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Post by RogueWarrior1957 on Feb 25, 2005 16:43:57 GMT 12.75
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Post by jayrog3006 on Feb 26, 2005 2:00:47 GMT 12.75
Bill,
I totally agree with you. Last year we took a trip to Gettysburg, Manasses, Antietam, Harper's Ferry, Chancellorsville, Fredericksburg. Thought provoking and awe-inspiring.
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Post by OLKoot on Feb 26, 2005 12:37:53 GMT 12.75
This is a crying shame Bill...There only going to buid acres of what we call "DITTO" houses.There is nothing sacred in what theyre doing accepth desicrating actual sacred ground fought over by valiant men during valient times....Land where the entire future structor of our nation as it is today was shaped.....Ditto houses where people live together, not in peacefull harmony , but at war with each other then move.....THe second generation owners destroy what was meant to be beautiful because thats the plight of civilization in the great cities that are formed by these groups of new urban homes...
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Post by shiloh on Mar 1, 2005 7:11:08 GMT 12.75
I demonstrate regularly at Kennesaw and Chickamauga/Lookout Mt., Stones River and occasionally at Wilson's Creek. It is so sad to see the houses and businesses creepin in every year and the drive-through roads such as at Chickamauga nd Kennesaw that allow hundreds of thousands of cars to drive right through each year without the people even caring what the cannons and markers there mean. Here in Nashville, Tn 99.9% of the Battle of Nashville land is gone. Right where I sit now in Brentwood, TN 100% of the battlefield is gone without a marker even. A few miles south of me is Franklin where about 80% of the battlefield is gone. Down in Murfreesboro, only about 15% of the battlefield is preserved in the Stones River Nat'l Battlefield. That park was lucky enough last year to reacquire about 100 acres of the field, but that's not nearly enough. About 95% of Fortress Rosecrans is gone now, leaving only about 1000 ft of original walls to the Nat'l Park Serv. That fort was the largest earthen-work fort ever built on North America. Down near my house is the battlefields of the Battle of Liberty Gap. It is all private land, but still almost all farmland so there is hope that we can save most of it with time. Once land like this is developed, it is in all likelyhood gone forever. Seldom do we get the opportunity to buy back land and tear down houses or buildings to try to restore it, and really you never really can restore it as it was. When people own the land and dig or relic hunt they destroy historical evidence forever. When they plant non-native plants in their yards it is virtually impossible to return thing as they were. Historic parks like these not only help preserve history, but offer "greenspace" to areas for all to enjoy and use, and also allow the Park Service to research other important things such as geology and botony and animal welfare, etc. These parks also bring in millions of dollars to local economies from tourists. I consider these lands as a lasting gift from our forefathers who fought there and made the realestate more valuable than houses or businesses for generations to come. Sadly, too many short-sighted people cannot grasp the concept of value unless brick and mortar are involved.
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Post by OLKoot on Mar 1, 2005 11:12:23 GMT 12.75
Yeah, even in the northeast , the early battlefields of the revolutionary war are up and under multiple developements......I tried once to follow the trail the British walked to the battle of Brooklyn......there was nothing but pavement with a rare road sign along the way.....The British landing took place,identified as Nelly Bly where there is a hamburger and fries joint, and walking down (THE)Kings Highway, is anything but that....its all paved with streets lined with high apartment buildings....Even here in Connecticut, all the armories or forges used in the construction of weapons are just a sign on the road, or a small pile of bricks .......Anyone remembering the Old Elsie Bordon Ice Cream will never find the farm which was there from the mid 1700's.....its just north of my house totally engulfed in shrubbery and one sign to identify the location....Its sad.....
