> 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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