History's Meaning to Me: Family

Inspired by the This I Believe project, “a national media project engaging people in writing, sharing, and discussing the core values and beliefs that guide their daily lives,” this week I have decided to take a departure from my typical blog post to bring a more personal perspective to the decisions that led to the selection of history as a concentration. Perhaps the strongest influence on my historical tendencies has been family. Throughout my childhood there was always a strong emphasis placed on the importance of family and the quality time spent with each other. To strengthen what my parents called our “family unit,” they planned two four-week vacations for us. The first vacation took place when I was only six years old and now as a junior in college it was far too young an age to be fully appreciated, or remembered, the things that I saw and experienced. The second trip was at a much more pivotal time in my life where I was receptive to the various national parks and monuments where we were stopping. Prior to this trip in the summer of 1995 I had never acknowledged much outside my world than school and the walls of our house. I was exposed to spectacular natural wonders such as Devil’s Tower in Wyoming (pictured at the left), Old Faithful in Yellowstone National Park, and the Grand Canyon in Arizona.

Despite all of the wonderful qualities of America’s natural wonders there was one occasion when I knew that my life would never be the same. I had officially fallen in love with history. The infatuation day was the day we visited the Little Bighorn Battlefield (also known as the location of Custer’s Last Stand) as a family. It was a calm sunny day when we drove up to the battlefield. After listening to a short presentation in the location museum by one of the park rangers about what had taken place during that fateful encounter between the Sioux, the Cheyenne, and Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer (pictured at right) and his men in 1876, we moved out to the battlefield. On the battlefield is where my life changed. The minute that we stepped on to that ground a silence fell upon the tourists. No one had to tell me, a child of nine, to hush up and be respectful. For it was not just another field that we were setting foot on, it was a resting place for many restless souls. We were hit with the overwhelming feeling of being surrounded by those taken before their time. With each progressive step the sensation grew stronger and stronger. My mother took my hand in hers and squeezed it softly as we made our way to a small enclosure in the distance with my father and older sister shuffling softly hand in hand ahead of us. As we approached the seemingly insignificant non-threatening black iron fence the reality of what it housed within its four sides hit. There marked, with what can only be described as miniature head stones (pictured at left), were the actual locations where Custer and others fell in the Battle of Little Bighorn. Among those numerous white markers, one has been seared into my memory forever. It was unlike the others: in the very center stood Custer’s marker staring at me with its plaque of startling blackness (pictured at right). Not until we reached the parking lot, opened our doors, sat in our seats, buckled our seatbelts did we actually speak.

After experiencing something so powerful as to see where history was actually made, where people had fallen, my life was never the same. I was not able to get enough of history from that point on. The decisions and actions of people is the main reason why I find history so interesting and have developed such a strong affinity for it. Without the determination of my family to take those trips it may have been years before I discovered the enormity of history, in fact I may never have come face to face with history as I did that one day in 1995. For this reason, history to me means family, without family there would be no history.

To Preserve or Not to Preserve: Will the Civil War Survive?

Wide breadths of lush green open fields, dotted with stately trees, winding roads, and sporadically marked with humble buildings; a developer’s dream where the possibilities for profit are only dependent on how many houses can be squeeze onto the location. However, above described scenery on the left is the typical view that numerous tourists appreciate every year in their visits to the Civil War battlefields spread throughout the United States. As the years pass and generations become farther removed from the nostalgia of the Civil War and its historical ramifications the struggle to protect the sites were America was forever changed intensifies. The debate that rages among developers and preservations is: which locations are to be saved and how much must be saved?

Developers rest on the appeal of economic advantage in the form of surplus of jobs for the community as their primary tool of negotiation to develop around the battlefields. However, in a 2003 economic impact report conducted by the independent consulting firm of Davidson Peterson Associates, commissioned by the Civil War Preservation Trust, found that of the 13 Civil War battlefields they surveyed all were economically advantageous. It found that the battlefields support on average 295 jobs, bring in about $1,178,923 in state revenue and finally $597,307 in local revenue. Although the battlefields may not produce the expansive wealth either a casino or multiple luxury homes would produce, the Davidson report supports that the historic sites are still economically supportive to the local communities.

In addition, to the economic support that the battlefields uphold they also provide the states, and nation as a whole, with transportation into a time when the nation was split against itself teetering on the verge of destroying the nation. The ground that the tourists walk on became graves for the numerous men that fell in the heat of battle. Just as Abraham Lincoln described in his address at the dedication of Gettysburg the fields became “consecrated” by the men who gave their lives in the battle, holding their remains ever interned in the lush fields of today. It is not only the enduring words of President Lincoln that holds the importance of the battlefields in history. Each one of the battlefields must fit within the guidelines of the National Park registrar to be considered of historical importance and worth preserving. The fields must meet the three basic criteria of identification, verification, and registration. The criteria requires that the land be placed in its historical importance, checked by several researchers, surveyed, and finally registered with the National Park Service determining the dimensions of presentation.

The culmination of the dispute over the quality and quantity of the preservation of American history came in the form of an argument over one, if not the, most famous and popular battlefields in American: Gettysburg. Crossroads Gaming Resort and Spa proposed a casino to be constructed adjacent to the battlefield claiming that they would bring with them economic benefit while respecting the historical integrity of the Gettysburg battlefield location. David LeVan the CEO of Crossroads Gaming informed USA Today in April 2006 that, “It’s not on the battlefield. It will not be visible from the highest point of the battlefield…We believe the two can coexist.” On the other end of the debate stood the Civil War Preservation Trust (CWPT) which believed that the addition of the casino would bring urban sprawl to the battlefield lessoning the sacredness of the events that took place. The CWPT collected over 34,000 signatures in opposition to the establishment of the casino from the surrounding community helping to bring the December 2006 decision by the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board to deny Crossroads a gambling license, halting construction of the resort. Despite the fact that the resort company can appeal the decision to the state supreme court, to date the project is canceled.

In the debate between preservationists and developers there remains the question of whether or not the expanses of land that were once such dynamic locations of the fate of the United States is whether or not it is economically sound for the communities to preserve them and how much is sufficient to save to honor the memory of the events that took place on the site. The answers ultimately lie in the fact that though the fields do not amass the amount of money that casinos or housing developments, but they still sustain a stable amount of revenue. However, the amount of the land that is “worth” saving is that which should be enough to allow for the proper respect to be paid to the resting places of those fallen men. The evidence in support of preserving the battlefield falls heavily in favor of the economic and historical importance for the nation as a whole, instead of yet more uniform housing and greedy monetary gain.