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Post by shiloh on Mar 2, 2005 10:31:19 GMT 12.75
The Rev War stuff is almost gone. None of that era really happened here in TN, but I have read that it's mostly gone over east and up north. Right below me in Franklin the Carter House and Carnton Plantation house with a few acres is preserved, but that's about all that remains of the Battle of Franklin. Carnton mansion is where the 5 Confederate generals were laid side by side on the back porch after the battle, one of which was Patrick R. Cleburne (The Stonewall of the West). Perhaps one of the most brilliant field commanders of the war, and a dang-decent man. The spot where he fell is the parking lot to a Domino's pizza place across the street from the front lawn of Carter House. Many miles north in Gallatin is Fairvue Plantation where I fished as a kid. It was privately owned as a residence until the lady died and it was sold. The mansion that had blood stains on the stairs and hand-written notes on the attic walls from wounded Union soldiers that were there as a convalescence hospital. It is now the clubhouse for a large residential community. Up in Nashville, there are a few road markers telling what happened in the Battle of Nashville, but the land is all private with homes and businesses all over it. One statue stands on Franklin Road not even on the battlefield to commemorate the battle, and Ft. Negley is being preserved although all it did was fire some shots at very long range to signal the beginning of the battle. "Shy's Hill" named after Confederate Col Shy who was killed atop the hill is covered with fine homes and has a couple of markers. Battery Lane which connects Shy's Hill to Peach Orchard Hill where Confederate batteries were lined up and overrun only has its modern day name to remind us what its significance was. Peach Orchard Hill has 1 marker to tell the tale of the valiant, possibly the most valiant infantry charge by Negro troops during the entire war against Confederate artillery. The Confederate col. over the posistion declared later that throughout his service he never had seen such bravery from troops, even white troops. David Lipscomb University sits where the Confederate center broke and fled on the 1st day and across which Union charged that night and 2nd day. Here in Brentwood a few hundred yds from where I sit is a house and large church that stands on the point where the final cavalry clash of sabres of the entire war took place. An executive park sits here where the Confederate cavalry fought a desperate rear guard fight against Union cavalry pursuing the remnants of the destroyed Army of Tennessee from the Nashville battlefield. On the other side of the park about a mile up this road is an executive building called "The Ramparts" that marks the ramparts site of a Union redoubt that Col. Nathan B. Forrest stormed successfully in the first months of the war. Down in Murfreesboro, the majority of the Battle of Stones River is under a golf club range, a shooting range, 2 malls, several churches and many other businesses and homes. A Hooters and several other stores and low income houses are built inside what once was Fortress Rosecrans. The site of the most aggressive and disastorous charge by Confederates of the war, Breckinridge's Charge happened down the slopes across the river from the present day Nat'l Park where today many nice houses are built. The "Round Forest" that was where Phil Sheridan really won his early reputation is a GE Plant. "Hell's Half Acre" where the Confederate dead lay so close that a man could walk on the bodies for a half or more acres around without stepping on earth is mostly under a huge overpass earthen buildup ramp. The hill that was occupied by Confederate artillery that fired the fatal shot that lopped the head off Col. Garasche' and came within a foot or two of killing Maj. Gen'l Rosecrans and thus probably ending the battle is a golf country club clubhouse. We have already lost so much. I hate to think what else will be lost to "progress."
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Post by Mars on Mar 2, 2005 12:55:29 GMT 12.75
Shiloh, have you been to Ft. Pillow on the western edge of the state? If you go this time of year you have the place to yourself. They have a good history show and it's a good walk around the place.
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Post by shiloh on Mar 3, 2005 9:30:14 GMT 12.75
Haven't been to Pillow in years. That is an interesting bit of the war's history. It is full of what-ifs, and intrigue as well as rumors, accuastions and cover-up plots.
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Post by shiloh on Mar 4, 2005 5:04:24 GMT 12.75
Bill, I must thank you for starting this topic here. As I started typing here it suddenly popped into my pea-sized brain that now is the time to act to save the battlefields of Liberty Gap, TN because it is mostly still rural farmland and wooded hills. I e-mailed my new Republican State Senator and proposed the idea of starting efforts to acquire that land to become a State Park. It'll preserve the historic land and preserve a "green space" and will also help bring tourism $$ to the local area. He agreed and said he'd start investigating the idea. Today I will e-mail the same idea to the other senator in that area as well as the 2 representatives that share the area. Depending on how this begins, I may be starting a "Save Liberty Gap" organization and preserving a small but interesting battlefield!
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Post by RogueWarrior1957 on Mar 4, 2005 14:28:53 GMT 12.75
Shiloh, if my posting and stirring people up saves just one historic battlefield, then it was worth what little effort it took. Too much of out heritage is being trodden underfoot by a generation of big city losers who place no value on what others died for.
My adopted state here has the Glorieta battlefield well protected as a landmark. Same with most of the Pre-Columbian Indian ruins and petroglyphs. Sadly, much of the stuff in my former home state of MS has gone by the wayside. Most people are well aware of the Siege of Vicksburg during the Civil War...but there were many more battlefields in the northern part of the state where I lived my first 13 years. East, to perhaps Northeast of Tupelo, MS is a tiny town of Iuka. You really have to look for it on the map...south of Booneville. There was a pretty important battle that occurred there...I'm not even sure if it has been preserved of layed to waste by "progress." I haven't been there since I was a child.
