News---ISO Atlanta's Battlefields: "It's just a huge crime scene."

Archaeologist Mines Atlanta Landscape for Remains of the Clash Between Union and Confederate Armies, Cameron McWhirter, Wall Street Journal, January 31, 2011.

When Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman arrived here in June 1864, he wrote to his superiors, "The whole country is one vast fort." Gen. Sherman and his 100,000 men encountered 65,000 Confederates dug in along 12 miles of earthworks at Kennesaw Mountain. After fierce fighting, the rebels retreated to nearby Atlanta. Several more battles ensued before Union forces took the city, dealing a crippling blow to the South. Today, metro Atlanta—a land of expressways, subdivisions and shopping malls—has grown to about 5.7 million people, from about 10,000 in the 1860s. So it's easy to assume that evidence of the famous clash of armies has been obliterated except for that preserved in museums, parks and monuments.

That assumption is wrong, according to Garrett Silliman, a 36-year-old archaeologist for an environmental and land-use consulting firm. Mr. Silliman's employer, Edwards-Pitman Environmental Inc., has a contract with Cobb County and the Georgia Department of Transportation to identify battle sites to preserve—or at least excavate—before bulldozers plow them under. He is hoping that as the 150th anniversary of the Civil War arrives this year, governments will take a renewed interest in preservation.

Battlefield archaeology is meticulous work. It takes years of education and mastery of sensitive equipment, including global positioning systems, ground-penetrating radar, advanced metal detectors and extremely precise mapping software. "It's just a huge crime scene," said William Lees, president of the Society for Historical Archaeology and a professor at the University of Western Florida. "You are just trying to figure out what happened there by what was left behind."

If Mr. Silliman finds a clump of unspent bullets, he knows it was where men fumbled with ammunition shortly before an attack. If he finds shattered bits of bullets and belt buckles, he knows it is where soldiers encountered heavy fire. This forensic detail helps Mr. Silliman and other archaeologists develop a much clearer picture of parts of specific battles and also helps them understand overall military strategy at the time. "We can really create a good picture of what was happening even with a limited archaeological record," Mr. Silliman said.

On a cold January morning, Mr. Silliman set out in his Land Rover in search of forgotten battlefields hidden amid heavily developed suburbs. His first stop was a municipal water tank atop a low hill in the shadow of Kennesaw Mountain. In 2005, Mr. Silliman was surveying at the bottom of the hill when he fell in a hole. Cutting away kudzu with a machete, he discovered what he thought was an advanced trench line. Looking at maps and accounts of the fighting, he determined the unnamed hill was likely an advanced position of Alabama Confederates, captured by Union Midwesterners on June 15, 1864.

Five years after he fell in the hole, Mr. Silliman has come back—with funding, county permission and equipment—to see what is still here. Mr. Silliman, who with a trim rounded beard and knit cap looks like a cross between a hippie and a Civil War colonel, hoisted on his back a GPS device that looked like a futuristic trumpet and pointed skyward. He carried a notebook to sketch battle lines that he would later scan into his computer.

There were trenches made of piled mud and stone, running along the hill. The water tank destroyed trenches higher up the hill. A nearby utility line and a subdivision destroyed more down the hill. But the side of the hill, which is tough to build on, had been spared. The fortifications still stand a few feet high, despite years of erosion. "It's amazing how well preserved these things are, given everything that's happened," Mr. Silliman said as he tramped through the forest. Mr. Silliman stopped every few feet to log data to the satellite and sketch the line. He will probably come back in the spring with a metal detector to try to find bullets. Unlike collectors, who dig up items to trade or sell, Mr. Silliman uses detectors to figure out the battle's progress.

Many first-hand reports from the battles and later recollections were wrong. Officers confused by the fighting or eager to impress superiors wrote accounts of battles that often made themselves look better and the fighting fiercer than they actually were. It's like any crime scene. Witnesses can't be trusted, but physical evidence can.

Mr. Silliman's guess is that professionals have surveyed less than 10% of all the battle lines around Atlanta. Like many archaeologists, he considers his work on these forgotten battlefields to be more of a calling than a job. He has ancestors who fought for the Union, and says he wants to preserve what he can for future generations. "It's our Iliad," he said of the conflict.

