(1) A Civil War Piece, Put in Its Set - Washington Post
(2) Abe on the Move - Hardin News-Enterprise
(3) Descendents of John Brown Head to West Virginia - Associated Press
(4) Wal-Mart Hearing Reset in Orange - Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star
(5) Carnton Plantation Opens New Visitors Center - Nashville Tennessean
(6) Orange Postpones Wal-Mart Hearing - Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star
(7) Artifacts Meant to Stay on National, State Land - Arkansas Democrat Gazette
(8) Teachers Follow in Soldiers' Footsteps - Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star
(9) Editorial: History Without a Home - Philadelphia Inquirer(10) Editorial: Orange, Arise - Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star
(11) Ohio Historical Society Faces Cuts - Cleveland Plain Dealer
(12) LeVans Donate Land to Park Service - Gettysburg Times
(13) Group to Stage Re-enactment to Save Site - Frederick County Gazette(14) Opinion: Let History Ring - Waltham News-Tribune
--(1) A Civil War Piece, Put in Its Set -----------------------------------------------------
A Civil War Piece, Put in Its Set
By Tracey Woodward
7/30/2009
Washington Post Loudoun Extra (VA)
http://loudounextra.washingtonpost.com/news/2009/jul/30/civil-war-piece-put-its-set/?local
The Battle of Aldie during the Civil War erupted at the site of
Mount Zion Old School Baptist Church and then progressed west
toward Aldie Mill.
The Northern Virginia Regional Park Authority, which owns the
grist mill, has planned to bring the battle to life with historical
interpretations, said its executive director, Paul Gilbert. But
until last week, the park authority was missing one element in
its historical narrative: the Mount Zion church.
The Loudoun County Board of Supervisors voted July 21 to give
ownership of the seven-acre church property to the park authority.
"The Mount Zion church and Aldie Mill kind of make bookends
to the Battle of Aldie," Gilbert said. "We are in a
good position to kind of interpret that whole battle since it
goes . . . right by or through two of these historic sites."
During the Civil War, Union troops lived at Mount Zion, along
Route 50, and used it as a hospital and a burial place for soldiers.
The park authority also will take over Mosby Run, an 88-acre parcel
across the street from the church now owned by the Mount Zion
Church Preservation Association.
Gilbert said the property was at risk of foreclosure because the
preservation association fell behind on its payments for a state
loan it used to buy the property a few years ago.
Together, Mosby Run and the Mount Zion church will form a regional
historical park.
Mount Zion reopened to the public in May after the county closed
it for two years and spent $788,000 for its restoration.
The county, which usually appropriates $716,000 annually to the
park authority, will be credited for the investment it made in
the church, Gilbert said.
In the agreement, the county also transferred 147 acres of the
Beaverdam Reservoir property to the park authority. The authority
hopes to turn the property into a second regional park with "passive
recreation," including a trail network and water access,
Gilbert said.
The transfer of the properties will go before a public hearing
scheduled for Sept. 8.
At the board's meeting, supervisors said they were pleased the
Mosby Run and Beaverdam Reservoir properties have found new uses.
"What we get out of this is two large recreational facilities
that would be operated and maintained by someone else," said
Supervisor James Burton (I-Blue Ridge). "It will be accessible
to . . . a great deal of Loudoun residents."
Board Chairman Scott K. York (I) noted that the reservoir property
was from a proffer a developer offered the county in a rezoning
case.
The creation of a regional park "gives an opportunity to
put the property to use," he said.
--(2) Abe on the Move -----------------------------------------------------
Abe on the Move
By John Friedlein
7/30/2009
Hardin News-Enterprise (KY)
http://www.thenewsenterprise.com/cgi-bin/c2.cgi?053+article+News.Local+20090729174641053053006
While the celebration of Abraham Lincoln's bicentennial birthday
is winding down, the recent push to develop Abe-related sites
could continue through two major initiatives.
One of them, depending on federal approval, would designate areas
of Kentucky - including Elizabethtown - as a National Heritage
Area. This eventually could mean funding for local projects such
as reconstruction of the fire-damaged Lincoln Heritage House or
turning an old Civil War fort into a tourist destination, said
Hardin County History Museum spokeswoman Susan McCrobie.
The other is the newly formed Kentucky Lincoln Sites Alliance,
which networks Abe sites to help boost tourism and share resources.
"We become stronger working together," McCrobie said.
For instance, one site can send visitors to another one, and members
can loan items to each other for exhibits.
The alliance, which now is working on its bylaws, has all the
sites - and the state - on board, McCrobie said. In fact, money
left in state Bicentennial Commission coffers - about $10,000
- will help launch the group.
It plans to use office space in the Hodgenville Lincoln Museum.
Alliance spokeswoman Iris LaRue, who also is the museum's director,
said, "It's a really exciting way for us to continue to build
on what's going very well."
During the celebration of Abe's big birthday, which was this year,
Lincoln sites have experienced "substantial growth,"
she said.
The alliance intends to build on bicentennial programs, such as
teachers' symposiums, created during this time.
It also will continue Internet projects, such as an informational
site about the Lincoln Heritage Trail, and could help with the
state's recognition of the 150th anniversary of the Civil War.
The consortium's activities likely will be funded by dues from
member sites.
Also, the group's existence could be a plus with the National
Heritage Area designation, LaRue said.
Kentucky Sen. Jim Bunning pushed legislation through Congress
to have the National Park Service consider the state's Lincoln
sites as a Heritage Area.
There are a total of 40 such designations in the United States
- including the entire state of Tennessee because of its Civil
War history.
The project supports "large-scale, community centered initiatives
that connect local citizens to the preservation and planning process,"
according to the Alliance of National Heritage Areas' Web site.
