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From Jim Campi: Civil War Preservation Trust
Civil War News Roundup - 3/10/2004
Courtesy of the Civil War Preservation Trust
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(1) Fort Negley to be preserved as ruin - Nashville City Paper
(2) Volunteers needed for park day cleanups - Hagerstown Herald Mail
(3) Rare Civil War flag up for auction - York Sunday News
(4) Roundtables illustrate interest in Civil War - Associated Press
(5) Developer gives up Wilson's Creek plan - Springfield News-Leader
(6) Editorial: Mansfield battlefield endangered - Baton Rouge Advocate
(7) Group lists South Mountain as endangered - Brunswick (MD) Gazette
(8) Groups want battlefield protected - Bowling Green (KY) Daily News
(9) Civil War relic hunters race pavers - Nashville Tennessean
(10) Preservationists lost effort to save site - Nashville Tennessean
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Fort Negley gets 'status'
By Colleen Creamer, ccreamer@nashvillecitypaper.com
03/09/2004
Nashville City Paper
http://www.nashvillecitypaper.com/index.cfm?section_id=9&screen=news&news_id=31336
Fort Negley was built in 1862 and last rehabilitated in the 1930s.File photo.
Nashville's Fort Negley, a Civil War landmark long neglected, will be preserved as a ruin, not rebuilt, Tim Netsch of the Department of Parks and Recreation said Monday.
Parks officials, members of the Metro Historical Commission, the architectural design team of Moody/Nolan, and others met Monday to solicit public ideas for the Phase I stabilization of Fort Negley. The fort has been closed to the public for years because of safety issues. It is considered the largest inland stone Civil War fortification.
Last year, Mayor Bill Purcell allocated $2 million to stabilize Fort Negley: Phase I, already funded, will be an interpretive walking trail and Phase II will be a visitor's center.
Netsch said the first phase would involve putting in place parking, walking paths, an overlook(s), interpretive signage, an orientation plaza and landscaping.
"The goal of Phase I is to open, for the first time in 60 years, Fort Negley to the public in a manner that protects the site and is safe and enjoyable for Nashvillians and tourists alike," Netsch said.
Netsch said the plan for Phase II would be to put a staff "interpretive center" on the site. Netsch said Fort Negley was not being rebuilt but interpreted "as a ruin."
The Civil War Preservation Trust, a national non-profit organization devoted to the preservation of Civil War battlefield sites, listed Fort Negley among the most 10 important battlefields in the country. The fort has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1975.
When stabilized, Fort Negley could further the Middle Tennessee region's reputation as a major draw for Civil War enthusiasts.
The site was considered "too late" for saving in the early 1990s but after a re-evaluation, and lobbying by the Battle of Nashville Preservation Society, Fort Negley was upgraded by The Civil War Preservation Trust.
African American laborers built the fort in the fall and winter of 1862. Fort Negley was left to deteriorate, but was rehabilitated in the 1930s and then again fell into disrepair.
"For many of you, you know this has been going on for years and years," Ann Roberts, director of the Metro Historical Commission, said.
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Volunteers needed for park cleanups
03/09/2004
Hagerstown Herald-Mail
http://www.herald-mail.com/?module=displaystory&story_id=74782&format=html
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) - An army of volunteers is preparing to do battle with trash, weeds and other ravages of time and tourism at three Civil War sites in West Virginia.
The effort is part of the Civil War Preservation Trust's eighth annual Park Day, in which volunteers will visit 78 historic sites in 24 states to help with routine repairs and maintenance. Activities will include raking leaves, hauling garbage, painting signs and building trails.
The West Virginia sites being targeted are Harper's Ferry National Historical Park in Jefferson County, Rich Mountain Battlefield in Randolph County and Jackson's Mill Historic Area in Lewis County.
Park Day will be held at Harpers Ferry on March 21. The volunteer effort at Rich Mountain will occur in late April or early May, while volunteers will help at Jackson's Mill throughout its April-through-October season.
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Rare Civil War flag up for auction
Only one other U.S. Colored Troops regiment banner is known to exist
By R. SCOTT RAPPOLD Dispatch/Sunday News
03/07/2004
York Sunday News
http://www.yorksundaynews.com/Stories/0,1413,137~10048~2002039,00.html
The American Indian warrior arrived, as a lot of things do at Jamie Shearer's workshop, with an air of mystery.
A York County family had an old painting, but they didn't know how old or where it came from. They brought it to York Town Auction in West Manchester Township, where Shearer is the sales manager, to see if it is worth anything.
As it turns out, it is.
In fact, after some investigation, Shearer determined this is no canvas painting at all, but a flag. And he confirmed through the Flag Research Center in Massachusetts, the authority on the subject, that it is no ordinary flag, but a unique piece of black history.
Shearer believes, and the flag center agrees, that the American Indian is on a flag carried by a regiment of the United States Colored Troops in the Civil War, painted by David Bustill Bowser, a noted Philadelphia artist.
The piece will be auctioned Friday at the York Expo Center. Though the bids will determine the price, Shearer expects it to bring in at least $6,000 to $8,000.
And he is expecting interest from across the country, because very few such flags have survived, and though Bowser is believed to have made the flags for all 11 black regiments formed in Pennsylvania and possibly from other states, there is only one other known to still exist.
White man's war: Until 1863, the Civil War was considered a white man's war.
Many northern blacks, eager for a chance to help end southern slavery, wanted to fight, but some northern officials questioned their value as troops. Even as the Confederates were invading Pennsylvania in June of that year and state officials were scraping together any troops they could find, a company of black volunteers was turned away.
The heavy casualties of the 1862 battles convinced other Northern officials otherwise. But while Yankee generals in the occupied South began recruiting freed slaves in 1862, it wasn't until the spring of 1863 that the 54th Massachusetts -- the regiment portrayed in the film "Glory" -- became the first combat unit of Northern blacks.
In late June 1863, Camp William Penn opened north of Philadelphia, a training ground exclusively for black troops. Some 11,000 free blacks and escaped slaves were trained there over the next two years, including 8,612 from Pennsylvania, the most black troops recruited during the war from any northern state.
Unlike white regiments, most black units were not named for the state they came from, but were called United States Colored Troops. Bowser, a black artist, was hired to paint the regimental flags, which, for a Civil War unit, served as a rallying point in battle and a source of pride.
Along with the 11 regiments formed at Camp William Penn, Bowser likely painted the flags of other U.S. Colored Troops.
Local soldiers: It is difficult to tell how many of York County's 1,366 blacks enlisted; muster rolls do not indicate where each soldier was from.
But there are plenty of individual stories in the files of the York County Heritage Trust that suggest a good number of the county's blacks enlisted to fight for their country -- even though their country did not always treat them as equals.
Though white privates in the Union army earned $13 a month, blacks earned only $10. Blacks often were assigned guard duty or exhausting labor instead of combat. They could only serve under white officers.
And if captured by Confederates, they faced execution or being sold into slavery.
Such hazards didn't frighten the Barton family of Wrightsville, who had five family members serve in four different U.S. Colored Troops regiments. One, James Barton, suffered health problems that followed him for the rest of his life.
Wesley Green, of Yorkana, served in the 8th U.S. Colored Troops, formed in December 1863. He was shot in the arm a few days before the battle of Olustee in Florida in February 1864, a wound that still caused him great pain and prevented him from working when he died 45 years later.
Henry Bear, an American Indian from York County, served in the 127th U.S. Colored Troops, a unit that participated in the final crushing of Robert E. Lee's army. He was wounded by a cannon shell while on a skirmish line.
Samuel Johnson of York died while in service of the same regiment, leaving his children, Mary and Lester Johnson, orphans.
And the last Civil War veteran in York County to die, John Aquilla Wilson of Fawn Grove, was black. He served in the 32nd U.S. Colored Troops, which helped take Charleston, S.C., in 1865, and died in 1942 at the age of 101.
Some notable whites from York County were also part of the effort. Benjamin Frick was a second lieutenant in the 39th U.S. Colored Troops, and he later headed the Birney barracks in Baltimore, the recruiting station for all blacks in Maryland and Delaware. He was elected York County prothonotary in 1893.
Paradise Township native Frank Geise was a second lieutenant of the 32nd U.S. Colored Troops, and later served as military tax collector and provost marshal of Charleston. After the war he served as York County's prothonotary and died in 1900 while mayor of York.
Flags lost: While many such stories have survived, the regiments' flags have not.
After the war, all the white regimental flags were taken by the state. After being kept in storage for more than a century, the Pennsylvania Capitol Preservation Committee in 1982 launched its "Save the Flags" project, restoring 390 Civil War flags, which are today stored in acid-free, stainless steel units, protected from light, dust, heat and humidity.
But the U.S. Colored Troops flags were considered the property of the federal government, like those of some cavalry and other units not affiliated with a particular state. They were taken to Washington, D.C., where they sat, unprotected, until 1906, when they were transferred to the United States Military Academy Museum at West Point.
In his 1984 book "Advance the Colors!," Richard Sauers wrote that, prior to World War II, few of these flags could be identified anymore, and the academy destroyed many of them. Only one known Bowser flag remains, which is still held by the academy.
"A lot of it has to do with the conditions of the time period," said Harry Bradshaw Matthews, president of the U.S. Colored Troops Institute for Local History and Family Research at Hartwick College in Oneonta, N.Y.
After the war, blacks faced an entire new set of hurdles instead of the freedoms they had been fight for.
"These flags would have been just detestable in the eyes of those who opposed equal opportunity," Matthews said.
Started from scratch: Shearer didn't know any of this when he began studying the American Indian painting.
He took it from its frame, which was covered from behind with newsprint from an 1893 Philadelphia newspaper, the only clue to the painting's age.
Then he saw the tiny signature "Bowser," and he had another clue, though some experts told him it was impossible it was a work of David Bustill Bowser, since only one was known to have survived.