First Image Caption: Garrett Silliman points toward a rifle pit he found this month while using a GPS system in the woods of Smyrna, Ga. The detritus of war—bullets, uniforms, cannon shot, swords and, of course, corpses—was strewn across the region in the aftermath. Trenches, both intricate defenses built over weeks by engineers and shallow pits frantically dug by infantry under fire, snaked for miles.

Second Image Caption: Garrett Silliman uploads the site's coordinates for comparison with old Civil War era maps. But the work's goal is simple: to reconstruct a battle.

Text and Image Source: Wall Street Journal, January 31, 2011.

CWL: There will be a time when CWL is the guy in the photograph.

Beth wrote:
"Fascinating story. Hopefully he'll be able to find much more, despite the depletion of the battlefields."

News---Walmart Retreats From The Wilderness Battlefield

Walmart Abandons Plans to Build Supercenter on Wilderness Battlefield, Civil War Trust, January 26,2011.

Preservation community pleased with decision by retail giant to drop plans to build a supercenter within historic boundaries of Wilderness battlefield(Orange, Va.) – In an unexpected development, Walmart announced this morning that it has abandoned plans to pursue a special use permit previously awarded to the retail giant for construction of a supercenter on the Wilderness Battlefield. The decision came as the trial in a legal challenge seeking to overturn the special use permit was scheduled to begin in Orange County circuit court.

“We are pleased with Walmart’s decision to abandon plans to build a supercenter on the Wilderness battlefield,” remarked James Lighthizer, president of the Civil War Trust. “We have long believed that Walmart would ultimately recognize that it is in the best interests of all concerned to move their intended store away from the battlefield. We applaud Walmart officials for putting the interests of historic preservation first. Sam Walton would be proud of this decision.”

The Civil War Trust is part of the Wilderness Battlefield Coalition, an alliance of local residents and national groups seeking to protect the Wilderness battlefield. Lighthizer noted that the Wilderness Battlefield Coalition has sought from the very beginning to work with county officials and Walmart to find an alternative location for the proposed superstore away from the battlefield.

“We stand ready to work with Walmart to put this controversy behind us and protect the battlefield from further encroachment,” Lighthizer stated. “We firmly believe that preservation and progress need not be mutually exclusive, and welcome Walmart as a thoughtful partner in efforts to protect the Wilderness Battlefield.”

In August 2009, the Orange County Board of Supervisors approved a controversial special use permit to allow construction of the Walmart Supercenter and associated commercial development on the Wilderness Battlefield. A wide range of prominent individuals and organizations publicly opposed the store’s location, including more than 250 American historians led by Pulitzer Prize-winners James McPherson and David McCullough. One month after the decision, a group of concerned citizens and the local Friends of Wilderness Battlefield filed a legal challenge to overturn the decision.

The Battle of the Wilderness, fought May 5–6, 1864, was one of the most significant engagements of the American Civil War. Of the 185,000 soldiers who entered combat amid the tangled mass of second-growth trees and scrub in Virginia’s Orange and Spotsylvania counties, some 30,000 became casualties. The Wilderness Battlefield Coalition, composed of Friends of Wilderness Battlefield, Piedmont Environmental Council, Preservation Virginia, National Trust for Historic Preservation, National Parks Conservation Association, and Civil War Trust, seeks to protect this irreplaceable local and national treasure.

The Civil War Trust is the largest nonprofit battlefield preservation organization in the United States. Its mission is to preserve our nation’s endangered Civil War battlefields and to promote appreciation of these hallowed grounds. To date, the Trust has preserved nearly 30,000 acres of battlefield land in 20 states. Learn more at www.civilwar.org.

Text Source: Civil War Trust
Image Source: Examiner.com

CWL: CWL is in shock. In this fight, the odds were against preservation. How did the Civil War Trust pull this one off?

News----Preservation of Battlefields: Is Development Wining?

Battle Over the Battlefields, David A. Graham, Newsweek,January 13, 2011.

One hundred and fifty years after the start of the Civil War, we’re still fighting. This time it’s development vs. preservation—and development’s winning.

The Battle to Preserve History A casino could soon sit near the Gettysburg battlefield, the bloodiest encounter on American soil. A Walmart supercenter may shadow the Wilderness battlefield in Virginia where Gen. U. S. Grant kept his headquarters when he first fought Gen. Robert E. Lee. And Washington, D.C.’s suburban sprawl is slowly strangling the rural lands where the Civil War’s first crucial battles were fought. It’s an ironic situation: as battlefield sites across the country prepare for an expected onslaught of visitors connected to the Civil War’s 150th anniversary, many of them are shrinking away, acre by acre.