The NPS in September will visit Kentucky to have community meetings
and look over the area, said Keith Pruitt, superintendent of Abraham
Lincoln Birthplace National Park.
This is a feasibility study and early in the process, which could
take two years, he said.
The birthplace park would serve as a liaison between the community
and the coordinators with the NPS, which provides planning and
limited financial assistance.
If the designation were approved, it would allow local sites to
receive federal funding for work such as maintenance, revitalization
and education, McCrobie said.
And federal employees moving here from Virginia with the Fort
Knox realignment are used to government involvement in cultural
areas, McCrobie said. "To sustain the type of lifestyle they're
used to, we're going to have to step up to initiatives like this,"
she said.
--(3) Descendents of John Brown Head to West Virginia
-----------------------------------------------------
John Brown Descendents Head to West Virginia
Associated Press
7/29/2009
Associated Press (NAT)
http://www.dailymail.com/News/200907290154
Descendants of abolitionist crusader John Brown and others involved
in the Harper's Ferry raid have been invited to Charles Town to
help mark the skirmish's 150th anniversary.
The Jefferson County NAACP has invited nearly 500 people whose
ancestors were raiders, jailers, members of the military who fought
in the raid or jurors who convicted Brown of treason.
Local NAACP president George Rutherford says people from as far
away as Washington state are scheduled to come.
Those include direct descendants of Brown, whose 1859 raid on
the armory at Harper's Ferry helped push the country toward the
Civil War that erupted two years later.
The gathering is scheduled for Aug. 14.
--(4) Wal-Mart Hearing Reset in Orange -----------------------------------------------------
Wal-Mart Hearing Reset in Orange
By Robin Knepper
7/29/2009
Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star (VA)
http://fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2009/072009/07292009/482897
After canceling Monday night's public hearing on a proposal to
build a Wal-Mart near the Wilderness Battlefield, Orange County
officials have been wrestling with how to put the controversial
project back on track.
Last night the Board of Supervisors agreed to reschedule its public
hearing for Monday, Aug. 24, at the Orange County High School
at 6 p.m., an hour earlier than usual.
The supervisors could vote on Wal-Mart's special-use permit application
that night, if time permits, or vote the next night at their regularly
scheduled meeting.
But these plans depend on the county Planning Commission rescheduling
and completing its public hearing and making a recommendation
to the supervisors before Aug. 24.
The Planning Commission is holding a special meeting tomorrow
night to consider this. Because of the legal requirements for
advertising public hearings (once a week for two consecutive weeks)
the earliest the Planning Commission could hold its public hearing
would be at its regularly scheduled meeting on Thursday, Aug.
20.
The Board of Supervisors can't hold its public hearing until the
Planning Commission meets and votes, but it can advertise beforehand.
"The Board of Supervisors can ask the Planning Commission
to vote," said County Attorney Sharon Pandak, "but can't
require it."
Wal-Mart is proposing a 138,000-square-foot supercenter on a 51.6-acre
tract a quarter-mile north of the intersection of State Routes
3 and 20.
But the public hearing Monday was canceled after Wal-Mart personnel
discovered that the weekly newspaper in Orange County had failed
to publish the second of two legally required notices advertising
the May 21 public hearing before the county Planning Commission.
Acting County Administrator Julie Jordan said that "out of
an abundance of caution," both the public hearings before
the Planning Commission and the Board of Supervisors would be
rescheduled.
The Planning Commission last month voted 5-4 to recommend approval
of a special-use permit for the store and accompanying retail
center.
Preservation groups have consistently opposed the location of
the project, saying the supercenter and traffic it would bring
would desecrate the battlefield.
A majority of local residents and county supervisors, however,
have voiced support for the retail giant and the jobs and tax
revenue it would bring.
Wal-Mart officials have consistently said that there is no other
location along the Route 3 corridor that meets its criteria for
commercial zoning, size and configuration and traffic access.
Those who didn't get the news that the public hearing had been
canceled gathered Monday at Orange County High School to voice
their opinions.
"There was a steady stream of people coming and going,"
said Madison County resident Doris Lackey. "There were about
a dozen people in Confederate uniforms and two or three people
handing out fliers explaining why the meeting had been canceled."
Civil War re-enactors from New Jersey, Pennsylvania, West Virginia
and many places in Virginia arrived for the public hearing, according
to Lynn Tuckwiller, a supporter of the Civil War Preservation
Trust. In an e-mail yesterday she said the "living history"
groups were an "impressive sight, especially when they played
taps!"
Sheriff Mark Amos said a deputy was on the scene, but there were
no incidents.
Lee Frame, chairman of the Board of Supervisors, said the worst
part of the mix-up was that, "We've got to drag this out
another month."
--(5) Carnton Plantation Opens New Visitors Center
-----------------------------------------------------
Carnton Plantation Opens New Visitors Center
By Kevin Walters
7/29/2009
Nashville Tennessean (TN)
http://www.tennessean.com/article/20090729/COUNTY0902/907290334/1177/Carnton+Plantation+opens+new+visitors+center
Today, visitors to Carnton Plantation will get their first glimpse
inside a long planned project to bring modern amenities to a site
with ties to Franklin's Civil War past.
The new, $1.2 million Fleming Center opens its doors for a soft
opening Wednesday that Carnton supporters have been hoping would
come for years.
At 7,000 square feet, the new visitors center offers ample event
and exhibit space, as well as new restrooms, water fountains and
office space for staff. The center will replace the doublewide
trailer used at the site for years.
The upgrade will improve visitors' trips to the museum and will
mean more guests can use Carnton for events like weddings and
receptions, said Margie Thessin, plantation interim executive
director.
"For us, events are fund-raising," Thessin said. "We
really hope that people like to come out and take a look."
