farm fields with period homes and barns.

About five years ago, a power plant was built on a portion of the battlefield. It’s huge, and it’s one of the worst eyesores I’ve ever seen. In an effort to try to screen the thing, they built huge earthen berms in front of it. All of it has dramatically changed the lay of the land. However, the core of the battlefield remains intact and still pristine. To my great sadness, I learned today that there is apparently a movement afoot to built cheesy little tract homes on a portion of the battlefield.

There have been a number of efforts to try to acquire preservation easements for the pristine ground, all of which have been rebuffed. I am scared that this little gem of a battlefield will be obliterated in the name of progress much sooner than later, and there doesn’t seem to be much of anything that anyone can do about it.

The contrast between the failure to preserve this ground and the huge sums of money that are being spent on tree cutting and planting and on restoring historic fence lines–purely cosmetic stuff–is stark. Then there are national parks like the Petersburg National Battlefield where there is essentially no budget at all for anything. Several years ago, Chris Calkins told me that he had to limit visitors to making ten copies at the park library because that was all the budget he had available for that sort of thing. Again, the contrast is shocking. All of this really makes me wonder whether the folks responsible for this stuff really and truly have their priorities straight. I don’t think they do.

Is it ego run amok? Is the ego of the Gettysburg superintendent so immense that he needs to create this sort of a vast monument to himself?