But the Flag Research Center compared it to known images of other Bowser works. The American Indian warrior is clutching a bow -- a martial symbol -- and is looking down and to the right, similar to other Bowser regimental flags.
He suspects someone liked the American Indian and cut it from the old flag, attaching it to a backboard. They also cut off the regiment's name, which would have been directly below the oval image, so he has no idea what unit it was.
"If you could narrow it down to a regiment, it would greatly increase the value," he said. But, he said, "It's one of the questions we'll never have the answer to."
The York County family selling it wants to remain anonymous, he said. They are not black, nor do they trace any lineage to a Civil War soldier. They're not even sure how they came across the painting.
"They gave me very little, very, very little," he said. "Even though I didn't find all the answers, I found a lot of them."
It is, he said, a perfect example of a family not knowing just what those antiques are, and how valuable they can be.
"A lot of times with these things, people don't know anything about it," Shearer said. "Most of the time, it's the ones they think are worth the least that are worth the most."
Matthews said while not many artifacts of the U.S. Colored Troops have survived, he suspects there are still many out there, probably also in the hands of private citizens who don't realize what they have.
"If indeed this is one of David Bustill Bowser's, it is very significant," he said.
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Roundtables illustrate endless interest in the Civil War
By MATT CURRY Associated Press Writer
03/07/2004
Associated Press Newswires
http://www.caller.com/ccct/state_texas_news/article/0,1641,CCCT_876_2711288,00.html
DALLAS- Eyes shifted from side to side, and anticipation began to build.
The objective rested only a few feet away.
Suddenly, with a slight nod from their leader, they surged ahead. The foe never stood a chance.
Mounds of golden fried fish and green beans were wiped out. The victorious charge on the buffet line brought the monthly meeting of the Dallas Civil War Roundtable to order.
Roundtables, which began in Chicago in 1940, give historians the chance to promote their work and dedicated Civil War buffs a chance to gobble up endless information _ frequently the nuts and bolts of key battles or the leadership qualities of Union and Confederate generals.
"They started originally to study the war, to have a speaker come in. Since the early 1970s, a number of them have become very interested in historic preservation," said Ed Bearss, former chief historian of the National Park Service and frequent speaker to Civil War groups.
The number of roundtables began to grow rapidly before the Civil War Centennial celebration of the 1960s, said Bearss (pronounced Bars), an octogenarian who dazzles audiences by rattling off dozens of obscure battle details on demand.
A typical meeting includes topics like "Lee and the Appomattox Campaign" or "Booth Shot Better Than he Thought he Did." More than 200 groups of varying size exist in the United States.
The groups make a point of welcoming competing views, where talk of subjects like Confederate Gen. James Longstreet's performance at Gettysburg can spark spirited disagreement.
"Some of the Southern roundtables, you better choose your subjects carefully," Bearss said.
Some roundtables have annual dinners or other events dedicated to the sole purpose of raising money to save endangered battlefield sites for future generations. The Austin Civil War Roundtable, for example, has donated $43,000 to the Civil War Preservation Trust over the last six years.
"It's a big source of funding for us," said Jim Campi, Washington-based spokesman for the trust, the nation's largest nonprofit organization devoted to preserving endangered Civil War battlefields. "Once you have an interest in the war, it's only natural to have an interest in saving the places where the war was fought."
Attorney Dan Laney, president of the Austin group and an officer with the trust, said another mission of the roundtables is to pass on Civil War history to future generations.
"We've just got to get that over to the younger generation, that there's more out there to learn than video games," Laney said.
The religious fervor for the war _ found in the writing of numerous books and re-enactments that prompt participants to don wool uniforms and trudge across battlefields in relentless summer heat _ comes from basically one thing _ "It's the greatest drama in America," said Frank Williams, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Rhode Island and founding chair of The Lincoln Forum, a national organization that supports the study of President Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War. "These characters were giants on the screen of history."
About 60 people recently crammed into the side room of a Dallas steakhouse for an animated speech by historian Gordon C. Rhea, an international lawyer and award-winning author of four books on the war's Overland Campaign of 1864.
Rhea's interest in the war originated from tales his father heard old veterans tell.
"My dad was born in 1901 in a little town in Tennessee," Rhea said. "He grew up hearing stories and related them to me, and I was fascinated."
Doug Waters, a 39-year-old claims adjuster who listened to Rhea's story of heroism by a Confederate private, traces his interest in the Civil War to first grade. His family took a trip to the Shiloh National Military Park in Tennessee, site of the first major battle in the war's Western theater.
Waters has attended the Dallas roundtable for about 10 years and has taken about 20 battlefield tours.
"Just the feats of the men back then compared to nowadays never ceases to amaze me. Not just necessarily the high casualty rates, though that still astonishes me, but what they could physically do," he said. "I respect both sides, what they were willing to do for their beliefs, marching long distances, going without eating, charging cannons without backing away."
Interest is not confined to the nation's shores. Civil War buffs in England visit London for roundtables, group president Peter Lockwood said.
Great Britain's involvement in the war is among chief topics of interest by the more than 250 members, a number that has doubled in the last five years, he said.
"It is quite common for members to travel 200 to 300 miles to attend meetings," Lockwood said.
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On the Net:
Civil War Preservation Trust: www.civilwar.org
Dallas Civil War Roundtable: www.cwrtdallas.org
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Developer gives up on Terrell Creek plan
Steve Redford said the possibility of federal involvement too great a risk.
By Jenny Fillmer and Matt Wagner
03/04/2004
Springfield News-Leader
http://www.news-leader.com/today/0304-Developerg-30308.html
The largest housing development ever proposed in Christian County is now off the table.
In an exclusive interview Wednesday with the News-Leader, developer Steve Redford said his company was withdrawing its proposal for Terrell Creek, in part because he feared the federal government would get involved.
"We don't need it," said Redford, president of Missouri Partners Inc. "We don't have to do it. We think, ultimately, (our development is) the right thing to do, but we're going to withdraw."
The company, one of the area's largest residential developers, had proposed a subdivision on 2,300 acres south of Republic that would eventually bring about 1,500 new homes to the rural area.
Terrell Creek's sheer magnitude - along with its anticipated impact on local wells and a cold-water stream of the same name - had drawn concern from neighbors and environmentalists.
Its proximity to Wilson's Creek National Battlefield lead to national attention, after the Civil War Preservation Trust named Wilson's Creek one of the nation's top 10 most endangered battlefields.
Over the past two months, Missouri Partners met several times with concerned groups and Christian County officials.
In the end, Redford said, pressure from environmental and governmental agencies was too much of a risk for his company.
"I can't depend on these rogue agencies," said Redford, leaning forward in his Hollister office. "They have unlimited time, and they have unlimited funds. ... Given the unknown about intervention, it's just not wise for us to pursue."
Upon hearing the news Wednesday, Wilson's Creek National Battlefield Superintendent Ted Hillmer shook his head in disbelief before saying he was disappointed the deal fell through.
"This is a win-lose situation," said Hillmer. "I'd rather have a win-win. ... I wish we could have worked something out for both the landowners and MPI."
Federal attention
Wilson's Creek officials said part of MPI's proposed development was to be built where hundreds of Confederate troops camped on Aug. 9, 1861, the night before the Battle of Wilson's Creek. And a portion of the proposal overlapped an area designated by the battlefield's General Management Plan for future annexation.
Roland Douglas, Missouri Partners vice president, had met several times with Hillmer to discuss the development.
"We talked about how this could be something we both benefitted from," Hillmer said.
But no commitments were made.
Last Thursday, a representative from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency invited Missouri Partners to another meeting, with representatives from several state and local government officials and environmental groups.
The EPA is urging developers and planners to adopt "smart-growth" principles, said Jaci Ferguson, director of the agency's Southwest Missouri Field Office.
"Growth is going to happen, but managing it properly - that's the key," said Ferguson. "It's going to take everyone working together to make it happen."
Redford grew increasingly wary of the possibility of the federal government getting involved.
"If there's a 10 percent chance that the federal government will interfere, we're out," he said.
Two of what Redford calls "three major mistakes in my life" involved brushes with the federal government in the early 1990s.
In July 1992, Redford pleaded guilty in a $5 million bankruptcy fraud case. In February 1993, he pleaded guilty to bribing former Missouri Attorney General William Webster. Webster was never charged with accepting the bribe and denied that it took place.
Redford was not sent to prison, but he voluntarily forfeited the assets hidden in the bankruptcy. He spent the next several years rebuilding his real estate business.
Redford said he gained some valuable wisdom from the experience.
"I learned that you have to be very careful what you do, who you do it with and how you do it," he said. "The No. 1 ingredient to this business is risk assessment."
The risk of pursuing Terrell Creek, Redford said, was simply too high. He could see the EPA and the National Park Service getting involved.
"The potential for interference from the federal government ... may be remote, but not remote enough for us."
Planning and zoning officials from both Christian County and Republic were reviewing Missouri Partners' applications for the subdivision, and were surprised to hear the Terrell Creek proposal had fallen through.
Said Wally Schrock, a planner with the city of Republic: "It's on the agenda for next Monday night to schedule a hearing for the following meeting."
Happy neighbors
Those who call the countryside of northwest Christian County home were elated the land around Terrell Creek is no longer facing the immediate threat of development.
Christine Stokely flashed a smile and a thumbs-up upon hearing the news.
"We moved here because this is such a beautiful area ... and you just see gorgeous land being chewed up all over the place," said Stokely, who owns Stokely Stables near Battlefield with her husband, David.
The news also eased Andy Arndt's concerns about what would happen to the water on his land. His family has owned farmland near Terrell Creek for a century and a half. His ancestors settled the rolling acreage after discovering abundant cold-water springs flowing year-round.
"This creek just runs good all the time," said Arndt, who relies on a 500-foot well for potable groundwater.