During the Battle of Franklin on Nov. 30, 1864, the plantation's
main house was used as a hospital. It is adjacent to the McGavock
Confederate Cemetery, the largest privately held Confederate cemetery.
The center, which sits behind where the trailer is located, is
named after Sam Fleming, a Franklin native and Middle Tennessee
banker who was a lifelong supporter of the museum. His widow,
Valerie Fleming, raised money to build the center and name it
after her husband. An official dedication ceremony will take place
Sept. 12.
Exhibits planned for the center include a new Battle of Franklin
exhibit that will feature relics from the battle, including presentation
swords and other artifacts.
In September, the center will host an exhibit focusing on Confederate
Gen. John Bell Hood, who was defeated at the Battle of Franklin.
"We feel like this exhibit is going to draw people from all
over the country," Thessin said.
The center will be open Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5
p.m. On Sundays, the center will be open from 1 to 5 p.m.
--(6) Orange Postpones Wal-Mart Hearing -----------------------------------------------------
Omitted Ad Forces Orange to Postpone Wal-Mart Hearing
By Robin Knepper
7/28/2009
Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star (VA)
http://fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2009/072009/07282009/482629
Barely four hours before the public was to be heard yesterday
on a proposal to build a Wal-Mart in the Wilderness battlefield
area, Orange County officials canceled the hearing because of
a technicality.
Wal-Mart personnel found that one of two legally required notices
advertising a May 21 public hearing before the county Planning
Commission had not been published by the local weekly newspaper.
County officials were notified of the problem yesterday morning
and decided to cancel last night's hearing "out of an abundance
of caution," acting County Administrator Julie Jordan said.
"We regret the inconvenience to everyone," she said,
"but the proper publication requirements were not met."
County Attorney Sharon Pandak said the legally required advertisements
had to be published once a week in the two weeks before the hearing.
She said the Orange County Review ran the first ad, but not the
second.
Nancy Embree, advertising manager for the 78-year-old weekly paper,
apologized for the error.
"It's embarrassing that a mistake like this occurred on such
a high-profile public hearing as the Wal-Mart special-use permit.
We apologize to the Orange County administration, Wal-Mart and
the community," she said.
Keith Morris, Wal-Mart's director of public affairs, said the
delay wouldn't change the retailer's plans.
"Whenever the next round of hearings is scheduled, we'll
go forward," he said. "In every instance we want to
be sure we have full public participation and follow all legal
procedures."
Wal-Mart has proposed building its 138,000 square-foot Supercenter
on a 51.6-acre tract a quarter-mile from the intersection of State
Routes 3 and 20 and the Fredericksburg-Spotsylvania National Military
Park.
Historic-preservation organizations have mounted a national campaign
against the plan, saying the store and the traffic it would bring
would desecrate the Civil War battlefield.
Those who support the Wal-Mart proposal cite the jobs and tax
revenue it promises. Company officials have said the store will
generate 622 jobs and $800,000 a year in revenue once it is in
operation.
Orange County supervisors will discuss the situation at its regularly
scheduled meeting tonight, Pandak said. The Planning Commission
has called a special meeting Thursday to discuss the Wal-Mart
situation.
"It's in our interest to try to remedy this as quickly as
possible," Pandak said.
The Planning Commission, which voted 5-4 June 25 to recommend
that supervisors approve the permit, could start again from scratch.
They could advertise and hold another public hearing, then vote
again on a recommendation.
Or, Pandak said, the Planning Commission and Board of Supervisors
could advertise and hold a joint public hearing on the proposal.
"It hasn't been the tradition in Orange County to hold joint
public hearings," Pandak said, "but they can if they
want to."
--(7) Artifacts Meant to Stay on National, State Land
-----------------------------------------------------
Artifacts Meant to Stay on National, State Land
By Robert J. Smith
7/27/2009
Arkansas Democrat Gazette
http://www.nwanews.com/adg/News/265333/
National Park Service officials hope the recent conviction of
a Russellville couple for violating a federal law will serve as
a lesson to those who traipse across public land seeking a piece
of history to take home.
The Archeological Resources Protection Act of 1979 prohibits digging
up, destroying, disturbing or collecting arrowheads, pottery or
other ancient artifacts found on federal land.
"There's a huge concern that the public doesn't know what's
allowed," said Caven Clark, a National Park Service archaeologist
at the Buffalo National River. "We want them to know so we
can focus on the industrial-strength bad guys who don't give a
hoot whose property they are looting on."
Tinkering with artifacts on federal land can result in felony
charges. In Arkansas, protected sites include Pea Ridge National
Military Park in Benton County, Arkansas Post National Memorial
near Gillett, U.S. Forest Service land and U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers property.
A similar Arkansas law makes it a crime to pluck pieces of history
from state property, but the most serious archaeological crimes
in Arkansas have occurred on federal land, where hundreds of archaeological
sites are spread over thousands of acres.
"On a Civil War battlefield, taking stuff cheats future visitors
out of the information that that relic holds," said John
Scott, the Pea Ridge battlefield superintendent. "What's
more important than the relic is the context of where it's found."
LOOTING CONVICTIONS
Russellville residents William A. and Misty Graves were accused
of digging for artifacts along the Buffalo National River in January
2008. The state Crime Laboratory determined that tool marks at
a dig site matched tools used by the couple.
William Graves pleaded guilty to a felony and was sentenced in
June to six months in prison and one year of supervised probation.
Misty Graves pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge and received
a year of supervised probation. The couple must pay $4,613 in
restitution.
Criminal charges of that nature are rare nationwide, according
to a report delivered to Congress this year. Federal park rangers
investigated 5,125 documented violations of the resources act
between 1998 and 2003, but just 283 people were charged.
