Gettysburg and Harpers Ferry

[MStuart]

Gettysburg, Harpers Ferry on endangered battlefield list

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

The Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- Plans for a casino just outside Gettysburg were shot down last year, but the site of the Civil War's bloodiest battle still is threatened by rapidly spreading home construction, according to a preservation group's annual inventory of endangered battlefields.

While Gettysburg's new nemesis is housing, a site in Alabama's Mobile Bay is suffering from neglect and a lack of state funding, and vast tracts of land stretching from Virginia to Pennsylvania are at risk from a planned major power line, the Civil War Preservation Trust said.

"Tens of thousands of valiant young Americans still lie entombed in those fields," Charlie Wilson, a former Texas congressman who backed federal spending on Civil War land preservation, said at a press conference today. "It is truly hallowed ground."

In addition to sites in Pennsylvania, Alabama and Virginia, the report names Civil War locations in jeopardy in Louisiana, Georgia, West Virginia, Maryland, Tennessee and Mississippi.

Suburban sprawl was cited as the most common problem.

The trust refreshes the list every year based on military significance, the urgency of threats, and location. It boasts of saving more than 23,000 acres in 18 states by raising money and leveraging government funding to buy land or preservation easements.

Property outside Harpers Ferry in West Virginia was added this year after a developer dug 45-foot-wide trenches for water and sewer lines and unveiled plans to develop several thousand homes on land that saw fierce battles between the North and South.

Harpers Ferry -- best known for John Brown's failed effort to arm and free local slaves -- changed hands eight times during the Civil War and was the site of an 1862 battle in which Confederate Maj. Gen. Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson won the surrender of some 12,500 Union troops.
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Mark

[Brian Wolle]

What can be said? We can do our utmost, that's all. There's just too many people. We're too successful a species for our battlefields to remain intact. But we can pull together and save what it is possible to save. And we can raise awareness. And get help from, say, environmental groups who have the same ends in mind. We beat Disney...

These people just see dollar signs. Lots of them. Greed and disregard for the ones who died to ENABLE them to do as they please. The sad irony of it all.

And the politicians line up to get their pockets lined and their palms greased.

Hey. That's another and a BIG reason WHY WE DO IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Do I hear an amen??

[MAryland Field Hospital]

From NBC News 11 Baltimore

The Civil War Preservation Trust's list of the 10 most endangered Civil War battlefields, in alphabetical order:

CEDAR CREEK (Virginia) - An early morning, surprise attack by Confederate troops here in 1864 nearly reversed momentum after a string of Southern defeats in the Shenandoah Valley. But the federal army launched a crushing counterattack and won the battle.

FORT MORGAN (Alabama) - Completed in 1834, this fort in Mobile Bay was the last big holdout as Union ships and troops ultimately shut down the Confederate-held port in 1864's Battle of Mobile Bay. It also was used in the Spanish-American War and both world wars.

GETTYSBURG (Pennsylvania) - The 1863 battle here was the war's bloodiest with some 51-thousand casualties and marked a turning point in the war, ending Robert-E-Lee's Confederate push into the North. It also is the site where President Lincoln delivered his famous address.

HARPERS FERRY (West Virginia) - The site of John Brown's failed slave rebellion also saw an 1862 battle in which Maj. Gen. Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson surrounded and captured a 12-thousand-500-man Union garrison.

IUKA (Mississippi) - This Union victory in 1862 came after a pitched battle raged for hours and required Union reinforcements to arrive the next morning.

MARIETTA (Georgia) - Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman's Union army drove Confederate soldiers out of several strategic positions, including the Marietta area, outside Atlanta in 1864.

NEW ORLEANS FORTS (Louisiana) - Several forts here - Jackson, St. Philip and Pike - were built to defend New Orleans from a nautical assault but failed to prevent the Union occupation of New Orleans in 1862.

NORTHERN PIEDMONT (Maryland, Pennsylvania and Virginia) - A vast rural area stretching across three states that was one of the most contested regions during the war.

PETERSBURG (Virginia) - Eighteen major battles were fought in the area around Petersburg, and soldiers built networks of tunnels and trenches as far as 30 miles from the city.

SPRING HILL (Tennessee) - Known as a missed opportunity for the South, Confederate troops failed to mount a serious attack an isolated Union column here as it retreated to nearby Franklin. In the subsequent Battle of Franklin, some 62-hundred Confederate troops were wounded and killed.