Tom Aley, a hydrogeologist hired by Arndt and his neighbors, said his clients' fears were justified. He called the proposed subdivision "ill-conceived" and said its implications would have been severe on Terrell Creek and the James River, which lies downstream.
"Basically what was proposed was a city that would have had a population of 1,000 people that would have been served by septic tanks," Aley said. "That's not the way you plan and develop a modern city. ... It needs to be developed in the fashion in which you plan up front to adequately take care of the sewage so as to protect the water resources of the area."
Aside from unwanted environmental side effects, many rural residents say they just don't want to see the area's natural beauty ruined with hundreds of new homes.
"It seems a lot of people move to the country to get a little of what the country offers," Arndt said. "Cleaner air, less congestion, wildlife. ... It's just an ideal place to be."
Margie Barbato, who lives nearby, would love to see the land left as grazing pastures or purchased and preserved as greenspace by Wilson's Creek National Battlefield.
But she knows better.
"We're not going to stop progress," she said. "(The withdrawal is) good news because we're not going to have all that growth, but it may be bad news as far as who else may be interested."
Hillmer agreed that the deal's failure creates more uncertainty for the area.
"I would rather have dealt with the cards I had instead of wondering what may come along tomorrow. It could be a Wal-Mart or a supercenter."
Arndt said he's accepted the fact that someone will eventually buy and develop the property, which is owned by Charlie Blount.
"I never really looked at this like a war where we win and you lose," Arndt said. "The land is still for sale. I'd just like to see a quality subdivision."
What's next
While Missouri Partners' plans for Terrell Creek have been dropped, Redford said his company is still interested in working in the Springfield metropolitan area. "Under no circumstances does this mean we're not going to do any development in Springfield," he said.
Redford will also continue developing nearly a dozen projects under way in the Tri-Lakes area and near Lake of the Ozarks.
And he proposes changing zoning regulations in Christian, Taney and Stone counties that would help clarify the process for developers.
"These three counties need to bite the bullet and create countywide zoning maps," said Redford, adding that it's difficult and expensive to determine where new growth is going to be compatible with current land uses.
The only way to overturn non-compatible residential-use rulings from those counties' planning and zoning commissions is through court, Redford contended.
Missouri Partners is currently involved in a lawsuit against the Stone County Commission and the county's planning and zoning board over a technicality in the county's building codes.
Stone County officials contend Missouri Partners hasn't obtained proper building permits for its StoneBridge Village subdivision near Silver Dollar City, and owes about $40,000 in permit fees.
Joy Wilson, administrator of the Stone County Planning and Zoning office, said Redford had expressed his displeasure with the county's zoning regulations to her and said he planned on changing the way things were done.
"I guess that means not paying for permits," she said.
Christian County Associate Commissioner Tom Chudomelka said Redford's idea was not the first time he's heard a call for more conventional zoning codes.
"It's been talked about since 1993," Chudomelka said. "The problem there is we can write them, but somebody's still got to draw the lines. And it looks like to me that you're going to have a great problem with people wanting to change those classifications. I'm not sure it'd really help anything."
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EDITORIAL
Mansfield battle site endangered
03/04/2004
Baton Rouge Advocate
http://www.2theadvocate.com/stories/030404/opi_edi2001.shtml
It is not news that the Mansfield battlefield site, where one of the most vicious battles of the Civil War was fought in 1864, is endangered by the passage of time and the threat of lignite coal mining.
However, the inclusion of Mansfield on the Civil War Preservation Trust's list of 10 most endangered battlefields will, we hope, bring more attention to the urgent need for public and private efforts to preserve the site.
The trust selects endangered sites based on geographic location, military significance and immediacy of threats.
"With so many battlefields under siege from sprawl, we could easily have selected a hundred," trust President James Lighthizer said. "Our Civil War battlefields are vanishing at an alarming pace. Once lost, these links to America's past can never be replaced."
The Mansfield site is where Confederate Gen. Richard Taylor's attacks turned back the advancing Union army. About one-quarter of the troops engaged were casualties, a proof of the hard fighting there.
We commend the trust for trying to draw attention to the erosion of this physical reminder of history.
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Group lists area battlefield as endangered
by Angela Pfeiffer, Staff Writer
03/04/2004
Brunswick (MD) Gazette
http://www.gazette.net/200410/brunswick/news/205389-1.html
The South Mountain State Battlefield has existed for only about four years, and already a preservation group is claiming the battlefield is among the 10 most endangered Civil War battlefields in the country.
Last week, the national Civil War Preservation Trust (CWPT) released its annual report on the most threatened battlefields in the country. South Mountain State Battlefield 2,500 acres of public property straddling the Frederick-Washington county line is the only Maryland site to make the list this year.
The mountain is where, on Sept. 14, 1862, the Union and Confederate armies clashed in three bloody battles at the mountain's Crampton's, Fox's and Turner's gaps, resulting in 5,240 casualties. The clashes were a prelude to the even bloodier battle at Antietam and are recognized as historically significant because of their relationship with that event and Antietam's important role in the course of the war.
Washington Monument State Park and Gathland State Park bound the battlefield on the north and south, respectively.
The trust named South Mountain to the list because of the possibility that private property not protected by preservation easements could be lost forever to developers' shovels.
"Today, South Mountain remains much as it did at the time of the battles there," the trust said in its report. "The State of Maryland has done a laudable job using the federal Transportation Enhancement Program to place easements on terrain associated with the fighting on the mountain. In the past decade, the state has saved 6,000 acres of land at South Mountain, including 183 acquired with the assistance of CWPT.
"However, despite this effort, the eastern side of South Mountain is particularly vulnerable to development. The area is rapidly becoming a bedroom community for commuters working in the Washington, D.C., area. Key parcels near Burkittsville and along Frostown Road in Turner's Gap remain unprotected."
To compile the list, the preservation trust consulted a 1993 study by a congressional commission that prioritized the war's 10,500 armed conflicts according to their significance and state of preservation.
The commission ranked South Mountain a Priority I, Class B, battle site a designation meaning its battles had a direct and decisive influence on their campaign and the battlefield is a top candidate for preservation.
However, the Maryland General Assembly did not create the battlefield until October 2000, seven years after the commission completed its study.
Also, in March 2003, the state convened a 17-member planning committee to develop site and management plans for the local historic spot. The committee has studied monumentation, signage, parking, interpretive markers and landscape restoration.
But Jim Campi, spokesman for the Civil War Preservation Trust, said the 1993 study is still relevant in order to train a spotlight on the locations listed.
"The intent is to keep attention on these sites that were identified," Campi said. "Maryland has done a great job [on South Mountain]. In fact, a lot of the reason that South Mountain is on the report is that the state has done such a good job that it's really increased expectations that we'd like to see the remainder of the battlefield saved. Our concern is we've got a very small window to do it in because ... the Frederick area, even heading west, is starting to become something of a bedroom community for the beltway. Land values are starting to increase and it may be difficult to buy land in that area in a few years."
The Maryland Department of Natural Resources has purchased easements and property on the battlefield using a state grant called Program Open Space. A total of 5,918 acres has been preserved with state and federal funds, Rural Legacy easements and private funds, said Grant Dehart, policy director for the department's Capital Grants and Loans Program.
Dehart said the programs have enabled the state to protect parcels at the three gaps and near Burkittsville where direct fighting and major troop movements took place.
Dehart, who was unable to provide a figure on how much remaining land the state would like to protect, said the battlefield is in a critical situation, given the state's fiscal situation.
Dehart said the listing in the trust's report is important to keep attention focused on South Mountain.
"Even with Frederick County's relatively good protective zoning, particularly when you get up into to the foothills of the South Mountain area along Frostown Road, Mount Tabor Road and Reno Monument Road, the zoning would still permit additional houses."
"...If there is a concern about this," Dehart continued, "people should contribute to the Civil War Preservation Trust because they are helping us in the number of different properties leveraging private money with public money, which is becoming more important these days."
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Civil War buffs want battlefield preserved
Officials, historic group weigh options for land in Munfordville
By Scott Sisco
03/04/2004
Bowling Green (KY) Daily News
http://www.bgdailynews.com/cgi-bin/view.cgi?/200403/04+civil20040304_news.html+20040304+news
MUNFORDVILLE - In 1861 and '62, the area around the Anthony Woodson farm was farmland and forest. It was also the site of three battles of the American Civil War.
Now, neighborhoods, an abandoned saw mill and even a junkyard cover much of the battlefield. Because of that, the site has been listed in the Civil War Preservation Trust's National Most Endangered List. But preservation of the site is facing opposition from a neighborhood group.
Some local residents, including Tres Seymour, executive director of the Battle for the Bridge Historic Preserve, are trying to preserve this history. The group has received grants to renovate the Woodson House, which was built in 1892 on the edge of the Battle of Munfordville site, into a visitor's center.
"We're hoping by listing the site on our list of endangered battle sites, it will bring more interest to the site," CWPT spokesman Jim Campi said. "There's at least 100 more acres we'd like to see protected."
Kentucky does a good job of preserving Civil War sites, Campi said.
"The state has been very proactive in using the transportation enhancement program to save their Civil War battlefields," he said. "Munfordville is certainly one that could use some extra attention."
The CWPT, a Washington, D.C.-based organization, has helped to preserve about 18,000 acres nationally.
Other battlefields on the list include Fort Donelson in Dover, Tenn., Franklin, Tenn., Appomattox, Va., Gettysburg, Penn., and Harpers Ferry, W.Va.
When most people think of the Civil War in Kentucky, they think of the most bloody battle at Perryville, Seymour said.
"Many scholars of the Civil War in the West say that the Confederate invasion of 1862 was the high water mark of the Confederacy," he said.
That invasion ran through Munfordville because of the Louisville and Nashville Railroad bridge that spans the Green River. The Union needed the bridge to move large quantities of men and supplies into the South.
"That was the lifeline for the Union into the South," Seymour said.