Felony arrests in Arkansas for violations of the act also are
rare, said Jeff West, a Buffalo National River park ranger. He
estimated misdemeanor arrests total about 10 a year.
In addition to the Graves case, there were two other major cases
in recent years that involved looting artifacts from federal land
in Arkansas.
In 2008, Carl Henderson of Flippin was sentenced to 21 months
in prison and ordered to pay $2,720 in restitution after pleading
guilty to a felony charge of violating the protection act.
Henderson was accused of looting sites near the Cedar Creek access
to the Buffalo River in Marion County. He was camping nearby,
and rangers matched the tread on his boots to prints near the
dig sites.
In 2000, Randall Beeson of Springdale was convicted of violating
the act at the Pea Ridge park. Investigators determined he used
a metal detector and dug more than 100 holes in the battlefield,
then pilfered bullets, artillery pieces and an 1858 "brass
eagle" button believed to be part of a Union soldier's uniform.
Beeson was sentenced to four months in prison, 400 hours of community
service and ordered to pay $16,508 in restitution.
"I like to say stealing from this battlefield is like giving
you a really good book, and the first few chapters are there and
the end is there, but the middle of the book is ripped out,"
Scott said. "That's what happens when those artifacts are
taken. We lose all that information."
LESS DIGGING ELSEWHERE
At Arkansas Post National Memorial near Gillett, superintendent
Ed Wood said looting has been an occasional issue. The 1,000-acre
park, established 49 years ago, was a trading post and the first
settlement of Europeans west of the Mississippi River when it
was set up in 1686.
Digging is infrequent on federal land managed by the Corps of
Engineers, said Chris Davies, the Little Rock district's archaeologist.
"We usually find out after the fact, and we don't have the
evidence to prosecute individuals," Davies said. "We
rely a great deal on the public to report what they find."
State parks see little intrusion by illegal diggers looking for
stashes of buried artifacts, said Stewart Carlton, superintendent
of Toltec Mounds Archeological State Park.
The park, which is 12 miles southeast of Little Rock, is the ancestral
home of the Plum Bayou culture, who lived in the area from 650
to 1050 and built mounds as building foundations.
"Our parks are generally smaller than the federal parks,"
Carlton said. "I've got 200 fenced acres and I live on the
site. There's much more presence here, and the gates close each
evening."
On private lands, laws forbid people from digging into grave sites,
but it's legal to search for arrowheads and other artifacts with
permission.
That's how Jeremy Gunn of Paragould found his first artifact when
he was just 6. It was an arrowhead discovered on the family farm
near the Finch community in Greene County.
Gunn, now 31 and a truck driver, still owns that childhood prize.
His artifact collection's focus is now on Cache River sidenotched
points.
"I found most of them or bought them at shows," said
Gunn, an organizer of an annual spring Paragould artifact show.
"I've bought them for $5, and I've paid $250 for some. It
depends on the quality and the color."
Indeed, artifact shows exist all over the nation, where collectors
buy, sell and swap stories about what they find and own. There
are also Web sites selling and museums displaying ancient artifacts.
David Bogle, owner of the Museum of Native American Artifacts
in Bentonville, said he'd never been asked prior to a reporter's
questions last week how he knows the items in his collection were
all legally obtained.
Much of what he displays was gleaned from the former University
of Arkansas Museum that closed in 2003. Other items were obtained
from large private collections.
"We've got 3,000 artifacts on display," Bogle said.
"I'm 100 percent confident that it's all legally obtained."
Thousands of pieces are for sale on Web sites, and buyers can't
be certain whether the pieces were obtained legally.
Scott, the Pea Ridge park superintendent, said some of the items
may have been gathered prior to the park's opening in 1956. The
battle was in 1862, leaving decades for "kids to collect
cannonballs off the battlefield."
Gunn, who organizes the Paragould show attended by hundreds of
people, said he buys items mostly from people he knows and asks
where they were obtained in an effort to avoid property that's
been looted from public land.
"It sucks that they dig things up on federal land,"
Gunn said.-+
--(8) Teachers Follow in Soldiers' Footsteps -----------------------------------------------------
Teachers Follow in Soldiers' Footsteps
By Rob Hedelt
7/26/2009
Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star (VA)
http://fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2009/072009/07262009/482251
THE TEACHERS were doing what they instruct students to do: getting
a feel for history by walking the path of those who made it.
That's what brought 160 teachers from across the country who specialize
in history, social studies and related disciplines to Fredericksburg-area
battlefields yesterday to take part in the 2009 Teacher Institute
sponsored by the Civil War Preservation Trust.
The approach: Immerse teachers in the Civil War in a way that
will better help them pass it on to students.
Jamie Massey of Claremore, Okla., came to understand the carnage
inflicted on Union soldiers trying in vain to get to the stone
wall at the foot of Marye's Heights, which gave Confederate units
perfect cover in the 1862 Battle of Fredericksburg.
Jackie Fleming of Rutland, Vt., eyeballed the actual bullet holes
in the Innis House just below that stone wall, and got a kick
out of discovering that city resident Martha Stevens, who owned
the house, left the damaged siding in place after the war to earn
an occasional dollar with the dwelling as a sort of tourist attraction.
Taking a walk along Sunken Road, and hearing about the damage
done in battles here, Beth Cogswell of Fairfax came to understand
some of the far-reaching damage the war did hereabouts.
National Park Service guide Randy Washburn, a former Stafford
County school principal, told the teachers that the population
of Spotsylvania County didn't make it back up to pre-Civil War
totals until the late 20th century.
He told them that half of the people who fled from Fredericksburg
during the war never returned; that 84 buildings were destroyed;
and that income in the city plummeted some 70 percent.