Growing up as a child in Northern MS, my dad was employed by the Highway Department...and later on by the MS Highway Patrol. That means we moved around a lot. In looking for a house to live in back about the time I started to school, the deal had fallen through on one house...so we had to find something else in a hurry. One place we looked at was a huge, monsterous old two story house just outside Coffeeville MS...very creepy looking. I mean, there were even tombstones in the yard! Came to find out that it had been a SCA Civil War Hospital. After the family looked the place over, my brother and I tore out upstairs, of course, and discovered some of the old hospital equipment still upstairs, including some prosthetic legs and a bonesaw hanging on the wall. That and the still visible bloodstains on the old pine wood floors was enough to creep my mother out. Normally she was a tough bird who would make the best of anything, but she put her foot down on that deal and refused to live in that house! I would imagine the people let it rot down instead of making it into a museum or something like that. Sad indeed!
-Bill, the Rogue-
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Post by Two Tales on Mar 4, 2005 17:34:12 GMT 12.75
Growing up my mother lived in a house built in the early 1860s...it was discovered in 1961 that this house had hidden passages and a room under the celler...after some exahusting research it was learned that this house was a hidding point on the underground railroad...escaped slaves used this and several others in the Monroe and Deriot MI area...even with this documentation the house was demolished to put up a shopping mall...
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Post by shiloh on Mar 5, 2005 6:59:13 GMT 12.75
Most of the hiding places in the "Underground Railroad" were just plain buildings like barns or springhouses, or basements/attics of houses. But there were a few that had pretty unique hidden rooms and tunnels that hid the runaways. What most don't know is that most of the large houses made back then naturally had hidden passages built into them. There was no insullation back then in most structures and without knowledge of rebar steel or other reinforcing methods, the best way to both insullate walls and support walls was to make them thick. It is not uncommon to see brick outer walls that measure a foot or more thick of solid brick. To save brick they often made portions of walls like corners very thick and then hollow out a recess on the inside flat over which they'd panel. This left a hollow passage or room behind the inner walls that a simple removeable panel could access. SOme bigger houses had discrete halls that lead from serving areas to the kitchen or basement that servants/slaves could use to move about a house crowded with "suits."
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Post by shiloh on Mar 5, 2005 7:06:44 GMT 12.75
There were 454 engagements in Tennessee, second only to Virginia's 650 engagements. Here in TN, we have only got 5 sites with basic preservation and perhaps only 20 others that have markers showing where they were. Shiloh Nat'l Mil Park is of course pretty well preserved, mainly because it was extremely rural back then and never has really been encroached upon by developers due to its location. But the rest are constantly under threat. The Battle of Lookout Mountain in Chattanooga is preserved only by a few markers and a very small but scenic portion called "Point Park" atop the mt. The battles of Ft. Henry and Ft. Donelson are preserved by markers and Ft. Donelson itself is still preserved. Ft. Pillow is partially preserved, Stones River Nat'l Battlefield is partially preserving that battle and the Battle of the Cedars site and the lore of the first Battle of Murfreesboro. The Nashville and Franklin battlefileds are all but developed.
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Post by shiloh on Mar 10, 2005 10:40:06 GMT 12.75
Well,I've done what I know to do to save Liberty Gap up to this point. I notified the 4 State legislators who share the gap, and the local sutler who was interested and directed me to the lady who runs The Cleburne Society in honor of Patrick Cleburne who was at the gap. His headquarters is nearby in Wartrace and she operates it as a museum. She's not gotten back to me yet, but 1 Republican Senator has replied with great enthusiasm. I notified my brother-in-law on the Governor's staff who was interested and said the Governor might be interested since he has an initiative to save lands as green spaces anyway. My b-i-l sent my idea to the State Dir. of Parks and the Dir of Conservation. Now I wait...
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Post by Two Tales on Mar 10, 2005 21:51:04 GMT 12.75
Shiloh,
If you post the addys for those politicos and the Gov Office plus any others that you can think of we could email snail mail and or call to help out...we see it all the time on the tube to help out with the preservation of this historical site or another and the "Save Our Heritage Foundation" (the one that the First Lady talks about) well now is our chance post'em up and I'll write a letter or two myself
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Post by Paws on Mar 11, 2005 4:04:27 GMT 12.75
Would you like letters from our General Lee, Mosby's Raiders, etc? We might be able to help as long as we aren't perceived as lunatics! Shiloh I don't know what his status is at present but is Riley Darnell still in politics there? He was either the state AG or Secy of State and a State Senator there. I know him personally. Hey, maybe we should start something up like IHLA only for battlefield preservation.
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Post by shiloh on Mar 11, 2005 7:33:35 GMT 12.75
Thanks for the ideas guys. I'll see if I can get the e-mail addy for the 4 I wrote and our Gov's on here. The more e-mails they receive the more likely they will be to consider it a real agenda issue. I think that if this gets going with replies form these people I wil become more involved (wether or not I want to be) and will probably have to set up a fund or Liberty Gap "society."