The Confederate attack at Munfordville left the southerners in control of all the hills around the river and the bridge, the strongest position the Confederates would hold in Kentucky.
Famous Confederate Gen. John Hunt Morgan brought his Lexington Rifles to Munfordville to train in 1861. He was sworn into the Confederate Army on the steps of a church, which is no longer standing, near the battlefield.
The site has a 5-mile, round-trip interpretive trail around part of the battlefield, which is open each day from dawn until dusk. During the city's annual Civil War Days festival, Seymour teaches schoolchildren about the battle on the site.
The problems Seymour and his organization face are typical for many preservation efforts. The people around the site have different ideas of what is significant, he said.
Billy "Buck" Minton, owner of Stanton's Garage, has cars lined up on a hill where the Rowlettes Station Battle was fought in 1861. He hasn't talked directly with Seymour about the preservation effort.
"I think it's a waste of taxpayers' money," Minton said. "We can't help what happened 200 years ago."
Besides, he said, no one knows exactly where the battle was fought.
Minton and some of the members of the community around the site formed a group called Woodsonville Home Owners Association, or WHOA, to try to stop the preservation effort.
"I guess I'll keep battling with them until someone decides I have to move," Minton said. "I'm not going to move because they want me to."
Minton's shop was established before the effort began, he said.
The Munfordville battle site has been designated by Congress as a nationally significant site.
Part of the battlefield between the Woodson farm and the Green River hasn't changed much since the battle, Seymour said.
"This is pretty much what it looked like," he said. "There's a lot here to preserve."
Seymour knows that people need a place to live and work - he just wants to balance those needs with the preservation effort.
"The Hart County Historical Society isn't out to purchase up huge quantities of land," Seymour said. "We seek to preserve it."
The society has a conservation easement on 74 acres of the battlefield from the landowner, which allows the owner to continue to use the land for agriculture and gives the state the right to develop the land as a historical site. Some of the landowners use the land for non-historic uses, like the abandoned saw mill and Minton's business.
Some of the land has been bought by the CWPT and the historical society at auction to save it from being developed into subdivisions. That's one reason the trust identified Munfordville on its list.
"They're looking at ways to help us even further," Seymour said.
Out of the 900 acres with historical significance on the site, about 219 acres have been preserved.
"There's considerable battlefield that's not protected in any way," Seymour said.
Hart County doesn't have planning and zoning regulations and has few ordinances regarding development, he said.
"We're always having to keep an eagle eye out to make sure something's protected," Seymour said. "We have to take an adversarial role."
The Hart County Fiscal Court has been supportive of the preservation efforts, voting recently to support an application for a state grant to help restore Woodson House and to establish a permanent trail on the battlefield.
The fiscal court is trying to balance the requests of citizens like Minton with the preservation movement, Hart County Judge-Executive Terry Shelton said.
"We're trying to work with both parties in this and be fair in what we're able to do," Shelton said.
There are two reasons Seymour wants to preserve the property. First, soldiers on both sides died on the site for what they believed in.
"The ground out there looks green, but it's reddened with the blood of 50 killed and over 300 injured at the Battle of Munfordville," he said.
The other reason is to bring tourism dollars to the county. Hart County gets most of its revenue from tobacco, a crop that continues to decrease in value.
Since the preservation effort began in 1995, the group has solicited residents' comments on the project. Seymour was quick to dispel several rumors about the United Nations coming to Munfordville to take over the area and the National Park Service's plans to make the battlefield a national park.
"None of which is true," he said. "This is a local project, run by a local organization, run by local people. That's how we intend it to stay."
- For more information, see www.battleforthebridge.org or www.civilwar.org.
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Civil War relic hunters race pavers
Shopping center to cover site linked to Franklin battlefield
By HOLLY EDWARDS, Staff Writer
03/03/2004
Nashville Tennessean
http://www.tennessean.com/growth/archives/04/02/47672933.shtml?Element_ID=47672933
For Civil War relic hunters, a large tract of bulldozed land in Franklin is the latest piece of American history on the verge of being paved and sealed in concrete.
While the heavy equipment sits idle, and before construction crews arrive to build a shopping center, dozens of them have descended upon the property, finding historic artifacts with metal detectors.
Digging through the flattened dirt, they have exhumed relics such as cracked Union belt buckles and corroded Confederate bullets.
The property is on Columbia Pike, near the main site of the Battle of Franklin, in which casualties included 7,000 Confederate and 2,500 Union soldiers on Nov. 30, 1864. It is the future home of a Kroger and Target shopping center.
''We're losing our battlefields every day to shopping centers and malls,'' said Joe Love of Franklin, one of the relic hunters canvassing the site last weekend. ''If anything is here, I'd like to get it out before it's covered with concrete and asphalt.''
With mud-soaked shoes and dirty fingernails, the relic hunters scattered over the site in small teams, walking slowly and looking straight down. Most wore tool belts containing small brushes and flashlights, and carried long, slender shovels to dig up the artifacts.
Local Civil War preservationists fought to have the land preserved as a historic site. But having lost that fight, they agree that it's better to save the relics than lose them forever.
Some people have argued that the property was not part of the battle, and the fact that relic hunters are finding Civil War artifacts proves the preservationists' view that the land is historically important, said Thomas Cartwright, director of the Carter House in Franklin, which was commandeered as a Union Army headquarters before the battle.
Cartwright said relic hunters have been searching the area since the 1960s. Although it's illegal to use metal detectors on federal or state land, and preservationists don't like to see artifacts taken from historic sites, he said that in this case he's ''delighted'' that the relics are being found. ''This is a part of history that needs to come out for future generations,'' Cartwright said. ''Either they get these things out or they'll be lost.''
Mary Pearce, executive director of the Heritage Foundation in Franklin, said she, too, would like to see the artifacts at the site preserved. However, she said it would have been better if the developer had given the Carter House first dibs. ''If people are getting artifacts, it would have been nice if the developer had allowed the Carter House to orchestrate it,'' she said. ''Then everyone could see what was there.''
Attempts to reach the developer, Phil Warren, were unsuccessful yesterday.
Nick Fielder, director of the state Division of Archeology, agreed that the relic hunters should have the property owner's permission but said he saw nothing wrong with digging up artifacts from a site pegged for development.
''At construction sites, the damage is already done,'' he said. ''It's a pretty common occurrence for relic hunters to turn up at these areas.''
But Melissa Eads, a Kroger spokeswoman, said the relic hunters are trespassing on the construction site. ''No trespassing'' signs are posted at the site for the public's safety, she said.
''For their own safety, these people don't need to be out there prowling around,'' Eads said.
Love said he met relic hunters from as far away as Georgia at the site. He said he resents property owners who try to restrict the public's access to historic relics.
''That's the problem down here,'' he said. ''Nobody wants us to find anything because they're afraid we'll fall and get hurt.''
For some relic hunters, the artifacts they pull from the ground bring history to life.
Chris Huff of Spring Hill said he tries to imagine the last person who touched the belt buckle and what was going through the minds of the people firing the bullets.
He gathered his most prized collection of Civil War bullets and belt buckles from his grandfather's back yard in Mississippi.
''I have that (collection) in a special display. It really means a lot to me,'' Huff said.
''Every artifact I find has a story, and you just wonder where it's been and what it's done.''
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Preservationists lost campaign to save site
Developer disputes claim land part of battlefield
By PEGGY SHAW, Staff Writer
03/03/2004
Nashville Tennessean
http://www.tennessean.com/growth/archives/04/02/47672937.shtml?Element_ID=47672937
FRANKLIN - Developers saw it as prime commercial property that could serve residents in southern Williamson County. Preservationists viewed it as hallowed Civil War ground, bordering a National Historic Landmark.
Next year the 48-acre tract just north of Winstead Hill - Confederate Gen. John Bell Hood's command post during the Battle of Franklin - is slated to become Parkway Commons, a Target- and Kroger-anchored shopping center that's expected to open in March 2005.
Development of the land along Columbia Pike in Franklin came, however, after a lengthy battle last year involving developers, preservationists and the city of Franklin.
Several groups, including Save the Franklin Battlefield and the Tennessee Preservation Trust, argued that land near the base of Winstead Hill was official Civil War battlefield.
Confederates formed for battle and were involved in skirmishes on the Parkway Commons property, they said, and two federal studies have designated the property ''core battlefield.''
''This is where Hood leaned over with field glasses and said, 'We will make the fight,' '' said Thomas Cartwright, director of the Carter House, ground zero of the Battle of Franklin.
Brentwood developer Phil Warren, however, contended that the tract was not on Battle of Franklin land. ''Before we started, we did research to make sure this wasn't on the battlefield. The last thing we wanted was to destroy a historic landmark.''
Warren said he understood that nearby Winstead Hill was the observation post for Hood, and he agreed that Confederate troops lined up to fight in the vicinity. But the actual staging area may have been farther north than this tract, and ''according to all accounts, there was no fighting on that land.''
Even if Confederates did assemble on Parkway Commons land, that entire staging area was about 2½ miles wide, he argued. Warren noted that nearby businesses, such as Tractor Supply Co., Through The Green and 84 Lumber, also sit on land that could have been pieces of Civil War history.
In addition to considering the Parkway Commons site a Civil War national landmark, project opponents also argued that rezoning the land would lead to traffic problems and pollute the Harpeth River with storm-water runoff from parking lots and rooftops. Members also feared that buildings would destroy the view from Winstead Hill.
Warren assured residents, however, that the roof of Target itself would not be visible from Winstead Hill, and that the shopping center would help alleviate Franklin's traffic problems by giving residents on the south side of town a place to shop.