And that in Stafford, where large numbers of troops bivouacked
between battles, soldiers cut so many trees for firewood in some
spots that that "you couldn't find one for miles."
That sort of information and workshops on a range of topics at
the three-day workshop were just what Vermont's Fleming was hoping
for.
The eighth-grade social-studies teacher said she faces a special
challenge. Her state sent many young men to fight in the war,
but those battlefields are far away.
"I can't take my students to the battlefields, but I can
come here and collect artifacts and information to make it all
more real for them," said Fleming.
She and other teachers I talked to said the key thing they'll
take home is the sort of information and personal tidbits that
can make history seem real and immediate.
"Thirteen-year-olds already feel like they're the center
of the universe, so you have to find a way they can connect with
or relate to about what you're teaching," she said.
Connie Sullivan, who teaches sixth grade at Dixon-Smith Middle
School in Stafford, was one of several local teachers taking part
in the institute.
"Yes, even though I've been here before and call this area
home, I've learned a great deal I didn't know before," said
Sullivan, who deserved the good sport award for taking in Sunken
Road and more on crutches after knee surgery.
LaVerne McDonald of Birmingham, Ala., said she'll be a student
for most of the session, but also a presenter for part of it.
The director of a history project in Birmingham schools is scheduled
to share what she has learned about the connection between the
Confederacy and the English city of Liverpool.
"Many people don't realize it, but the Confederacy had strong
ties to the city, mainly because of the slave trade that ran through
there," said McDonald, who studied one summer at a university
there.
She added: "The Confederacy even had an embassy there. Businessmen
there during the Civil War had a keen interest in the South winning
the war."
--(9) Editorial: History Without a Home -----------------------------------------------------
Editorial: History Without a Home
7/24/2009
Philadelphia Inquirer (PA)
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/opinion/20090724_Editorial__History_without_a_home.html
The Civil War Museum of Philadelphia has an important story to
tell, but no place to tell it.
The museum closed its cramped quarters in Center City last August,
with plans to move into a new home near Independence National
Historical Park. But since then, Gov. Rendell has rescinded a
promised capital grant that would pay for renovation of the new
home.
The loss of funding prompted the National Park Service to withdraw
its offer of a historic building at Third and Chestnut Streets.
The museum may be forced to leave Philadelphia. "We're really
at a crisis point right now," said Sharon Smith, the museum's
president and CEO.
The museum's 3,000 artifacts are still in storage - letters from
soldiers to their wives; a smoking jacket that belonged to Confederate
President Jefferson Davis; a tree trunk studded with metal shell
fragments from the Battle of Gettysburg; a Tiffany sword given
to Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant after he captured Vicksburg; and
what is believed to be Robert E. Lee's copy of the terms of surrender
at Appomattox.
It's a collection that should be on display in Philadelphia, which
played a key role in the emergence of African Americans from slavery
to full citizenship. The city was the home of the first free community
of blacks in the nation, a hub in the Underground Railroad, and
an important stage for abolitionists.
Nine years ago, public officials felt the museum was so important
to the city that they went to court to block its planned move
to Richmond, Va. Among those who prevented the museum from leaving
was the Republican state attorney general, Mike Fisher.
That effort to save the collection resulted in former State Sen.
Vincent J. Fumo and Rep. James Roebuck (D., Phila.) securing $15
million in capital funding for the museum. In 2007, Rendell told
museum officials he would release $8 million to $10 million of
the capital grant.
But the governor later reneged.
Roebuck said the governor told him the museum's collection "wasn't
important; that it was marginalized."
"It was almost flippant; I don't quite understand,"
Roebuck said.
A spokesman for the governor said there are limited funds for
capital projects and that "specific Philadelphia projects
would be identified by the city."
The state has a budget crisis, but funding for capital projects
does not come out of the general operating fund. And the bond
money for this project was designated years ago.
The museum would have an economic impact, drawing as many as 900,000
new visitors annually. Officials have raised more than $1 million
in private pledges but say they need the grant money to leverage
more donations.
The state should follow through with its commitment and help the
museum find a new home in Philadelphia.
--(10) Editorial: Orange, Arise -----------------------------------------------------
Editorial: Orange, Arise
Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star
7/24/2009
Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star (VA)
http://www.fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2009/072009/07242009/481756/index_html?page=1
IN 1969, two Los Angeles coeds formulated the idea of distributing
metal bracelets as a way to remember American prisoners and GIs
missing in action during the Vietnam War. Each bracelet bore the
name of a single POW/MIA, and those who donned one did so with
the understanding that they would wear it until "their"
serviceman came home or was confirmed dead. More than 1,700 Americans
who fought in Vietnam remain unaccounted for. As time passed and
hope for resolution of their fates all but died, the bracelets
began to disappear. But even 20 years after the war ended, a few
Americans continued to wear theirs; surely some still do.
Long before Vietnam, at the end of the American Civil War, the
sides exchanged prisoners, but still the whereabouts of thousands
of Billy Yanks and Johnny Rebs were unknown. Some would stay that
way. They had died at places such as the Wilderness, blown to
bits by artillery shells or charred beyond recognition in the
fires that swept that brush-thick battlefield. "And some
there be"--Shelby Foote quotes Ecclesiasticus to introduce
his magnificent "The Civil War: A Narrative"--"which
have no memorial; who are perished, as though they had never been;
and are become as though they had never been born."
SENSE OF THE AWESOME
To remember in spirit those unrememberable in specifics is one
reason governments set aside battlefields as inviolable memorials.
Another is to certify beyond argument something profound happened
here. Normandy. Shiloh. The Alamo. Bunker Hill. Thermopylae. Verdun.
Pause and reflect, because you would live in a different kind
of world without the sacrifices made on this ground.