April 12 will mark the sesquicentennial of the start of the war, and governments and citizens across the country are gearing up to commemorate it. Visitation at Civil War–related national parks has already been on the rise, increasing 6.4 percent between 2008 and 2009 after mostly flat numbers in prior years. The National Park Service has reworked its approach to teaching the war’s history to make it more focused on causes and effects. In anticipation of the anniversary, PBS plans to re-air Ken Burns’s landmark documentary on the war, and The New York Times and The Washington Post have already launched special commemorative blogs and news coverage. All the while, however, development at sites around the country is destroying Civil War battlefields at a frantic rate—30 acres a day, according to the Civil War Trust (CWT), a leading heritage conservation group—fast enough to eat up what’s left of the Gettysburg battlefield park in just seven months. “[Battlefield visitors] don’t want to see the parking lot where their ancestors once fought that’s now a shopping center,” says Jim Campi, policy director of CWT. “They want to walk through the woods and see the cannon and the fence lines.”

This month, two high-profile conflicts over further development on the sites of major battles will come to a head. Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board officials are expected to decide whether to allow a casino several miles southwest of the Gettysburg battlefield.. The Mason-Dixon Resort and Casino has become a cause célèbre for Civil War buffs, who have held it up as the best example of crass commercialism making inroads into the “hallowed ground” where more than 51,000 soldiers died. And in Virginia, a judge will hear arguments in a suit that aims to prevent the planned Walmart that is—depending on whom you ask—either adjacent to or on the Wilderness battlefield. These two standoffs are part of a larger debate that raises many of the same questions as the mosque controversy in lower Manhattan: What constitutes hallowed ground, what can you build near or on it, and how soon is too soon?

“There has to be a reasonable balance,” says James McPherson, the foremost living Civil War historian and professor emeritus of history at Princeton. “If you preserved every square foot of battlefield in Virginia, there wouldn’t be much land left. There’s a tendency among preservationists to want to save everything, but realistically there have to be compromises.”

One place McPherson isn’t willing to compromise, however, is the Virginia Walmart, a 140,000-square-foot supercenter the company wants to build in Orange County on a parcel that’s been zoned for commercial use for 37 years. The bloody May 1864 encounter fought there was the beginning of the end for the Confederacy. In Grant’s first battle since becoming chief of the U.S. Army, he pounded Lee and began driving him south toward Richmond. Historians say his army’s “nerve center,” including his own headquarters, was located on and near the Walmart site, which is also across the street from the entrance to the Fredericksburg & Spotsylvania National Military Park.

In August 2009, the Orange County board of supervisors issued a special-use permit for Walmart to build its store, but with several conditions—including setting the building back from the road, traffic mitigation, and other safeguards to reduce the project’s impact on the park. That wasn’t enough for historians, who say shrubs may block the view from the highway, but won’t prevent a huge store from destroying the landscape. As a result, the pushback against Walmart’s plans has been especially fierce. The nonprofit preservation group Friends of Wilderness Battlefield has sued the board of supervisors, Walmart, the developer, and the property owner in an attempt to stop the store, and they’ve received help from McPherson, who appeared as an expert witness and National Park Service Director Jonathan Jarvis, among others. Plaintiffs say they don’t object to Walmart building in Orange County, but want it to move to a less historic spot.

The disagreement epitomizes disputes across the country: local officials, eager to spur economic growth, want to open lands for housing or commerce. In Orange County, for example, Walmart says it will create some 300 jobs, and says a survey it conducted in early 2009 found that 61 percent of residents backed its plan. But historians and preservationists fight back, saying development mars the historic value, cheapens the sacrifices made by thousands in the war, and impairs the ability of historians and visitors to understand the battles that took place. Preservationists also worry that development may actually cut into the economy: around many battlefield sites, tourism is a lucrative and sometimes dominant business—it accounted for $2.5 billion in spending in Civil War parks in 2008 alone, according to the National Parks Conservation Association—but they say modern intrusions could dilute that value and drive away tourists, resulting in a net contraction.

