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Franklin faces its very last opportunity
to save largest remaining tract of battlefield
To the Editor: I am writing this letter from my perspective — a Civil War artist/historian, born in New York City, who has returned to Tennessee many times to try to capture those eventful hours that we call the Battle of Franklin. I might claim credentials that range from three commissions from the U.S. Mint for commemorative coins to my role as “uniform and equipage consultant” on the film “Cold Mountain,” but I lay all this aside and write to you now in my greater role as a fellow American.
Franklin now faces its very last opportunity to save and preserve, as public open space, the largest remaining undeveloped fragment of the battlefield. From my perspective, and most likely the perspective of every serious Civil War historian in the nation today, there would seem to be no legitimate argument otherwise.
Far from the claim that it was “an inconsequential battle fought after the outcome of the war was determined,” the Battle of Franklin remains that turning point in the war in the West that sealed the fate of the Southern Confederacy forever, and out of which, our country was reborn.
If Franklin’s leadership turns its back on this last opportunity for our nation to have a field in the battlefield at Franklin, they will have lost far more than all the tax dollars that every legitimate study says come with preserved battlefield park tourism. For they will have placed the interests of a segment of a small, private country club membership before the greater interests of the community as a whole and before our nation’s patrimony.
In one of the wealthiest counties in America, populated with many private and public golf courses, this small, private club is now demanding that the city’s leadership bale them out by not financially participating in the purchase of this land to transform it into public open space in the form of a preserved battlefield.
All this made even less sense when I found out that this very membership once owned the real estate, choosing to sell it rather than have themselves absorb the costs for clubhouse and course improvements.
It is my sincerest hope that the city and its leadership will transcend those who would rewrite history, bully officials and use whatever means possible to preserve for themselves what they freely sold and will have a greater vision for their community and our higher angels of history.
Don Troiani
P.O. Box 660
South Berry, CT 06488
to save largest remaining tract of battlefield
To the Editor: I am writing this letter from my perspective — a Civil War artist/historian, born in New York City, who has returned to Tennessee many times to try to capture those eventful hours that we call the Battle of Franklin. I might claim credentials that range from three commissions from the U.S. Mint for commemorative coins to my role as “uniform and equipage consultant” on the film “Cold Mountain,” but I lay all this aside and write to you now in my greater role as a fellow American.
Franklin now faces its very last opportunity to save and preserve, as public open space, the largest remaining undeveloped fragment of the battlefield. From my perspective, and most likely the perspective of every serious Civil War historian in the nation today, there would seem to be no legitimate argument otherwise.
Far from the claim that it was “an inconsequential battle fought after the outcome of the war was determined,” the Battle of Franklin remains that turning point in the war in the West that sealed the fate of the Southern Confederacy forever, and out of which, our country was reborn.
If Franklin’s leadership turns its back on this last opportunity for our nation to have a field in the battlefield at Franklin, they will have lost far more than all the tax dollars that every legitimate study says come with preserved battlefield park tourism. For they will have placed the interests of a segment of a small, private country club membership before the greater interests of the community as a whole and before our nation’s patrimony.
In one of the wealthiest counties in America, populated with many private and public golf courses, this small, private club is now demanding that the city’s leadership bale them out by not financially participating in the purchase of this land to transform it into public open space in the form of a preserved battlefield.
All this made even less sense when I found out that this very membership once owned the real estate, choosing to sell it rather than have themselves absorb the costs for clubhouse and course improvements.
It is my sincerest hope that the city and its leadership will transcend those who would rewrite history, bully officials and use whatever means possible to preserve for themselves what they freely sold and will have a greater vision for their community and our higher angels of history.
Don Troiani
P.O. Box 660
South Berry, CT 06488
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