Many things profound happened in May 1864 during the battle of
the Wilderness. There, 61,000 Confederates under Robert E. Lee--ragged,
almost skeletal men, some without shoes--played death for three
days with 100,000 Union soldiers under Ulysses S. Grant, men who
entered forbidding woods in enemy country to dislodge a deadly
and determined foe. The Wilderness was the opening stanza in Grant's
Overland Campaign, which ended at Appomattox Courthouse, causing
the destruction of one kind of society and the creation of another
"best defined perhaps," writes Foote, "by the change
in number of a simple verb. In formal as in common speech, abroad
as well as on this side of its oceans, once the nation emerged
from the crucible of that war, 'the United States are' became
'the United States is.'" And that unification changed the
course of human history on this planet.
Monday night the Orange Board of Supervisors is likely to vote,
after a public hearing, on a special-use permit that would allow
construction of a Wal-Mart Supercenter and associated big-box
stores on 51.6 acres that were part of the Battle of the Wilderness
and that lie near the formal battlefield park. Motley opponents--historians,
preservationists, out-of-state legislators, in-state public officials
(Gov. Kaine, Sen. Webb, House Speaker Bill Howell, state Sen.
Creigh Deeds), actors, plain folk--want the board to deny the
permit and find a less sensitive site for Wal-Mart and its retail
retinue. Their voices are important. But they are not most important.
The Union and Confederate armies suffered around 29,000 casualties
in the Wilderness--by coincidence, almost exactly the population
of today's Orange County. If each American who died, bled, or
disappeared in the Wilderness maelstrom audibly called out from
the consecrated earth for remembrance, he would find an Orange
resident, all his own, to hear his message.
Wal-Mart cheaply sells much useful merchandise; the location it
seeks would be convenient to most of the county. The store would
generate taxes translatable to infrastructure improvements and
public amenities. Of these things there can be no doubt.
COMMON DEBT
But Consumer and Taxpayer are not the totality of human roles.
Many Orange countians can tell of forebears who fought honorably
for Dixie or for Mr. Lincoln (or could tell if they would investigate
their family lineage). Those with no ancestors in the Civil War
can still appreciate the valorous example and living heritage
of which they, as Americans, fortunately partake.
The debt goes on. It is not too much to say that the chains of
human slavery received their first chisel bite in the Wilderness
where began the steady decimation of the Army of Northern Virginia,
effectively the protector of the wicked institution. And the freedom
from serious want that most living Americans enjoy flows from
the industrial boom that would soon make the reunified nation
("the United States is") the world's commercial powerhouse.
Listen, Orange. Don't you hear?
The public hearing on the proposed Wal-Mart store will begin at
7 p.m. The result is supposedly foregone: The board will grant
the special-use permit. Daniel Webster faced no greater task in
persuading the devil's cutthroat jury than defenders of the Wilderness
face in turning around some of these supervisors. But the duty
of the citizen is not to win; he or she fulfills it in the effort.
From Gordonsville and Locust Grove, from the town of Orange to
Barboursville, let every county beneficiary of heroes' striving
turn out to oppose this location for a shopatropolis. Let county
members of the NAACP join with Sons of Confederate Veterans, small
businesspersons with school teachers, yellow-dog Democrats with
run-mad Republicans, natives with transplants to say, "Somewhere
else." Let them leave no doubt, however their representatives
vote, what an aroused Orange County thinks about this ill-conceived
plan.
It is a time to kindle that spirit of the 20-year bracelet wearers,
the spirit of those who don't forget, who repay sacrifice with
fidelity, the only acceptable tender for gifts of blood. Confirm
Ecclesiasticus: "But these were merciful men, whose righteousness
has not been forgotten. With their seed shall continually remain
a good inheritance, and their children are within the covenant."
--(11) Ohio Historical Society Faces Cuts -----------------------------------------------------
Ohio Historical Society Faces Cuts
By Tom Feran
7/24/2009
Cleveland Plain Dealer (OH)
http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2009/07/ohio_historical_society_faces.html
A limping economy already clouds Ohio's future. Now the state's
budget crisis is threatening its past.
The Ohio Historical Society, the official repository of the state's
recorded history, faces a 42 percent drop in state funding --
from $13.5 million last year to $7.9 million in 2010 -- in the
budget signed by Gov. Ted Strickland last week.
The society reported this week that it will trim hours and scale
back plans for Civil War sesquicentennial observances. It also
will cut pay and reduce to less than half the staff of 400 it
had in 2001.
"While we foresaw tough times ahead, we were stunned to receive
this magnitude of a cut in state funding," executive director
Bill Laidlaw said. "But with challenges come opportunities."
Laidlaw said the organization will make better use of holdings
by placing more of its currently warehoused collections on display
and creating more small-scale exhibits for local historical societies
and libraries.
The society also will accelerate the transfer to local management
of most of its 58 state historic sites, which include historic
homes and museums, roadside parks and monuments and archaeological
sites.
The society's flagship museum in Columbus will open only on Saturdays
starting Jan. 1, though schools and other groups can arrange visits
by appointment. The archives and library will be open only on
Thursdays.
Established in 1885, the society was designated 50 years ago as
the state archive by the General Assembly. It preserves the working
papers of all three branches of state government and is a magnet
for genealogical research. With 2 million objects in a wide-ranging
collection, the society is known as "Ohio's Attic."
"We have to protect the collections first. That's why we
were founded," Laidlaw said. "We would never sell anything
to cover basic operating costs. Never have, never will. If you
lose it, it's gone forever."
The society gets the rest of its revenue from government grants
and contracts, private contributions and admissions and parking.