Conflicts like the one in Orange County are the fruits of seeds sown more than a century ago. In the years immediately following the war, most battlefields were maintained by veterans’ organizations such as the Grand Army of the Republic and the United Confederate Veterans, which played major roles in establishing parks like Gettysburg and the present-day Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park (the National Park Service didn’t exist until 1916, and only took Civil War sites over from the War Department in the 1930s). As the sites became national parks, however, the scale of preservation was still minimal—the idea that urbanization would ever touch such remote farmlands seemed so absurd that park boundaries often included only historic stretches of road and significant structures. Though not formally preserved, fields remained in the same condition they had been in when Confederate and Union troops met. Now, however, urban sprawl has overtaken many of these areas, and threatens others. Once-remote parts of Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, comprising most of the war’s eastern theater, are increasingly bedroom communities for Washington, D.C. “A lot of people have a misunderstanding that if it’s battlefield land, it’s within the boundaries of the park,” Smith laments. “We hold maybe one seventh of the battlefield. It would be totally unrealistic for us to hold all of it. We have to get the local community to understand that while we’re not going to preserve it, they do deserve to be treated with some sensitivity.”

The modern Civil War preservation movement dates back to the 1980s, when major D.C. area developer Til Hazel announced a plan to build a huge mall on part of the Manassas battlefield. The development was eventually blocked by an act of Congress that took over the land and provided Hazel compensation for it, later pegged by a court at $130 million. Since then, preservation groups have become more aggressive, led by the Civil War Trust, which has bought up 25,000 acres of land using private donations and matching grants. And there have been notable victories, especially the 2000 demolition of a much-reviled observation tower at Gettysburg, which had been erected in 1974 by a private developer on a patch of the battlefield not owned by the Park Service, over noisy objections. In another victory, CWT prevented the building of a racetrack at Brandy Station, Va., site of a major cavalry battle in 1863.

Economic strife has helped the cause, too. The housing developments that were a frequent threat to rural land have come to a halt since the collapse of the housing market—a reprieve, but by no means a guarantee, that new attempts won’t follow when the sector rebounds. Meanwhile, some landowners have turned to preservation as more lucrative than selling to developers. While there are still some 600 acres of land inside the Gettysburg park that aren’t preserved or protected, the park recently demolished two 20th-century houses acquired when the owners offered to sell them.

But in quite a few cases, it’s too late. Many of the battlefields in the western theater—including Tennessee, Kentucky, Mississippi, and Georgia—are long gone. Others are hemmed in and reduced significantly; the Chantilly battlefield in northern Virginia “is a postage stamp now,” Campi says. And despite the stoppage of Hazel’s plan, the Manassas park is sliced by U.S. 29 (the Lee Highway, appropriately enough) and State Route 234.

Preservation has its skeptics, too. Proponents are often attacked as being antidevelopment, or simply of overreaching. The Gettysburg casino is, to detractors, the textbook case. Unlike the Wilderness Walmart, the proposed casino is actually five miles out of town, in neighboring Cumberland Township. If approved, the casino will include up to 500 slot machines—the smallest of three sizes allowed under state rules—and will be located at an existing resort, rather than in new, purpose-built structures. David LaTorre, a spokesman for the developer, points out that there are far more egregious infractions in the town itself. “People talk about how this is like building a McDonald’s next to Pickett’s Charge, but there is a McDonald’s there,” he says with only mild exaggeration.

The Civil War Trust remains staunchly opposed, and it’s got a host of celebrities on its side—including Ken Burns, author David McCullough, and actor Sam Waterston. The site is just too close to the battlefield, and the impact of development and traffic on the historical resources is too great, Campi says. The local community, too, is split into pro-casino and anti-casino sides—a small civil war, 150 years after the big one.

Text and Image Source: Newsweek, January 13, 2011.

CWL: Pick a battlefield. Pick an preservation association. Send your money.

News---CWPT Re-Brands Itself For the Fourth Time

The Civil War Trust story began in 1987, when twenty or so stalwart souls met to discuss what could be done to protect the rapidly disappearing battlefields around them. Calling themselves the Association for the Preservation of Civil War Sites (APCWS), they were spurred to action watching the expanding suburbs of Washington, D.C. destroy Northern Virginia battlefields. The only way to save these sites for posterity, they decided, was to buy the physical landscapes themselves.

