Battlefield parks

Battlefield parks

The always hustling Rep. Frank Wolf (R-lOth) has

jposed yet another burden upon the beleaguered National Park Service.

Now he wants to establish a partnership called the Heritage Commission to promote tourism and provide incentives to local landowners to preserve Civil WarBattlefields within the Shenandoah Valley.

Although no boundaries are defined in his proposal, these new Battlefield Parks would consist only of those lands identified in the Heritage Plan within the counties of Clarke,Frederick, Highland, Rockingham, Shenandoah, and Warren and in the City of Winchester-.

Battlefields to be included, according to Wolf, would include Cedar Creek, Cool Spring, Cross Keys, Fisher’s Mill, First and Second Kernstown, McDowell, New Market, Port Republic, Tom’s Brook, and Second and Third Winchester. In fact, most of the “battles” on that list aren’t. Skirmishes perhaps, but not to be compared to battles such as Manassas or Fredericksburg or Wilderness.

Wolfs bill would require lands be acquired for these new p«^’ks only through donation, purchase or property exchange.

Sounds nice. But Wolf foresees visitors’ centers and National Park Service staff on hand to help tourists and old barns and houses being restored.

With what money? And what barns? Nearly every farm building in the northern half of the Valley was burned by Union troops during the war to deny farm produce to the Southern war effort.

Perhaps more to the point, not counting the recent addition to Manassas Battlefield Park, more than 13,000 acres already is set aside in Virginia to commemorate the Civil War. At some point this state has to stop being so obsessed with “The War.”

We do not need more such parks, especially when federal money is so tight that treasures like the Shenandoah National Park atragically under-funded.