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--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jim Campi, Policy and Communications Director
Civil War Preservation Trust
1331 H Street NW, Suite 1001
Washington, DC 20005
Phone: (202) 367-1861 ext. 205
Fax: (202) 367-1865
http://www.civilwar.org
http://www.chancellorsville.org
Courtesy of the Civil War Preservation Trust
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(1) Fort Negley to be preserved as ruin - Nashville City Paper
(2) Volunteers needed for park day cleanups - Hagerstown Herald Mail
(3) Rare Civil War flag up for auction - York Sunday News
(4) Roundtables illustrate interest in Civil War - Associated Press
(5) Developer gives up Wilson's Creek plan - Springfield News-Leader
(6) Editorial: Mansfield battlefield endangered - Baton Rouge Advocate
(7) Group lists South Mountain as endangered - Brunswick (MD) Gazette
(8) Groups want battlefield protected - Bowling Green (KY) Daily News
(9) Civil War relic hunters race pavers - Nashville Tennessean
(10) Preservationists lost effort to save site - Nashville Tennessean
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Fort Negley gets 'status'
By Colleen Creamer, ccreamer@nashvillecitypaper.com
03/09/2004
Nashville City Paper
http://www.nashvillecitypaper.com/index.cfm?section_id=9&screen=news&news_id=31336
Fort Negley was built in 1862 and last rehabilitated in the 1930s.File photo.
Nashville's Fort Negley, a Civil War landmark long neglected, will be preserved as a ruin, not rebuilt, Tim Netsch of the Department of Parks and Recreation said Monday.
Parks officials, members of the Metro Historical Commission, the architectural design team of Moody/Nolan, and others met Monday to solicit public ideas for the Phase I stabilization of Fort Negley. The fort has been closed to the public for years because of safety issues. It is considered the largest inland stone Civil War fortification.
Last year, Mayor Bill Purcell allocated $2 million to stabilize Fort Negley: Phase I, already funded, will be an interpretive walking trail and Phase II will be a visitor's center.
Netsch said the first phase would involve putting in place parking, walking paths, an overlook(s), interpretive signage, an orientation plaza and landscaping.
"The goal of Phase I is to open, for the first time in 60 years, Fort Negley to the public in a manner that protects the site and is safe and enjoyable for Nashvillians and tourists alike," Netsch said.
Netsch said the plan for Phase II would be to put a staff "interpretive center" on the site. Netsch said Fort Negley was not being rebuilt but interpreted "as a ruin."
The Civil War Preservation Trust, a national non-profit organization devoted to the preservation of Civil War battlefield sites, listed Fort Negley among the most 10 important battlefields in the country. The fort has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1975.
When stabilized, Fort Negley could further the Middle Tennessee region's reputation as a major draw for Civil War enthusiasts.
The site was considered "too late" for saving in the early 1990s but after a re-evaluation, and lobbying by the Battle of Nashville Preservation Society, Fort Negley was upgraded by The Civil War Preservation Trust.
African American laborers built the fort in the fall and winter of 1862. Fort Negley was left to deteriorate, but was rehabilitated in the 1930s and then again fell into disrepair.
"For many of you, you know this has been going on for years and years," Ann Roberts, director of the Metro Historical Commission, said.
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Volunteers needed for park cleanups
03/09/2004
Hagerstown Herald-Mail
http://www.herald-mail.com/?module=displaystory&story_id=74782&format=html
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) - An army of volunteers is preparing to do battle with trash, weeds and other ravages of time and tourism at three Civil War sites in West Virginia.
The effort is part of the Civil War Preservation Trust's eighth annual Park Day, in which volunteers will visit 78 historic sites in 24 states to help with routine repairs and maintenance. Activities will include raking leaves, hauling garbage, painting signs and building trails.
The West Virginia sites being targeted are Harper's Ferry National Historical Park in Jefferson County, Rich Mountain Battlefield in Randolph County and Jackson's Mill Historic Area in Lewis County.
Park Day will be held at Harpers Ferry on March 21. The volunteer effort at Rich Mountain will occur in late April or early May, while volunteers will help at Jackson's Mill throughout its April-through-October season.
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Rare Civil War flag up for auction
Only one other U.S. Colored Troops regiment banner is known to exist
By R. SCOTT RAPPOLD Dispatch/Sunday News
03/07/2004
York Sunday News
http://www.yorksundaynews.com/Stories/0,1413,137~10048~2002039,00.html
The American Indian warrior arrived, as a lot of things do at Jamie Shearer's workshop, with an air of mystery.
A York County family had an old painting, but they didn't know how old or where it came from. They brought it to York Town Auction in West Manchester Township, where Shearer is the sales manager, to see if it is worth anything.
As it turns out, it is.
In fact, after some investigation, Shearer determined this is no canvas painting at all, but a flag. And he confirmed through the Flag Research Center in Massachusetts, the authority on the subject, that it is no ordinary flag, but a unique piece of black history.
Shearer believes, and the flag center agrees, that the American Indian is on a flag carried by a regiment of the United States Colored Troops in the Civil War, painted by David Bustill Bowser, a noted Philadelphia artist.
The piece will be auctioned Friday at the York Expo Center. Though the bids will determine the price, Shearer expects it to bring in at least $6,000 to $8,000.
And he is expecting interest from across the country, because very few such flags have survived, and though Bowser is believed to have made the flags for all 11 black regiments formed in Pennsylvania and possibly from other states, there is only one other known to still exist.
White man's war: Until 1863, the Civil War was considered a white man's war.
Many northern blacks, eager for a chance to help end southern slavery, wanted to fight, but some northern officials questioned their value as troops. Even as the Confederates were invading Pennsylvania in June of that year and state officials were scraping together any troops they could find, a company of black volunteers was turned away.
The heavy casualties of the 1862 battles convinced other Northern officials otherwise. But while Yankee generals in the occupied South began recruiting freed slaves in 1862, it wasn't until the spring of 1863 that the 54th Massachusetts -- the regiment portrayed in the film "Glory" -- became the first combat unit of Northern blacks.
In late June 1863, Camp William Penn opened north of Philadelphia, a training ground exclusively for black troops. Some 11,000 free blacks and escaped slaves were trained there over the next two years, including 8,612 from Pennsylvania, the most black troops recruited during the war from any northern state.
Unlike white regiments, most black units were not named for the state they came from, but were called United States Colored Troops. Bowser, a black artist, was hired to paint the regimental flags, which, for a Civil War unit, served as a rallying point in battle and a source of pride.
Along with the 11 regiments formed at Camp William Penn, Bowser likely painted the flags of other U.S. Colored Troops.
Local soldiers: It is difficult to tell how many of York County's 1,366 blacks enlisted; muster rolls do not indicate where each soldier was from.
But there are plenty of individual stories in the files of the York County Heritage Trust that suggest a good number of the county's blacks enlisted to fight for their country -- even though their country did not always treat them as equals.
Though white privates in the Union army earned $13 a month, blacks earned only $10. Blacks often were assigned guard duty or exhausting labor instead of combat. They could only serve under white officers.
And if captured by Confederates, they faced execution or being sold into slavery.
Such hazards didn't frighten the Barton family of Wrightsville, who had five family members serve in four different U.S. Colored Troops regiments. One, James Barton, suffered health problems that followed him for the rest of his life.
Wesley Green, of Yorkana, served in the 8th U.S. Colored Troops, formed in December 1863. He was shot in the arm a few days before the battle of Olustee in Florida in February 1864, a wound that still caused him great pain and prevented him from working when he died 45 years later.
Henry Bear, an American Indian from York County, served in the 127th U.S. Colored Troops, a unit that participated in the final crushing of Robert E. Lee's army. He was wounded by a cannon shell while on a skirmish line.
Samuel Johnson of York died while in service of the same regiment, leaving his children, Mary and Lester Johnson, orphans.
And the last Civil War veteran in York County to die, John Aquilla Wilson of Fawn Grove, was black. He served in the 32nd U.S. Colored Troops, which helped take Charleston, S.C., in 1865, and died in 1942 at the age of 101.
Some notable whites from York County were also part of the effort. Benjamin Frick was a second lieutenant in the 39th U.S. Colored Troops, and he later headed the Birney barracks in Baltimore, the recruiting station for all blacks in Maryland and Delaware. He was elected York County prothonotary in 1893.
Paradise Township native Frank Geise was a second lieutenant of the 32nd U.S. Colored Troops, and later served as military tax collector and provost marshal of Charleston. After the war he served as York County's prothonotary and died in 1900 while mayor of York.
Flags lost: While many such stories have survived, the regiments' flags have not.
After the war, all the white regimental flags were taken by the state. After being kept in storage for more than a century, the Pennsylvania Capitol Preservation Committee in 1982 launched its "Save the Flags" project, restoring 390 Civil War flags, which are today stored in acid-free, stainless steel units, protected from light, dust, heat and humidity.
But the U.S. Colored Troops flags were considered the property of the federal government, like those of some cavalry and other units not affiliated with a particular state. They were taken to Washington, D.C., where they sat, unprotected, until 1906, when they were transferred to the United States Military Academy Museum at West Point.
In his 1984 book "Advance the Colors!," Richard Sauers wrote that, prior to World War II, few of these flags could be identified anymore, and the academy destroyed many of them. Only one known Bowser flag remains, which is still held by the academy.
"A lot of it has to do with the conditions of the time period," said Harry Bradshaw Matthews, president of the U.S. Colored Troops Institute for Local History and Family Research at Hartwick College in Oneonta, N.Y.
After the war, blacks faced an entire new set of hurdles instead of the freedoms they had been fight for.
"These flags would have been just detestable in the eyes of those who opposed equal opportunity," Matthews said.
Started from scratch: Shearer didn't know any of this when he began studying the American Indian painting.
He took it from its frame, which was covered from behind with newsprint from an 1893 Philadelphia newspaper, the only clue to the painting's age.
Then he saw the tiny signature "Bowser," and he had another clue, though some experts told him it was impossible it was a work of David Bustill Bowser, since only one was known to have survived.
