Civil War battlefield restored with help of Smithsonian

[Matthew.Rector]

Any thoughts or comments?

From Fredericksburg.com today...

http://www.fredericksburg.com/News/apmethods/apstory?urlfeed=D7VED9200.xml

Also see the story from today's Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A62450-2003Dec13.html

Civil War battlefield restored with help of Smithsonian
By The Associated Press
The Associated Press

In a strange confluence of history, swamps and jetliners, the Smithsonian Institution has restored part of Manassas National Battlefield Park to make up for the wetlands disturbed by the construction of the institution's new museum complex at Dulles International Airport.

In the past year, the Smithsonian has revamped 113 acres of fields that once had been slated for development to look the way they did during the Second Battle of Manassas in 1862.

With backhoes and bulldozers, workers have moved 90,000 cubic yards of dirt, re-created hills down to the inch, and restored original water-flow patterns across the land. They planted 8,000 trees and shrubs and 52,000 plants.

"A lot of the guys were very excited about the project; a number of them are history buffs," said Rick Scaffidi, one of the consultants. "Normally, you're tearing everything apart, now you're finally restoring something."

The project started after the Smithsonian realized that the annex to the National Air and Space Museum would destroy wetlands near the aiport. Federal law required that the wetlands be replaced, but the airport didn't want anything that would attract birds to its facilities, and other nearby property was prohibitively expensive.

Meanwhile, a portion of the battlefield waited for the Park Service to restore it to its original condition.

The parcel of land had been heavily bulldozed in the late 1980s by a developer planning to build a mall and subdivisions. During the construction, 15-feet high hills had been removed, streams rerouted, mature trees removed, sewers installed and utility lines buried.

A public outcry over the battlefield ended the development, and prompted Congress to give the land to the park service.

"The landscape was just clobbered by the developer," park Superintendent Robert Sutton told The Washington Post.

Though the park service lacked the money to restore the land to its 1862 condition, there were unique blueprints in the National Archives that gave precise details on how it was supposed to look.

Once the Smithsonian stepped forward with the $1.4 million the restoration would cost, the deconstruction could start.

"It's amazing how the dots connect, from aviation history to the Civil War," said Lin Ezell, the museum official who first contacted battlefield officials about the deal.

The existence of the maps are due to a lucky turn in a quirk of Civil War history: the 15-year effort of Union Maj. Gen. Fitzjohn Porter to clear his name.

Porter and his commander, Gen. John Pope, disliked and distrusted each other, and during the Second Battle of Manassas, Pope ordered Porter to cut off Confederate reinforcements and break their line.

Porter never attacked, and the South won the battle when Confederate Gen. James Longstreet swept in with 30,000 troops.

Porter was court-martialed, but in 1878 won a retrial. To help him, his supporters commissioned a series of extraordinarily detailed maps of the battleground that showed the exact terrain and positioning of both armies. A panel of generals was convinced that had Porter followed orders, his army would have been crushed.

To re-create the land as it was in 1862, engineers matched modern computerized mapping with the maps, which had been in a drawer for 125 years.

The crews finished their work a few weeks ago. As the Air and Space Museum annex prepares to open for thousands to see the space shuttle Enterprise, the Enola Gay and a Concorde, some of the hills and rises a few miles away look much as the did more than a century ago.

"To me it's just a wonderful thing," Sutton said. "We're re-creating something that was here, but it will also have long-term benefits for the natural environment. And it was one of those things that to get Park Service funding would have taken forever."

[dusty27]

Re: Civil War battlefield restored with help of Smithsonian

WOW! I hadn't heard about this at all....

I can't wait to go out to Manassas to see this new land.....

[Matthew.Rector]

Re: Civil War battlefield restored with help of Smithsonian

Yeah! I was pleasantly surprised too, Dusty!! I was hoping you had heard about this and could give us some more details. Sounds pretty cool. I'll look forward to seeing the new improvements someday.

[dusty27]

Here is the Post's coverage.....

Matthew already provided this above. Sorry Matthew..

[dusty27]

Another story on the transformation....

