Kaine: Protecting Civil War battlefields an ‘obligation’
By: David Sherfinski
Examiner Staff Writer
March 25, 2009
FREDERICKSBURG – Gov. Tim Kaine said Tuesday that Virginia has a “special obligation” to protect its Civil War battlefields.
Standing at the Slaughter Pen Farm on the Fredericksburg Battlefield, he called the battlefields “places of natural beauty that have truly been sanctified by the blood of patriots.”
The battlefield, where 5,000 men died Dec. 13, 1862, is one of 41 across the state that has been preserved by the Civil War Preservation Trust. It was one of the first sites preserved using the Virginia Historic Battlefield Preservation Fund, a state-funded matching grant program the Kaine administration created.
“Our state saw the majority of the Civil War’s largest and most significant battles. As the stewards of this American history, it has fallen to us ... to protect and safeguard these national treasures,” Kaine said.
The Civil War Preservation Trust began working to preserve the 208-acre Slaughter Pen Farm in 2006; the national nonprofit group says it is the most expensive private battlefield preservation effort in U.S. history.
“Before Governor Kaine came, [battlefield preservation] was benign neglect,” said Jim Lighthizer, president of the Civil War Preservation Trust. “Since that time, we’ve got a full partner in what we’re trying to do.”
Battlefield preservation has drawn renewed interest recently, with actor Richard Dreyfuss in the Washington area last week to advocate preservation of Civil War battlefields.
A report last week by the National Park Service concluded that proposed power lines could hurt the Manassas National Battlefield Park.
Lighthizer told The Examiner that encroaching development and sprawl surrounding historic sites such as the Manassas Battlefield Park are a challenge preservationists are continually facing.
“It’s one word — it’s traffic,” said Lighthizer of the problems facing Manassas. “We’ve got to find a way to bypass the whole battlefield.”
He said that as a former Maryland transportation secretary, he understands the need to keep traffic moving in the area, but there needs to be a balance.
“We can’t move the Battlefield of Manassas,” he said. “Where there’s a will, there’s a way … it shouldn’t be gradually degraded. We simply have got to be able to do both.”
Joan Zenzen, author of “Battling for Manassas: The Fifty-Year Preservation Struggle at Manassas National Battlefield Park,” said that if tourists see power lines and encroachments that come with increased development, they get “jarred back into the 21st century.”