But the Flag Research Center compared it to known images of other Bowser works. The American Indian warrior is clutching a bow -- a martial symbol -- and is looking down and to the right, similar to other Bowser regimental flags.
He suspects someone liked the American Indian and cut it from the old flag, attaching it to a backboard. They also cut off the regiment's name, which would have been directly below the oval image, so he has no idea what unit it was.
"If you could narrow it down to a regiment, it would greatly increase the value," he said. But, he said, "It's one of the questions we'll never have the answer to."
The York County family selling it wants to remain anonymous, he said. They are not black, nor do they trace any lineage to a Civil War soldier. They're not even sure how they came across the painting.
"They gave me very little, very, very little," he said. "Even though I didn't find all the answers, I found a lot of them."
It is, he said, a perfect example of a family not knowing just what those antiques are, and how valuable they can be.
"A lot of times with these things, people don't know anything about it," Shearer said. "Most of the time, it's the ones they think are worth the least that are worth the most."
Matthews said while not many artifacts of the U.S. Colored Troops have survived, he suspects there are still many out there, probably also in the hands of private citizens who don't realize what they have.
"If indeed this is one of David Bustill Bowser's, it is very significant," he said.
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Roundtables illustrate endless interest in the Civil War
By MATT CURRY Associated Press Writer
03/07/2004
Associated Press Newswires
http://www.caller.com/ccct/state_texas_news/article/0,1641,CCCT_876_2711288,00.html
DALLAS- Eyes shifted from side to side, and anticipation began to build.
The objective rested only a few feet away.
Suddenly, with a slight nod from their leader, they surged ahead. The foe never stood a chance.
Mounds of golden fried fish and green beans were wiped out. The victorious charge on the buffet line brought the monthly meeting of the Dallas Civil War Roundtable to order.
Roundtables, which began in Chicago in 1940, give historians the chance to promote their work and dedicated Civil War buffs a chance to gobble up endless information _ frequently the nuts and bolts of key battles or the leadership qualities of Union and Confederate generals.
"They started originally to study the war, to have a speaker come in. Since the early 1970s, a number of them have become very interested in historic preservation," said Ed Bearss, former chief historian of the National Park Service and frequent speaker to Civil War groups.
The number of roundtables began to grow rapidly before the Civil War Centennial celebration of the 1960s, said Bearss (pronounced Bars), an octogenarian who dazzles audiences by rattling off dozens of obscure battle details on demand.
A typical meeting includes topics like "Lee and the Appomattox Campaign" or "Booth Shot Better Than he Thought he Did." More than 200 groups of varying size exist in the United States.
The groups make a point of welcoming competing views, where talk of subjects like Confederate Gen. James Longstreet's performance at Gettysburg can spark spirited disagreement.
"Some of the Southern roundtables, you better choose your subjects carefully," Bearss said.
Some roundtables have annual dinners or other events dedicated to the sole purpose of raising money to save endangered battlefield sites for future generations. The Austin Civil War Roundtable, for example, has donated $43,000 to the Civil War Preservation Trust over the last six years.
"It's a big source of funding for us," said Jim Campi, Washington-based spokesman for the trust, the nation's largest nonprofit organization devoted to preserving endangered Civil War battlefields. "Once you have an interest in the war, it's only natural to have an interest in saving the places where the war was fought."
Attorney Dan Laney, president of the Austin group and an officer with the trust, said another mission of the roundtables is to pass on Civil War history to future generations.
"We've just got to get that over to the younger generation, that there's more out there to learn than video games," Laney said.
The religious fervor for the war _ found in the writing of numerous books and re-enactments that prompt participants to don wool uniforms and trudge across battlefields in relentless summer heat _ comes from basically one thing _ "It's the greatest drama in America," said Frank Williams, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Rhode Island and founding chair of The Lincoln Forum, a national organization that supports the study of President Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War. "These characters were giants on the screen of history."
About 60 people recently crammed into the side room of a Dallas steakhouse for an animated speech by historian Gordon C. Rhea, an international lawyer and award-winning author of four books on the war's Overland Campaign of 1864.
Rhea's interest in the war originated from tales his father heard old veterans tell.
"My dad was born in 1901 in a little town in Tennessee," Rhea said. "He grew up hearing stories and related them to me, and I was fascinated."
Doug Waters, a 39-year-old claims adjuster who listened to Rhea's story of heroism by a Confederate private, traces his interest in the Civil War to first grade. His family took a trip to the Shiloh National Military Park in Tennessee, site of the first major battle in the war's Western theater.
Waters has attended the Dallas roundtable for about 10 years and has taken about 20 battlefield tours.
"Just the feats of the men back then compared to nowadays never ceases to amaze me. Not just necessarily the high casualty rates, though that still astonishes me, but what they could physically do," he said. "I respect both sides, what they were willing to do for their beliefs, marching long distances, going without eating, charging cannons without backing away."
Interest is not confined to the nation's shores. Civil War buffs in England visit London for roundtables, group president Peter Lockwood said.
Great Britain's involvement in the war is among chief topics of interest by the more than 250 members, a number that has doubled in the last five years, he said.
"It is quite common for members to travel 200 to 300 miles to attend meetings," Lockwood said.
___
On the Net:
Civil War Preservation Trust: www.civilwar.org
Dallas Civil War Roundtable: www.cwrtdallas.org
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Developer gives up on Terrell Creek plan
Steve Redford said the possibility of federal involvement too great a risk.
By Jenny Fillmer and Matt Wagner
03/04/2004
Springfield News-Leader
http://www.news-leader.com/today/0304-Developerg-30308.html
The largest housing development ever proposed in Christian County is now off the table.
In an exclusive interview Wednesday with the News-Leader, developer Steve Redford said his company was withdrawing its proposal for Terrell Creek, in part because he feared the federal government would get involved.
"We don't need it," said Redford, president of Missouri Partners Inc. "We don't have to do it. We think, ultimately, (our development is) the right thing to do, but we're going to withdraw."
The company, one of the area's largest residential developers, had proposed a subdivision on 2,300 acres south of Republic that would eventually bring about 1,500 new homes to the rural area.
Terrell Creek's sheer magnitude - along with its anticipated impact on local wells and a cold-water stream of the same name - had drawn concern from neighbors and environmentalists.
Its proximity to Wilson's Creek National Battlefield lead to national attention, after the Civil War Preservation Trust named Wilson's Creek one of the nation's top 10 most endangered battlefields.
Over the past two months, Missouri Partners met several times with concerned groups and Christian County officials.
In the end, Redford said, pressure from environmental and governmental agencies was too much of a risk for his company.
"I can't depend on these rogue agencies," said Redford, leaning forward in his Hollister office. "They have unlimited time, and they have unlimited funds. ... Given the unknown about intervention, it's just not wise for us to pursue."
Upon hearing the news Wednesday, Wilson's Creek National Battlefield Superintendent Ted Hillmer shook his head in disbelief before saying he was disappointed the deal fell through.
"This is a win-lose situation," said Hillmer. "I'd rather have a win-win. ... I wish we could have worked something out for both the landowners and MPI."
Federal attention
Wilson's Creek officials said part of MPI's proposed development was to be built where hundreds of Confederate troops camped on Aug. 9, 1861, the night before the Battle of Wilson's Creek. And a portion of the proposal overlapped an area designated by the battlefield's General Management Plan for future annexation.
Roland Douglas, Missouri Partners vice president, had met several times with Hillmer to discuss the development.
"We talked about how this could be something we both benefitted from," Hillmer said.
But no commitments were made.
Last Thursday, a representative from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency invited Missouri Partners to another meeting, with representatives from several state and local government officials and environmental groups.
The EPA is urging developers and planners to adopt "smart-growth" principles, said Jaci Ferguson, director of the agency's Southwest Missouri Field Office.
"Growth is going to happen, but managing it properly - that's the key," said Ferguson. "It's going to take everyone working together to make it happen."
Redford grew increasingly wary of the possibility of the federal government getting involved.
"If there's a 10 percent chance that the federal government will interfere, we're out," he said.
Two of what Redford calls "three major mistakes in my life" involved brushes with the federal government in the early 1990s.
In July 1992, Redford pleaded guilty in a $5 million bankruptcy fraud case. In February 1993, he pleaded guilty to bribing former Missouri Attorney General William Webster. Webster was never charged with accepting the bribe and denied that it took place.
Redford was not sent to prison, but he voluntarily forfeited the assets hidden in the bankruptcy. He spent the next several years rebuilding his real estate business.
Redford said he gained some valuable wisdom from the experience.
"I learned that you have to be very careful what you do, who you do it with and how you do it," he said. "The No. 1 ingredient to this business is risk assessment."
The risk of pursuing Terrell Creek, Redford said, was simply too high. He could see the EPA and the National Park Service getting involved.
"The potential for interference from the federal government ... may be remote, but not remote enough for us."
Planning and zoning officials from both Christian County and Republic were reviewing Missouri Partners' applications for the subdivision, and were surprised to hear the Terrell Creek proposal had fallen through.
Said Wally Schrock, a planner with the city of Republic: "It's on the agenda for next Monday night to schedule a hearing for the following meeting."
Happy neighbors
Those who call the countryside of northwest Christian County home were elated the land around Terrell Creek is no longer facing the immediate threat of development.
Christine Stokely flashed a smile and a thumbs-up upon hearing the news.
"We moved here because this is such a beautiful area ... and you just see gorgeous land being chewed up all over the place," said Stokely, who owns Stokely Stables near Battlefield with her husband, David.
The news also eased Andy Arndt's concerns about what would happen to the water on his land. His family has owned farmland near Terrell Creek for a century and a half. His ancestors settled the rolling acreage after discovering abundant cold-water springs flowing year-round.
"This creek just runs good all the time," said Arndt, who relies on a 500-foot well for potable groundwater.