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Post by OLKoot on Mar 11, 2005 7:35:28 GMT 12.75
Sounds like NBPA to me...."National Battlefield Preservation Assoc" , if there isnt one already..... ;D
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Post by shiloh on Mar 12, 2005 7:13:10 GMT 12.75
There's already a "Save our Civil War Battlefields" which I might get with also depending on my replies from my local officials.
One problem I really want to avoid is alienating local residents. In the past when the National Park bought up lands to create parks, they enraged residents when they basically forced-out people that had lived there for generations. An entire book was written about the forming of The Great Smoky Mountains Park dealing with this. I strongly believe in property rights as an American. When these farms come up for sale I believe the State can and should make a top-dollar bid on the land to become a future park. They can make open proposals to the owners to buy them out at a good price, or contract to allow the current owner to remain their and then buy the land from the decendants upon the current owners' deaths, but I fear that eager politicians will come in and make demands upon these folks and alienate them and cause ill-will toward the idea. Stones River battles with this still today as they try annually to acquire lands around their boundaries. For years the families in those houses have dealt with the Park Service and much ill-will exists. For instance, currently there is a double-wide trailer right smack in the front of the Hazen's Brigade Monument where "Hell's Half Acre" fronts the "Round Forest" site. That family owns that land legally, and even if the Park offered twice what it is worth to them, they've become angry enough at the constant encroachments of the Park that I doubt they will ever sell. The Park Service, believing it is all-powerful with its Federal Gov't title almost goes out of its way to pi$$ off citizens around their borders. I want to avoid that at all costs!
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Post by shiloh on Apr 6, 2005 6:04:25 GMT 12.75
FOLLOWING IS AN E-MAIL SENT TO ME FROM A BUDDY WORKING ON THE PROJECT TO SAVE THE FRANKLIN SITES. LOOKS LIKE THIS MIGHT BE SOME GOOD NEWS!
Date: Tue, 5 Apr 2005 06:40:36 +0000
Williamson A.M. Thursday, March 31, 2005
Pizza Hut may be topping on battlefield reclamation By NELLANN METTEE Staff WriterFRANKLIN
The Pizza Hut on the battlefield may still be a Pizza Hut on the battlefield, just in a different place.But if the infamous pizzeria follows through on a plan to move south to Parkway Commons, the city of Franklin may be closer to nabbing a key piece of core Battle of Franklin property.Franklin leaders have submitted a bid for $300,000 to buy the Pizza Hut site on Columbia Avenue near the old Battle Ground Academy campus a piece of property city leaders have been eyeing since at least last fall.
The property is believed to be the spot where Confederate Gen. Patrick Cleburne died during the Nov. 30, 1864, Battle of Franklin, and has long put Franklin on the map among national historians, but not in a good way.
''The Pizza Hut on Columbia Avenue has become a symbol among battlefield preservationists as to what can go wrong,'' Franklin Mayor Tom Miller said. ''The opportunity we have to purchase the Pizza Hut, again becomes a symbol: battlefield can be reclaimed.''
According to the city's Codes Department, Pizza Hut has plans to relocate to the Target/Kroger-anchored Parkway Commons development on Columbia Avenue. Codes Director Gary Luffman said yesterday the city has already issued a permit for the Parkway Commons site and work already has started there.Since its inception, Parkway Commons has faced its own share of opposition from battlefield preservationists. During the approval process, opponents argued the property played an integral part in the Battle of Franklin. It is located just north of Winstead Hill, where Confederate Gen. John Bell Hood orchestrated an attack on Union forces.The property owner of the current Pizza Hut site (the restaurant is a tenant) recently merged with another company, and the city waited until the merger was complete to submit a bid for the property. Miller said the owner needs 30 days now to get its paperwork together.
''This is property closest to the Carter House which has come available for purchase in the last several years,'' Miller said. ''I guess the overriding reason is if at all possible, we would like to acquire commercial property around the property to create a battlefield park around ground zero. This is the first piece of commercial property that's become available.''
The Carter House is considered the epicenter of the Battle of Franklin, and the Pizza Hut site is south of the former location of the Carter cotton gin, another scene of fierce fighting.The offer is now headed to the city's Budget and Finance Advisory Committee for consideration Monday night. The closing date is proposed for next fiscal year.
The Pizza Hut property bid comes on the heels of another push for battlefield reclamation at the Country Club of Franklin property along Lewisburg Pike. There, the city has offered to match up to $2.5 million in private money to help buy the property for $5 million. Historians consider the property which is adjacent to Historic Carnton Plantation the eastern flank of the battlefield. Carnton served as a field hospital during the war.
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