As word of efforts to protect these battlefields spread among the Civil War community, both membership and accomplishment lists began to grow steadily. In 1991, another national organization, the Civil War Trust (CWT), appeared on the scene to further efforts to protect these vanishing historic landscapes. Eight years later, in an attempt to increase the efficiency with which preservation opportunities could be pursued, the two groups merged to become the Civil War Preservation Trust (CWPT), with Jim Lighthizer, a former Maryland Secretary of Transportation and pioneer in the use of Transportation Enhancement highway funds for historic landscape preservation, at the helm.

In a letter to its 55,000 members, the nation’s leading nonprofit dedicated to protecting Civil War battlefields announced this evening that it has shortened its name to the Civil War Trust. To accompany the new identity, the group also debuted a dynamic new logo to better graphically represent its land conservation mission. The changes coincide with the nation’s Civil War sesquicentennial commemoration, which begins in earnest this year. Both transitions take effect immediately.

Text and Image Sources: Civil War Trust History and Civil War Interactive Wire.

Opinion---Will Gettysburg's Camp Letterman Be Rescued?

Gettysburg Casino Hoopla Overshadows Real Preservation Challenges, Jay Purdy, Saturday, December 18, 2010.

It's all over except the decision from the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board. For the second time in five years, Gettysburg has been subjected to a pitched PR battle over the location of a gaming business. The first was a proposed full-sized casino at routes 15 and 30, across the street from a cluster of hotels and soon to be joined by a superstore on the west side of U.S. Route 15. The current proposal, much smaller in size, would involve the already-existing Eisenhower Inn and Conference Center a half-mile beyond the southern boundary of Gettysburg National Military Park.

The two sites have a couple of aspects in common: neither was involved in fighting or significant action in the epic battle of 1863, but both were fought voraciously by opponents of gambling. Meanwhile, the real preservation needs of Gettysburg have been lost in the controversy; the imminent threat to land that was directly involved in the battle, especially its aftermath.

The Camp Letterman Field Hospital off York Road held more than 20,000 wounded and dying soldiers from the North and South who received equal care, the first such combined hospital of the war. Despite the best medical care available at the time and the compassion of civilian volunteers, scores of soldiers among the sea of tents suffered and died on the site.

There was amputation, bleeding, death and burial on the property. There might still be remains beneath the ground that were missed in the exhumation of graves through the years after the battle for removal to cemeteries in the North, to the Gettysburg National Military Cemetery or to Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond. Some of what was Camp Letterman has already been lost to commercial and residential development. Most of the remainder is now up for sale for additional development ? more box stores, restaurants, condos and asphalt to covering actual hallowed ground.

There are indications that Camp Letterman's periphery extended further to the south and east than previously believed. The precise boundaries remain unclear because there has never been a definitive archaeological study of the site. For more than 10 years, the Gettysburg Battlefield Preservation Association has sought to draw public attention to the Letterman dilemma. At one point we spearheaded a successful drive to dissuade a large chain store from developing on a remaining portion of the property.

At the same time, GBPA successfully negotiated with developers of a proposed residential area on another part of the property to expand archaeological studies of its property, preserve lots where significant Letterman features were uncovered and develop walking trails and observation points.

The downturn in the economy torpedoed those development plans and the site investigations. Other aspects of the cooperative progress of 2008 also might be in jeopardy. Our work to save Letterman through the last 10 years has been an all-volunteer effort as has been our success at preserving the 145-acre Daniel Lady Farm and meticulously restoring its historic house and barn.

The opponents of the casino proposals have mustered considerable resources for their cause, including billboards and television ads. Several people in the effort directly attacked the GBPA for its stance in support of the Mason-Dixon proposal at the Eisenhower. Would such a crusade been directed toward the real threat to the land of Camp Letterman?

Agree with it or not, though, that is water over the dam. The GBPA is prepared to work in concert for a new phase of the Camp Letterman legacy. No matter what the outcome of the casino application or their position on the issue, we invite all organizations and individuals truly committed to preserving the precious hallowed ground of Gettysburg to join us in a comprehensive campaign to acquire and properly investigate the Camp Letterman site and preserve it undeveloped into perpetuity in remembrance of the Americans of the North and South who suffered and died there.