Tom Aley, a hydrogeologist hired by Arndt and his neighbors, said his clients' fears were justified. He called the proposed subdivision "ill-conceived" and said its implications would have been severe on Terrell Creek and the James River, which lies downstream.
"Basically what was proposed was a city that would have had a population of 1,000 people that would have been served by septic tanks," Aley said. "That's not the way you plan and develop a modern city. ... It needs to be developed in the fashion in which you plan up front to adequately take care of the sewage so as to protect the water resources of the area."
Aside from unwanted environmental side effects, many rural residents say they just don't want to see the area's natural beauty ruined with hundreds of new homes.
"It seems a lot of people move to the country to get a little of what the country offers," Arndt said. "Cleaner air, less congestion, wildlife. ... It's just an ideal place to be."
Margie Barbato, who lives nearby, would love to see the land left as grazing pastures or purchased and preserved as greenspace by Wilson's Creek National Battlefield.
But she knows better.
"We're not going to stop progress," she said. "(The withdrawal is) good news because we're not going to have all that growth, but it may be bad news as far as who else may be interested."
Hillmer agreed that the deal's failure creates more uncertainty for the area.
"I would rather have dealt with the cards I had instead of wondering what may come along tomorrow. It could be a Wal-Mart or a supercenter."
Arndt said he's accepted the fact that someone will eventually buy and develop the property, which is owned by Charlie Blount.
"I never really looked at this like a war where we win and you lose," Arndt said. "The land is still for sale. I'd just like to see a quality subdivision."
What's next
While Missouri Partners' plans for Terrell Creek have been dropped, Redford said his company is still interested in working in the Springfield metropolitan area. "Under no circumstances does this mean we're not going to do any development in Springfield," he said.
Redford will also continue developing nearly a dozen projects under way in the Tri-Lakes area and near Lake of the Ozarks.
And he proposes changing zoning regulations in Christian, Taney and Stone counties that would help clarify the process for developers.
"These three counties need to bite the bullet and create countywide zoning maps," said Redford, adding that it's difficult and expensive to determine where new growth is going to be compatible with current land uses.
The only way to overturn non-compatible residential-use rulings from those counties' planning and zoning commissions is through court, Redford contended.
Missouri Partners is currently involved in a lawsuit against the Stone County Commission and the county's planning and zoning board over a technicality in the county's building codes.
Stone County officials contend Missouri Partners hasn't obtained proper building permits for its StoneBridge Village subdivision near Silver Dollar City, and owes about $40,000 in permit fees.
Joy Wilson, administrator of the Stone County Planning and Zoning office, said Redford had expressed his displeasure with the county's zoning regulations to her and said he planned on changing the way things were done.
"I guess that means not paying for permits," she said.
Christian County Associate Commissioner Tom Chudomelka said Redford's idea was not the first time he's heard a call for more conventional zoning codes.
"It's been talked about since 1993," Chudomelka said. "The problem there is we can write them, but somebody's still got to draw the lines. And it looks like to me that you're going to have a great problem with people wanting to change those classifications. I'm not sure it'd really help anything."
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EDITORIAL
Mansfield battle site endangered
03/04/2004
Baton Rouge Advocate
http://www.2theadvocate.com/stories/030404/opi_edi2001.shtml
It is not news that the Mansfield battlefield site, where one of the most vicious battles of the Civil War was fought in 1864, is endangered by the passage of time and the threat of lignite coal mining.
However, the inclusion of Mansfield on the Civil War Preservation Trust's list of 10 most endangered battlefields will, we hope, bring more attention to the urgent need for public and private efforts to preserve the site.
The trust selects endangered sites based on geographic location, military significance and immediacy of threats.
"With so many battlefields under siege from sprawl, we could easily have selected a hundred," trust President James Lighthizer said. "Our Civil War battlefields are vanishing at an alarming pace. Once lost, these links to America's past can never be replaced."
The Mansfield site is where Confederate Gen. Richard Taylor's attacks turned back the advancing Union army. About one-quarter of the troops engaged were casualties, a proof of the hard fighting there.
We commend the trust for trying to draw attention to the erosion of this physical reminder of history.
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Group lists area battlefield as endangered
by Angela Pfeiffer, Staff Writer
03/04/2004
Brunswick (MD) Gazette
http://www.gazette.net/200410/brunswick/news/205389-1.html
The South Mountain State Battlefield has existed for only about four years, and already a preservation group is claiming the battlefield is among the 10 most endangered Civil War battlefields in the country.
Last week, the national Civil War Preservation Trust (CWPT) released its annual report on the most threatened battlefields in the country. South Mountain State Battlefield 2,500 acres of public property straddling the Frederick-Washington county line is the only Maryland site to make the list this year.
The mountain is where, on Sept. 14, 1862, the Union and Confederate armies clashed in three bloody battles at the mountain's Crampton's, Fox's and Turner's gaps, resulting in 5,240 casualties. The clashes were a prelude to the even bloodier battle at Antietam and are recognized as historically significant because of their relationship with that event and Antietam's important role in the course of the war.
Washington Monument State Park and Gathland State Park bound the battlefield on the north and south, respectively.
The trust named South Mountain to the list because of the possibility that private property not protected by preservation easements could be lost forever to developers' shovels.
"Today, South Mountain remains much as it did at the time of the battles there," the trust said in its report. "The State of Maryland has done a laudable job using the federal Transportation Enhancement Program to place easements on terrain associated with the fighting on the mountain. In the past decade, the state has saved 6,000 acres of land at South Mountain, including 183 acquired with the assistance of CWPT.
"However, despite this effort, the eastern side of South Mountain is particularly vulnerable to development. The area is rapidly becoming a bedroom community for commuters working in the Washington, D.C., area. Key parcels near Burkittsville and along Frostown Road in Turner's Gap remain unprotected."
To compile the list, the preservation trust consulted a 1993 study by a congressional commission that prioritized the war's 10,500 armed conflicts according to their significance and state of preservation.
The commission ranked South Mountain a Priority I, Class B, battle site a designation meaning its battles had a direct and decisive influence on their campaign and the battlefield is a top candidate for preservation.
However, the Maryland General Assembly did not create the battlefield until October 2000, seven years after the commission completed its study.
Also, in March 2003, the state convened a 17-member planning committee to develop site and management plans for the local historic spot. The committee has studied monumentation, signage, parking, interpretive markers and landscape restoration.
But Jim Campi, spokesman for the Civil War Preservation Trust, said the 1993 study is still relevant in order to train a spotlight on the locations listed.
"The intent is to keep attention on these sites that were identified," Campi said. "Maryland has done a great job [on South Mountain]. In fact, a lot of the reason that South Mountain is on the report is that the state has done such a good job that it's really increased expectations that we'd like to see the remainder of the battlefield saved. Our concern is we've got a very small window to do it in because ... the Frederick area, even heading west, is starting to become something of a bedroom community for the beltway. Land values are starting to increase and it may be difficult to buy land in that area in a few years."
The Maryland Department of Natural Resources has purchased easements and property on the battlefield using a state grant called Program Open Space. A total of 5,918 acres has been preserved with state and federal funds, Rural Legacy easements and private funds, said Grant Dehart, policy director for the department's Capital Grants and Loans Program.
Dehart said the programs have enabled the state to protect parcels at the three gaps and near Burkittsville where direct fighting and major troop movements took place.
Dehart, who was unable to provide a figure on how much remaining land the state would like to protect, said the battlefield is in a critical situation, given the state's fiscal situation.
Dehart said the listing in the trust's report is important to keep attention focused on South Mountain.
"Even with Frederick County's relatively good protective zoning, particularly when you get up into to the foothills of the South Mountain area along Frostown Road, Mount Tabor Road and Reno Monument Road, the zoning would still permit additional houses."
"...If there is a concern about this," Dehart continued, "people should contribute to the Civil War Preservation Trust because they are helping us in the number of different properties leveraging private money with public money, which is becoming more important these days."
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Civil War buffs want battlefield preserved
Officials, historic group weigh options for land in Munfordville
By Scott Sisco
03/04/2004
Bowling Green (KY) Daily News
http://www.bgdailynews.com/cgi-bin/view.cgi?/200403/04+civil20040304_news.html+20040304+news
MUNFORDVILLE - In 1861 and '62, the area around the Anthony Woodson farm was farmland and forest. It was also the site of three battles of the American Civil War.
Now, neighborhoods, an abandoned saw mill and even a junkyard cover much of the battlefield. Because of that, the site has been listed in the Civil War Preservation Trust's National Most Endangered List. But preservation of the site is facing opposition from a neighborhood group.
Some local residents, including Tres Seymour, executive director of the Battle for the Bridge Historic Preserve, are trying to preserve this history. The group has received grants to renovate the Woodson House, which was built in 1892 on the edge of the Battle of Munfordville site, into a visitor's center.
"We're hoping by listing the site on our list of endangered battle sites, it will bring more interest to the site," CWPT spokesman Jim Campi said. "There's at least 100 more acres we'd like to see protected."
Kentucky does a good job of preserving Civil War sites, Campi said.
"The state has been very proactive in using the transportation enhancement program to save their Civil War battlefields," he said. "Munfordville is certainly one that could use some extra attention."
The CWPT, a Washington, D.C.-based organization, has helped to preserve about 18,000 acres nationally.
Other battlefields on the list include Fort Donelson in Dover, Tenn., Franklin, Tenn., Appomattox, Va., Gettysburg, Penn., and Harpers Ferry, W.Va.
When most people think of the Civil War in Kentucky, they think of the most bloody battle at Perryville, Seymour said.
"Many scholars of the Civil War in the West say that the Confederate invasion of 1862 was the high water mark of the Confederacy," he said.
That invasion ran through Munfordville because of the Louisville and Nashville Railroad bridge that spans the Green River. The Union needed the bridge to move large quantities of men and supplies into the South.
"That was the lifeline for the Union into the South," Seymour said.