For more daily news about the Civil War, courtesy of CWi Premium, visit their website at www.cwipremium.com. Formerly known as Civil War Interactive and still providing history with an attitude

Smithsonian Money Plus Wetlands Law Fixes 2nd Manassas Field Dec. 17, 2003--It is probably safe to say that the people who wrote the Environmental Protection Act provisions requiring the preservation of wetlands did not do so with the intent of restoring a major Civil War battlefield, but the law works in mysterious ways its wonders to perform. The field in question was the site of some very significant action in the Second Battle of Bull Run, known in some quarters as Second Manassas. It was destroyed by a developer, then confiscated by Congress, then given to the National Park Service, rather belatedly some might say. Now the 115 acre site has been restored in immaculate detail, including the restoration of slopes to within one inch of their previous stature and the replanting of thousands of shrubs and trees, thanks to two factors: Gen. Fitz-John Porter and the Smithsonian Institution. In case this is becoming a bit confusing, we will put things in chronological order: In August of 1862, Gen. Porter was serving under Gen. John Pope in the Union force known as the Army of Virginia, which was supposed to protect Washington while Gen. George McClellan had the Army of the Potomac off fighting in the Peninsula Campaign. Pope, who had had some notable successes in the Western Theater, had not endeared himself to his brethren in the East, inspiring at least one to comment that he "did not care for John Pope one pinch of owl dung." Porter evidently shared the attitude of distrust, which Pope returned in full measure. When the second battle began on the Bull Run site, things initially appeared to be going well for the Union forces, largely because Pope was completely confused as to the Confederates' whereabouts. Thinking he was facing a small portion of Gen. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson's corps, Pope ordered Porter to attack them. The arrival of Gen. James Longstreet and 30,000 troops complicated Porter's attempt to carry out his orders. Pope did not consider this a sufficient excuse, accusing Porter of delay so severe as to constitute disobedience of orders. Three days later he proffered formal charges to that effect. Porter was court-martialed the next year and cashiered from the army. Never ceasing to proclaim his innocence, in 1878 Porter managed to get a new trial. In preparation, he commissioned a set of maps of the field where the action took place, noting every detail of terrain down to the location of streams, woodlines and clumps of trees. The maps and testimony of witnesses showed that Porter's men would have been annihilated if he had followed Pope's orders to the letter, the Washington Post reported. The court martial verdict was overturned and Porter was exonerated. His honor and position were restored and his maps went into a file at the National Archives. A century later another significant action took place at the Second Manassas battlefield. A local developer, John T. "Til" Hazel, bought it, announced he was going to build a huge mall and subdivision on it, and set bulldozers to work. Hills, slopes, streams, woodlines and clumps of trees were all scraped aside. Sewers and utility lines were starting to be installed. Eventually, local preservationists convinced Congress that the development would have a horrible impact on the remaining Manassas battlefield, and the project was brought to a halt. Legislation was passed paying Hazel for what he had invested in the project, and the land was added to Manassas National Battlefield Park. Dismal though the scene was, the site of what many consider the greatest tactical victory of the Army of Northern Virginia was now preserved. Things would have stayed this way had not the Smithsonian Institution decided to place its annex to the Air and Space Museum at Dulles Airport. Some of the land was legally considered wetlands, and would have to be filled in to put buildings on it. The law requires that in order to remove wetlands for a project, an equivalent amount of new wetlands must be created somewhere nearby. According to the Post, credit for the idea belongs to Lin Ezell, a pilot who used to work for NASA, who was working on some of the planning for the new museum, technically known as the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center. The new wetlands had to be in the same watershed as the ones being removed. Land in northern Virginia being hideously expensive, open spaces are hard to find. Ezell was driving out to Dulles one day and saw the brown highway sign for Manassas Battlefield Park. A light dawned. The existence of the Porter maps was already known to the park service, having been found by a University of Georgia team in the Archives back when the land was added to the park. Nothing was done at the time since the NPS budget did not extend to the amounts needed to restore what the developer's bulldozers had done. When Manassas Superintendent John Sutton was brought into the discussion, everything came together. Since they weren't having to pay for the land, the entire amount the Smithsonian had budgeted for the wetlands requirement could go into restoring it to the Porter maps' specifications. Environmental Quality Resources, a company that specializes in restoring wetlands, was hired for the project. Its workers have spent most of the year rearranging 90,000 cubic yards of dirt across a 110-acre section of the battlefield at a cost of more than $1.4 million. This fall, they planted 8,000 trees and shrubs and 52,000 plants. In the far corner of the restoration area, plants are growing in a marshy depression, an old wetland that is new again thanks to the law and a museum. The end result, Sutton said, is "an amazing juxtaposition not only from a historic point of view, but it's about the importance of protecting all of our resources. We were kind of stuck with what we were given" after the developer had done his work. "It was very difficult to tell the story of what happened there," Sutton added. "To me it's just a wonderful thing."