In 1959, the Gettysburg Battlefield Preservation Association was founded as part of a national campaign to prevent development from further encroaching on the battlefield. Through the last 51 years, that has resulted in the acquisition and preservation of one-third of the current Gettysburg National Military Park.

Preserving what is left of Camp Letterman will take teamwork of those who have been pro-casino, anti-casino or somewhere in between; a dedication of nonprofit preservation and education organizations, private business and a small army of volunteers.

After the first of the year, the GBPA and others of like mind will initiate a call to rally resources to save Camp Letterman. Watch for it. We start things off by challenging The Patriot-News to play an appropriate role. After all, in 1959, Parade magazine, which is part of the hefty Patriot-News every Sunday, was instrumental in organizing the national campaign that created the GBPA and led to turning the tide of development of the hallowed ground of Gettysburg. The tide has been turned, but the struggle is not over.

Jay Purdy is a member and on the board of directors for the Gettysburg Battlefield Preservation Association.

Text Source: Harrisburg Patriot-News,

Images' Source: Gettysburg Daily

News---Fort Stevens, Wilderness, Cedar Creek, Thoroughfare Gap, South Mountain Among Most Endangered Virginia & Maryland Battlefields

Fort Stevens among Most Endangered Civil War Battlefields, Michael E. Ruane, Washington Post, May 13, 2010;

The Civil War Preservation Trust announced Thursday that Washington's beleaguered Fort Stevens, where Abraham Lincoln came under enemy gunfire in 1864, has again been placed on the trust's annual list of most endangered Civil War battlefields.

The fort, off Georgia Avenue at 13th and Quackenbos streets NW, is one of 10 endangered Civil War sites threatened by development and other factors across the country, the trust said as it in issued its annual "History Under Siege" report at the National Press Club. The list comes ahead of next year's 150th anniversary of the war.

"All across the country, our nation's irreplaceable battlefields -- these tangible links to our shared history -- are threatened by inappropriate development, misguided public policy . . . and, in some cases, simple apathy," the trust's president, James Lighthizer, said in written statement. "Next year marks the sesquicentennial of the bloodiest conflict in our nation's history, and [this] . . . is an opportune time to shine a spotlight on the places that tell America's story." Also on the endangered list are three sites in Virginia, one in Maryland and one in Pennsylvania.

Fort Stevens, which also made the list in 2006, was among the ring of forts that protected Washington from Confederate forces during the war. Lincoln came under rebel sniper fire when he visited the fort in 1864 during a Confederate campaign that reached the city's suburbs. The fort has largely been absorbed into the city's Brightwood neighborhood and now faces the construction of a large church community center planned in the vicinity, the trust said.

In Virginia, the trust listed the Wilderness battlefield, west of Fredericksburg, as endangered. The Wilderness was the site of a bloody struggle in 1864 between the chief armies of the Union and Confederacy in the war's eastern theater. It was the first battle between Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee, both of whom suffered heavy casualties, and marked the beginning of the war of attrition that eventually led to Lee's surrender nearly a year later. The trust said the battlefield is threatened by a massive commercial development that could put a Wal-Mart and other retailers near its border.

Also in Virginia, the trust said the Cedar Creek battlefield, site of a another 1864 battle, near Strasburg, is threatened by the expansion of a limestone mine. Cedar Creek also made the list in 2008. The third endangered Virginia battlefield is at Thoroughfare Gap, near Haymarket in Prince William County, where the site of an 1862 battle is threatened by the possible erection of a tall cell phone tower. In Maryland, the trust said the South Mountain battlefield, near Frederick, was threatened by the possibility of the construction of a natural gas compression station.

And at Gettysburg, just across the Maryland border in Pennsylvania, the trust said the war's most storied field still is threatened by the possibility of a gambling casino on the outskirts of town. The Washington-based trust says its endangered list has helped protect more than 29,000 acres of battlefield in 20 states.

"Nothing creates an emotional connection between present and past like walking in the footsteps of our Civil War soldiers," Civil War author Jeff Shaara, who also appeared at the list's unveiling, said in the statement. "I hope that by drawing attention to endangered Civil War battlefields, Americans will this see hallowed ground in a new way and understand that these sites must be preserved for future generations to experience."

Text Source: Washington Post

Top Image Source: Cedar Creek

Second Image Source: Fort Stevens

Third Image Source: Cedar Creek