The Confederate attack at Munfordville left the southerners in control of all the hills around the river and the bridge, the strongest position the Confederates would hold in Kentucky.
Famous Confederate Gen. John Hunt Morgan brought his Lexington Rifles to Munfordville to train in 1861. He was sworn into the Confederate Army on the steps of a church, which is no longer standing, near the battlefield.
The site has a 5-mile, round-trip interpretive trail around part of the battlefield, which is open each day from dawn until dusk. During the city's annual Civil War Days festival, Seymour teaches schoolchildren about the battle on the site.
The problems Seymour and his organization face are typical for many preservation efforts. The people around the site have different ideas of what is significant, he said.
Billy "Buck" Minton, owner of Stanton's Garage, has cars lined up on a hill where the Rowlettes Station Battle was fought in 1861. He hasn't talked directly with Seymour about the preservation effort.
"I think it's a waste of taxpayers' money," Minton said. "We can't help what happened 200 years ago."
Besides, he said, no one knows exactly where the battle was fought.
Minton and some of the members of the community around the site formed a group called Woodsonville Home Owners Association, or WHOA, to try to stop the preservation effort.
"I guess I'll keep battling with them until someone decides I have to move," Minton said. "I'm not going to move because they want me to."
Minton's shop was established before the effort began, he said.
The Munfordville battle site has been designated by Congress as a nationally significant site.
Part of the battlefield between the Woodson farm and the Green River hasn't changed much since the battle, Seymour said.
"This is pretty much what it looked like," he said. "There's a lot here to preserve."
Seymour knows that people need a place to live and work - he just wants to balance those needs with the preservation effort.
"The Hart County Historical Society isn't out to purchase up huge quantities of land," Seymour said. "We seek to preserve it."
The society has a conservation easement on 74 acres of the battlefield from the landowner, which allows the owner to continue to use the land for agriculture and gives the state the right to develop the land as a historical site. Some of the landowners use the land for non-historic uses, like the abandoned saw mill and Minton's business.
Some of the land has been bought by the CWPT and the historical society at auction to save it from being developed into subdivisions. That's one reason the trust identified Munfordville on its list.
"They're looking at ways to help us even further," Seymour said.
Out of the 900 acres with historical significance on the site, about 219 acres have been preserved.
"There's considerable battlefield that's not protected in any way," Seymour said.
Hart County doesn't have planning and zoning regulations and has few ordinances regarding development, he said.
"We're always having to keep an eagle eye out to make sure something's protected," Seymour said. "We have to take an adversarial role."
The Hart County Fiscal Court has been supportive of the preservation efforts, voting recently to support an application for a state grant to help restore Woodson House and to establish a permanent trail on the battlefield.
The fiscal court is trying to balance the requests of citizens like Minton with the preservation movement, Hart County Judge-Executive Terry Shelton said.
"We're trying to work with both parties in this and be fair in what we're able to do," Shelton said.
There are two reasons Seymour wants to preserve the property. First, soldiers on both sides died on the site for what they believed in.
"The ground out there looks green, but it's reddened with the blood of 50 killed and over 300 injured at the Battle of Munfordville," he said.
The other reason is to bring tourism dollars to the county. Hart County gets most of its revenue from tobacco, a crop that continues to decrease in value.
Since the preservation effort began in 1995, the group has solicited residents' comments on the project. Seymour was quick to dispel several rumors about the United Nations coming to Munfordville to take over the area and the National Park Service's plans to make the battlefield a national park.
"None of which is true," he said. "This is a local project, run by a local organization, run by local people. That's how we intend it to stay."
- For more information, see www.battleforthebridge.org or www.civilwar.org.
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Civil War relic hunters race pavers
Shopping center to cover site linked to Franklin battlefield
By HOLLY EDWARDS, Staff Writer
03/03/2004
Nashville Tennessean
http://www.tennessean.com/growth/archives/04/02/47672933.shtml?Element_ID=47672933
For Civil War relic hunters, a large tract of bulldozed land in Franklin is the latest piece of American history on the verge of being paved and sealed in concrete.
While the heavy equipment sits idle, and before construction crews arrive to build a shopping center, dozens of them have descended upon the property, finding historic artifacts with metal detectors.
Digging through the flattened dirt, they have exhumed relics such as cracked Union belt buckles and corroded Confederate bullets.
The property is on Columbia Pike, near the main site of the Battle of Franklin, in which casualties included 7,000 Confederate and 2,500 Union soldiers on Nov. 30, 1864. It is the future home of a Kroger and Target shopping center.
''We're losing our battlefields every day to shopping centers and malls,'' said Joe Love of Franklin, one of the relic hunters canvassing the site last weekend. ''If anything is here, I'd like to get it out before it's covered with concrete and asphalt.''
With mud-soaked shoes and dirty fingernails, the relic hunters scattered over the site in small teams, walking slowly and looking straight down. Most wore tool belts containing small brushes and flashlights, and carried long, slender shovels to dig up the artifacts.
Local Civil War preservationists fought to have the land preserved as a historic site. But having lost that fight, they agree that it's better to save the relics than lose them forever.
Some people have argued that the property was not part of the battle, and the fact that relic hunters are finding Civil War artifacts proves the preservationists' view that the land is historically important, said Thomas Cartwright, director of the Carter House in Franklin, which was commandeered as a Union Army headquarters before the battle.
Cartwright said relic hunters have been searching the area since the 1960s. Although it's illegal to use metal detectors on federal or state land, and preservationists don't like to see artifacts taken from historic sites, he said that in this case he's ''delighted'' that the relics are being found. ''This is a part of history that needs to come out for future generations,'' Cartwright said. ''Either they get these things out or they'll be lost.''
Mary Pearce, executive director of the Heritage Foundation in Franklin, said she, too, would like to see the artifacts at the site preserved. However, she said it would have been better if the developer had given the Carter House first dibs. ''If people are getting artifacts, it would have been nice if the developer had allowed the Carter House to orchestrate it,'' she said. ''Then everyone could see what was there.''
Attempts to reach the developer, Phil Warren, were unsuccessful yesterday.
Nick Fielder, director of the state Division of Archeology, agreed that the relic hunters should have the property owner's permission but said he saw nothing wrong with digging up artifacts from a site pegged for development.
''At construction sites, the damage is already done,'' he said. ''It's a pretty common occurrence for relic hunters to turn up at these areas.''
But Melissa Eads, a Kroger spokeswoman, said the relic hunters are trespassing on the construction site. ''No trespassing'' signs are posted at the site for the public's safety, she said.
''For their own safety, these people don't need to be out there prowling around,'' Eads said.
Love said he met relic hunters from as far away as Georgia at the site. He said he resents property owners who try to restrict the public's access to historic relics.
''That's the problem down here,'' he said. ''Nobody wants us to find anything because they're afraid we'll fall and get hurt.''
For some relic hunters, the artifacts they pull from the ground bring history to life.
Chris Huff of Spring Hill said he tries to imagine the last person who touched the belt buckle and what was going through the minds of the people firing the bullets.
He gathered his most prized collection of Civil War bullets and belt buckles from his grandfather's back yard in Mississippi.
''I have that (collection) in a special display. It really means a lot to me,'' Huff said.
''Every artifact I find has a story, and you just wonder where it's been and what it's done.''
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Preservationists lost campaign to save site
Developer disputes claim land part of battlefield
By PEGGY SHAW, Staff Writer
03/03/2004
Nashville Tennessean
http://www.tennessean.com/growth/archives/04/02/47672937.shtml?Element_ID=47672937
FRANKLIN - Developers saw it as prime commercial property that could serve residents in southern Williamson County. Preservationists viewed it as hallowed Civil War ground, bordering a National Historic Landmark.
Next year the 48-acre tract just north of Winstead Hill - Confederate Gen. John Bell Hood's command post during the Battle of Franklin - is slated to become Parkway Commons, a Target- and Kroger-anchored shopping center that's expected to open in March 2005.
Development of the land along Columbia Pike in Franklin came, however, after a lengthy battle last year involving developers, preservationists and the city of Franklin.
Several groups, including Save the Franklin Battlefield and the Tennessee Preservation Trust, argued that land near the base of Winstead Hill was official Civil War battlefield.
Confederates formed for battle and were involved in skirmishes on the Parkway Commons property, they said, and two federal studies have designated the property ''core battlefield.''
''This is where Hood leaned over with field glasses and said, 'We will make the fight,' '' said Thomas Cartwright, director of the Carter House, ground zero of the Battle of Franklin.
Brentwood developer Phil Warren, however, contended that the tract was not on Battle of Franklin land. ''Before we started, we did research to make sure this wasn't on the battlefield. The last thing we wanted was to destroy a historic landmark.''
Warren said he understood that nearby Winstead Hill was the observation post for Hood, and he agreed that Confederate troops lined up to fight in the vicinity. But the actual staging area may have been farther north than this tract, and ''according to all accounts, there was no fighting on that land.''
Even if Confederates did assemble on Parkway Commons land, that entire staging area was about 2½ miles wide, he argued. Warren noted that nearby businesses, such as Tractor Supply Co., Through The Green and 84 Lumber, also sit on land that could have been pieces of Civil War history.
In addition to considering the Parkway Commons site a Civil War national landmark, project opponents also argued that rezoning the land would lead to traffic problems and pollute the Harpeth River with storm-water runoff from parking lots and rooftops. Members also feared that buildings would destroy the view from Winstead Hill.
Warren assured residents, however, that the roof of Target itself would not be visible from Winstead Hill, and that the shopping center would help alleviate Franklin's traffic problems by giving residents on the south side of town a place to shop.
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Jim Campi, Policy and Communications Director
Civil War Preservation Trust
1331 H Street NW, Suite 1001
Washington, DC 20005
Phone: (202) 367-1861 ext. 205
Fax: (202) 367-1865
http://www.civilwar.org
http://www.chancellorsville.org
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