In a recent posting in this forum, Teresa Roane of the Museum of the 
Confederacy wrote on behalf of MOC President Waite Rawls: "We are now 
planning a major expansion to include new museum sites at Appomattox, 
Chancellorsville, and Fort Monroe." Randy Cabell's reply included a 
suggestion for "more detail on the plans." Speaking for Citizens for a Fort 
Monroe National Park, I'd like to comment on the context for the MOC at Fort 
Monroe.

A substantial MOC presence at Fort Monroe does not _yet_ appear to us to be 
a sure thing (though maybe it is), but we believe it's a sure thing that 
everybody who cares about history should seek it. Here's why:

We see understanding growing concerning emancipation, with growing 
realization that much of emancipation was self-emancipation that preceded, 
and helped prompt, the proclamation.

We see understanding growing concerning the contributions of 
self-emancipators to the Union victory and to the consequent chance -- to 
this day still only imperfectly seized -- for the country's founding 
principles to be realized.

We see understanding growing concerning Robert F. Engs's judgment that Fort 
Monroe is the place where self-emancipation leading to the strengthening of 
the Union cause began with the "Contrabands."

We see understanding growing concerning the significance of all of this not 
just for American history, but for world history.

Inspired initially by Professor Engs, we have been talking like this for two 
years. In early January, we saw these lines of constructive revisionism 
validated and affirmed at a Fort Monroe symposium that included not only 
Professor Engs but William Alexander, Ed Ayers, Ira Berlin, Tommy L. Bogger, 
Jack Davis, Ervin L. Jordan, Cassandra Newby-Alexander, John Quarstein, 
Joseph Reidy, Carol Sheriff, and Lauranett Lee.

At Citizens for a Fort Monroe National Park, we also see understanding 
growing concerning Reconstruction. Eric Foner described it in today's 
Washington Post Book World: "In the last generation, no part of the American 
past has undergone a more complete scholarly reinterpretation than 
Reconstruction. Once portrayed as a tragic era of rampant misgovernment 
presided over by unscrupulous carpetbaggers and ignorant former slaves, 
Reconstruction is today seen as a noble, if flawed, experiment in 
interracial democracy, an effort to provide free blacks with land, education 
and political rights. The tragedy is not that Reconstruction was attempted, 
but that it failed."

Fort Monroe and the Reconstruction-era history of Hampton, with all its 
special and even unique dimensions, are closely connected. So all in all, we 
think that Fort Monroe has 19th century historical significance that has not 
been understood -- certainly not by many of the powers-that-be who are now 
presuming to let the city of Hampton, with its energetically asserted 
interest in narrowly envisioned development, predominate in the planning for 
post-Army Fort Monroe.

The Civil War Preservation Trust apparently agrees. Quite recently the CWPT 
reaffirmed its declaration from last year that Fort Monroe is at risk of 
inappropriate development. APVA Preservation Virginia lists Fort Monroe 
similarly.

The MOC can't wade into all of that -- can't enter the controversy about 
efforts to redefine the entire National Historic Landmark as really being 
only the moated fortress at the NHL's center.

But the MOC can contribute constructively to pretty much any outcome for 
Fort Monroe, even if we Virginians allow Hampton and the Kaine 
administration to develop this national treasure inappropriately (and, 
ironically, also economically inappropriately, but that's another dimension 
of the story). Mind you, there are good reasons to hope that they won't --  
but there are also the CWPT and APVA alarms.

MOC President Rawls has been faithfully representing the MOC at meetings of 
the Fort Monroe Authority, the 18-member, Hampton-dominated state panel 
charged with the planning for what Secretary of Natural Resources Preston 
Bryant says -- we believe correctly -- is actually the property of all 
Americans.

(Representing the governor, the secretary chairs the panel. Neither he nor 
the governor has ever accepted anyone's request to explain why a national 
treasure belonging to all Americans should be donated, in effect, to a 
single city for narrowly envisioned development.)

In early January, President Rawls also attended and spoke at the Fort Monroe 
history symposium.

In Fredericksburg, according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch and the New York 
Times, Governor Wilder's envisioned slavery museum is languishing. Maybe a 
better plan would be to build it at Fort Monroe, which could anchor the new 
fourth corner not in a Historic Triangle, but a Historic Quadrangle --  
introducing a Civil War dimension, together with the nearby Monitor Center.

In Richmond, the MOC is hemmed in but doing fine, and is seeking to 
contribute to, and participate in, a good outcome at Fort Monroe. At 
Citizens for a Fort Monroe National Park, we think that's a big deal, an 
important deal, and we have the highest hopes for what MOC President Rawls 
is trying to do.

One last note: I'm mindful that many in this forum are careful to avoid 
having the discussion stray from the subject of historical scholarship, and 
again I apologize if I'm misjudging the flexibility in that criterion by 
discussing these topics at length. My own view, obviously, is that the topic 
of the MOC at Fort Monroe fits this forum quite well. But it's not my forum.

Thanks very much.

Steven T. Corneliussen
Poquoson, Virginia

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