--(12) LeVans Donate Land to Park Service - Gettysburg
Times -----------------------------------------------------
LeVans Donate Land to Park Service
By Scott Andrew Pitzer
7/24/2009
Gettysburg Times (PA)
http://www.gettysburgtimes.com/articles/2009/07/24/news/local/doc4a699aaa71042298460980.txt
Gettysburg area philanthropist David LeVan is donating 61 acres
of his family's land to the National Park Service and Gettysburg
Foundation.
The foundation - the park's management and fundraising partner
- officially accepted the conservation easement during a ceremony
Thursday morning.
"I make this gift in honor of my father's vision and commitment
to the preservation and conservation of this property," said
LeVan.
"I'm happy that I am now the one who is able to do this in
his honor," LeVan said.
*
The property is along the Baltimore Pike corridor, near the Culp's
Hill portion of the Gettysburg Battlefield, and close to the new
Battlefield Visitor Center.
"A gift of this significance that preserves this land forever
and ever is not just of local significance - it's of national
significance," said GNMP Supt. John Latschar.
The land was described by officials as "scenic, historic
open space" as it sits within the 6,000 acre boundary of
Gettysburg National Military Park.
"Granting this easement will forever protect these significant
acres from being lost to our children and grandchildren as they
grow to understand the importance of what happened here,"
said National Trust for Historic Preservation President Richard
Moe.
"For that vision and commitment, and on behalf of the generations
who will benefit from the LeVan's gift, I offer my most sincere
thanks to them and to you," said Moe.
With the LeVan donation, the Gettysburg Foundation has now preserved
nearly 700 acres of land significant to the Battle of Gettysburg,
fought in 1863.
"The easement will protect this important parcel of land
from future development and will preserve its historical integrity
for generations to come," said Foundation President Robert
C. Wilburn.
Gettysburg Foundation Board Chairman Robert Kinsley thanked LeVan
and his wife, Jennifer, for the gift and their continuing generosity.
The LeVans have a long history of philanthropic and preservation
efforts in the Gettysburg area, including the $16 million Majestic
Theater project, the new GNMP Visitor Center, and the Gettysburg
Railroad Station project.
Additionally, the Gettysburg Foundation has a history of land
preservation, since it formed about 10 years ago as the non-profit
management and fundraising arm of GNMP.
The Foundation recently acquired the 80-acre Spangler Farm along
Blacksmith Shop Road, which was used as a field hospital during
the Civil War clash, and was the place where Confederate Gen.
Lewis A. Armistead died of wounds suffered during Pickett's Charge.
Other land preservation accomplishments include the Home Sweet
Home Motel, the Weikert Farm along Taneytown Road, 45 acres of
land near Big Round Top, the Hoffman Farm on East Cavalry Field,
and the Black Horse Tavern easement.
--(13) Group to Stage Re-enactment to Save Site -----------------------------------------------------
Group to Stage Re-enactment to Save Historic Civil War Site
By Connor Adams Sheets
7/23/2009
Frederick County Gazette (MD)
http://www.gazette.net/stories/07232009/frednew160021_32534.shtml
On Sept. 14, 1862, the 30th Ohio Volunteer Infantry in the Ninth
Corps of the Army of the Potomac marched pasty Middletown en route
to Fox's Gap on South Mountain, where they fought Confederate
Gen. Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia in the Battle of
South Mountain.
On Sept. 12, 2009, a local group plans to commemorate the 147th
anniversary of that epic Civil War battle by staging a re-enactment
of it. Their goal is to protest an energy company's consideration
of the historical site as the possible home of a new gas transmission
facility.
"There'll be about 80 re-enactors in full Union garb doing
a three-hour march from Middletown all the way up to Reno Monument,"
said Richard Maranto, president of Citizens for the Preservation
of Middletown Valley (CPMV). "We want to call attention to
the fact that [Dominion Power] has bought a very historic property
and they want to change it into an industrial site."
Dominion Power purchased John Fox's Tavern and the 135 acres on
which it sits at the intersection of Bolivar and Marker roads
on Dec. 29, 2008. The company has identified the location as a
preferred site for its planned construction of a $55 million,
14,000-horsepower station to allow more gas to flow through pipelines
transporting natural gas between Pennsylvania and Virginia.
It maintains, however, that it has not selected, nor ruled out,
the site for construction of its project.
"We wanted to purchase that property while it was available
as a potential site. We moved on the opportunity to buy the property,"
Dominion spokesman Robert E. Fulton said earlier this year. "In
our minds, and in our studies, it was the best location, and so
we purchased it in anticipation as a potential site."
The company said last fall that it will not be ready to move forward
with construction of the station anywhere in the county for "a
few years," but CPMV members want to keep attention on plans
for the land.
The re-enactors will create a "visual" event that Maranto
hopes will keep the intensity of public concern about Dominion's
intentions at a steady level as the company decides on a site.
Historians will attend the event and speak about the battle and
the site's significance.
In March, South Mountain Battlefield was named to the Civil War
Preservation Trust's list of the top 10 most endangered Civil
War battlefields, in part because of Dominion's considerations.
--(14) Opinion: Let History Ring -----------------------------------------------------
Opinion: Let History Ring
By Rick Holmes
Waltham News-Tribune (MA)
7/18/2009
http://www.dailynewstribune.com/opinion/x767444681/Holmes-Let-history-ring
It's a small building that witnessed a big event.
At the center of Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, sits the sturdy
brick building where John Brown made his stand. On its roof is
a bell tower where once hung a handsome bell.
The bell tower is empty now, and therein hangs a tale.
John Brown was a radical abolitionist determined to free the slaves
even if it meant picking a fight with the United States Army.
So he raised enough money to equip a platoon of like-minded men.
