> So where is the Civil War Preservation Trust in all of this?
> Karen Needles
Those people are hard to figure out, in my view. Five years ago, my
preservationist friends Mark Perreault and Sam Martin attended a CWPT
conference and persuaded them to issue a declaration. Mark is a
substantial donor to what's now called the Civil War Trust -- no longer
CWPT.
The 2006 declaration was almost great. I say "almost" because it scanted
the land question somewhat. And of course the land at Old Point Comfort
has always been the big question. Nobody ever meant to harm the moated
fortress anyhow, but the rest of the land is also a national historic
landmark -- and Virginia's leaders never so much as stopped to wonder
what you might do with such a place. They assumed "redevelopment" from
the beginning. They were, and still are, exploiting a huge error in the
federal base closure law: its lack of distinction between a humdrum Fort
Drab in a cornfield and a national treasure.
By the time I attended a Civil War Trust annual event in Washington two
or three years ago, it was clear to me that the organization mostly
thought of Fort Monroe as a lip-service thing. I don't think they ever
thought that the site of what Ed Ayers has reportedly called "the
greatest moment in American history" could ever match the importance of
a battlefield, even if that site contributes mightily to the very
meaning of the Civil War, and thus to civic memory of the belated
completion of America's very founding.
This year a coalition of preservation groups, including CWT, has
expressed smiley-faced, cheery support for the proposition that the
current proposals in Washington promise a fitting disposition for
post-Army Fort Monroe. But in fact all of that official thinking,
including in pending legislation, scants the land question.
Also pending is a possible declaration by the president under the
Antiquities Act. All indications are that he'll be snookered by the
smiley-face proposition, and will countenance culturally and --
ironically -- financially counterproductive overdevelopment.
But nothing is decided, and just yesterday National Parks Traveler
published what I believe is the first instance of national journalistic
skepticism about the Pollyanna outlook -- about the belief that all will
be well if we simply establish a national park on the undevelopable
parts of Fort Monroe, and then go on doing to the rest of Old Point
Comfort what Virginia's leaders have been grimly determined to do from
the start. Please see the article and comments at
http://www.nationalparkstraveler.com/2011/09/update-historic-fort-monroe-moves-rapidly-toward-national-park-status-questions-cloud-push-preservat8784
Virginia's leaders do now promise that the "swanky condos," as the
editors of the Richmond Times-Dispatch have put it, will be really
classy and nice and all, and fully -- yessirree -- in keeping with the
sense of place. To me, it still sounds like a Wendy's beside the
Yorktown battlefield.
I keep thinking of one of my favorite strawmen, whom I blatantly exploit
from time to time in the Fort Monroe wars. It's 2051, and she's ten.
She's on a field trip with her fourth-grade Virginia history class.
She's standing on a rampart of the moated fortress, over on the bayfront
side, and she's imagining what it could have been like for a little girl
escaping with her family from some plantation or other up the Peninsula
in 1861. They've made their way to Freedom's Fortress to become part of
what constituted enslaved Americans' de facto challenge to the country
finally to begin at least trying to live up to its founding principles.
The same breeze is blowing from the same Chesapeake Bay as was there in
1861 -- well, anyway, almost the same. And most of the pre-Columbian
live oaks still stand, except for the ones that got in the way of Progress.
But Progress nevertheless stunts her ability to imagine, because
imagination requires a viewshed and a sense of place, and neither of
those has much influence when it comes to what Sen. Warner last year
called the greatest opportunity for "thoughtful development" on the
whole East Coast.
More contributions, I believe, to Virginia political campaigns come from
the real-estate-development industry than from any other source.
As far as I can tell, the Civil War Trust isn't helping at all with the
question of the national historic landmark land. In 2006, they started
off better than the persistently Fort-Monroe-incorrigible National Trust
for Historic Preservation, But since then they've backslid. Maybe you
can stimulate their repentance.
Thanks for bringing up this topic, and for indulging my long-windedness.
Steven T. Corneliussen
Poquoson, Virginia
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