James Lighthizer is president of the Civil War Preservation Trust, as well as a former Anne Arundel county executive and member of the Maryland legislature. Since Lighthizer took the reins at the trust in 1999, the group has saved more than 18,000 acres and now boasts 70,000 members nationwide.
What do you think about getting actors like Robert Duvall and Richard Dreyfuss and renowned authors like James McPherson to lobby for preservation efforts?
It obviously is a good thing — they have clearly recognizable images, and being positively recognized enhances one’s cause. It’s important to note that Jim McPherson is a renowned historian as well. On balance, it’s a very big plus.
Can you talk a little bit about the upcoming annual conference at Gettysburg on June 6 and 7?
The interesting thing is in a very difficult economy, it’s going to be our biggest one ever. It doesn’t hurt that it’s at the Kentucky Derby of Civil War battlefields, but it’s an encouraging sign.
What do you miss about being in Maryland politics?
I loved it, but I’m happily in my current post. I’m doing what I’d most rather do in the whole wide world. I’m incredibly blessed — I would literally do it for free if I could afford it. To get paid doing something you love is one of life’s great swindles.
An April 2005 National Geographic article described you as the Robert E. Lee of battlefield preservation — a strategist who time and time again snatched victory from the jaws of defeat. Your thoughts?
Well, like Robert E. Lee, we don’t win them all. Obviously, it’s an overly generous view. But politics prepared me well for the battles we’re in. Unhappily, we lose some of them. … Even if we lose, we leave plenty of blood on the floor.