On October 16, 1859, they seized the sturdy brick federal arsenal
in Harpers Ferry and started shooting.
Brown hoped to inspire a slave uprising and start a civil war
that would end slavery forever. But his revolution was short-lived.
Local militia surrounded the arsenal where Brown and his gang
held several hostages. Federal troops under the command of Col.
Robert E. Lee and Lt. J.E.B. Stuart - both later became Confederate
generals - stormed the building on Oct. 18 and took it in minutes.
Seventeen were killed, including 10 of Brown's men.
Brown was captured, charged with murder, treason and slave insurrection,
and hanged. But he was hailed as a martyr to the cause, and Union
troops marched off to war a year and a half later singing that
John Brown's body lay "a-mouldering in the grave, but his
truth goes marching on."
Among those troops was Company I of the 13th Massachusetts Volunteers,
who marched south from Marlborough in the summer of 1861 to fight
for the Union. In August they camped by the Potomac River near
Harpers Ferry, a town that had already felt the indignities of
war.
As Joan Abshire of Marlborough tells it, the Marlborough men had
orders to preserve anything of value to the Union and were also
interested in a souvenir of historic Harpers Ferry. Among them
were several firefighters who thought it would be swell to take
the bell atop the arsenal home to their hook and ladder company.
With some difficulty - the 700 to 800-pound bell broke the rope
they were using and chipped when it landed - the soldiers removed
the bell, Abshire reports in her short history of the bell. But
the Marlborough men had battles to fight, and they couldn't exactly
lug along the bell. So they left it in the hands of a friend they
had made in Williamsport, Md., Mrs. Elizabeth Ensminger, from
whom they had bought bread while encamped nearby.
Mrs. Ensminger hid the bell in her backyard, at one point burying
it to keep it from marauding soldiers, but the Marlborough men
didn't return till long after the fighting stopped. Thirty years
later, six of the surviving members of Company I traveled to Washington
for an encampment of the Grand Army of the Republic, the leading
organization of Union veterans. On their return, some of them
made a detour to visit their old friend Mrs. Ensminger - and were
surprised that she still had the bell.
They shipped the bell back to Marlborough, where it was hung on
the front of the local G.A.R. post. When the bell started to pull
loose from the deteriorating building, the American Legion Post,
which had inherited ownership of the bell, built a stone tower
on Main Street to hold it.
There it sits today, safe from Confederate marauders, but rarely
visited by anyone with an interest in its history.
Back in Harpers Ferry, the bell tower above "John Brown's
Fort" sits empty. The old building is now the centerpiece
of Harpers Ferry National Historical Park, where 400,000 to 500,000
visitors each year come to learn the story of John Brown's Raid.
They expect even more this year, what with 80 events in four states
organized to commemorate the 150th anniversary of John Brown's
Raid.
But the visitors don't see the bell and they don't learn the story
of the 13th Massachusetts Volunteers who carted it off. And that's
a shame.
"For many people, this bell is the equivalent of the Liberty
Bell," Dennis Frye, chief historian for the Harpers Ferry
National Historical Park told me. The Park Service would love
to tell the story of the two towns, Harpers Ferry and Marlborough,
tied together by John Brown's Bell.
Over the years, Harpers Ferry officials have made several attempts
to get the bell back, at one point offering a replica of the bell
to trade for the real one. Each time, they've been rebuffed by
Marlborough.
The basic argument for keeping the bell in Marlborough is simple.
"Tough noogies," Gary Brown, Marlborough's veterans
agent, told a reporter last year. "It's ours and it's going
to stay ours. Neener, neener, neener."
Brown and others who want the bell to stay in Marlborough bristle
at the idea that men of Company I stole the bell. The 13th Massachusetts
Volunteers were federal agents ordered to seize and protect federal
property, they say, which is what they did.
Harper's Ferry changed hands several times during the Civil War.
If it hadn't been hidden in Mrs. Ensminger's backyard, Brown says,
the bell would surely have been melted down, like almost every
other bell in the South.
But even if that reasoning was sound 150 years ago, it doesn't
hold up today. If the bell is federal property, it can now be
safely returned to the federal government. The National Park Service
won't be melting it down.
Historical arguments aside, the John Brown Bell stays in Marlborough
because possession is nine-tenths of the law. The federal government
shows no sign of retrieving the bell, either by litigation or
armed force.
"The Park Service doesn't want another Civil War," Frye
said.
So I offer a compromise: Let Marlborough keep custody of the bell,
but let it be sent to Harpers Ferry for a visit.
In 1903, the keepers of the bell brought it to Charlestown to
appear in a parade, sharing honors with the Liberty Bell. They
wanted to share their treasure with other Americans who could
appreciate its story.
In that same spirit, Marlborough should send the bell to Harpers
Ferry, if only for a few weeks in October. Its return to the bell
tower above the arsenal could be the highlight of the activities
that will mark the 150th anniversary of John Brown's Raid.
Frye said the National Park Service would welcome the bell with
open arms, on whatever terms Marlborough wants to set.
They could hang a plaque near it: "On loan from the heirs
to Company I of the 13th Massachusetts Volunteers, who preserved
this bell from the Confederate smelter and held it safe ever after."
The initiative would have to come from Marlborough, Frye said,
and they've been waiting for years for Marlborough to call.
The Harpers Ferry commemoration is the official launch of the
nation's Civil War Sesquicentennial events. It is a fitting place
to start. As Frederick Douglass, the famed abolitionist leader
and a friend of Brown said many years later, "If John Brown
did not end the war that ended slavery, he did at least begin
the war that ended slavery."
Marlborough should lend its bell to Harpers Ferry, join the commemoration
and tell its Civil War story, not stand apart from it. History
is meant to be shared, not hoarded.