For more daily news about the Civil War, courtesy of CWi Premium, visit their website at www.cwipremium.com. Formerly known as Civil War Interactive and still providing history with an attitude

Smithsonian Money Plus Wetlands Law Fixes 2nd Manassas Field Dec. 17, 2003--It is probably safe to say that the people who wrote the Environmental Protection Act provisions requiring the preservation of wetlands did not do so with the intent of restoring a major Civil War battlefield, but the law works in mysterious ways its wonders to perform. The field in question was the site of some very significant action in the Second Battle of Bull Run, known in some quarters as Second Manassas. It was destroyed by a developer, then confiscated by Congress, then given to the National Park Service, rather belatedly some might say. Now the 115 acre site has been restored in immaculate detail, including the restoration of slopes to within one inch of their previous stature and the replanting of thousands of shrubs and trees, thanks to two factors: Gen. Fitz-John Porter and the Smithsonian Institution. In case this is becoming a bit confusing, we will put things in chronological order: In August of 1862, Gen. Porter was serving under Gen. John Pope in the Union force known as the Army of Virginia, which was supposed to protect Washington while Gen. George McClellan had the Army of the Potomac off fighting in the Peninsula Campaign. Pope, who had had some notable successes in the Western Theater, had not endeared himself to his brethren in the East, inspiring at least one to comment that he "did not care for John Pope one pinch of owl dung." Porter evidently shared the attitude of distrust, which Pope returned in full measure. When the second battle began on the Bull Run site, things initially appeared to be going well for the Union forces, largely because Pope was completely confused as to the Confederates' whereabouts. Thinking he was facing a small portion of Gen. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson's corps, Pope ordered Porter to attack them. The arrival of Gen. James Longstreet and 30,000 troops complicated Porter's attempt to carry out his orders. Pope did not consider this a sufficient excuse, accusing Porter of delay so severe as to constitute disobedience of orders. Three days later he proffered formal charges to that effect. Porter was court-martialed the next year and cashiered from the army. Never ceasing to proclaim his innocence, in 1878 Porter managed to get a new trial. In preparation, he commissioned a set of maps of the field where the action took place, noting every detail of terrain down to the location of streams, woodlines and clumps of trees. The maps and testimony of witnesses showed that Porter's men would have been annihilated if he had followed Pope's orders to the letter, the Washington Post reported. The court martial verdict was overturned and Porter was exonerated. His honor and position were restored and his maps went into a file at the National Archives. A century later another significant action took place at the Second Manassas battlefield. A local developer, John T. "Til" Hazel, bought it, announced he was going to build a huge mall and subdivision on it, and set bulldozers to work. Hills, slopes, streams, woodlines and clumps of trees were all scraped aside. Sewers and utility lines were starting to be installed. Eventually, local preservationists convinced Congress that the development would have a horrible impact on the remaining Manassas battlefield, and the project was brought to a halt. Legislation was passed paying Hazel for what he had invested in the project, and the land was added to Manassas National Battlefield Park. Dismal though the scene was, the site of what many consider the greatest tactical victory of the Army of Northern Virginia was now preserved. Things would have stayed this way had not the Smithsonian Institution decided to place its annex to the Air and Space Museum at Dulles Airport. Some of the land was legally considered wetlands, and would have to be filled in to put buildings on it. The law requires that in order to remove wetlands for a project, an equivalent amount of new wetlands must be created somewhere nearby. According to the Post, credit for the idea belongs to Lin Ezell, a pilot who used to work for NASA, who was working on some of the planning for the new museum, technically known as the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center. The new wetlands had to be in the same watershed as the ones being removed. Land in northern Virginia being hideously expensive, open spaces are hard to find. Ezell was driving out to Dulles one day and saw the brown highway sign for Manassas Battlefield Park. A light dawned. The existence of the Porter maps was already known to the park service, having been found by a University of Georgia team in the Archives back when the land was added to the park. Nothing was done at the time since the NPS budget did not extend to the amounts needed to restore what the developer's bulldozers had done. When Manassas Superintendent John Sutton was brought into the discussion, everything came together. Since they weren't having to pay for the land, the entire amount the Smithsonian had budgeted for the wetlands requirement could go into restoring it to the Porter maps' specifications. Environmental Quality Resources, a company that specializes in restoring wetlands, was hired for the project. Its workers have spent most of the year rearranging 90,000 cubic yards of dirt across a 110-acre section of the battlefield at a cost of more than $1.4 million. This fall, they planted 8,000 trees and shrubs and 52,000 plants. In the far corner of the restoration area, plants are growing in a marshy depression, an old wetland that is new again thanks to the law and a museum. The end result, Sutton said, is "an amazing juxtaposition not only from a historic point of view, but it's about the importance of protecting all of our resources. We were kind of stuck with what we were given" after the developer had done his work. "It was very difficult to tell the story of what happened there," Sutton added. "To me it's just a wonderful thing."

[NY Pvt]

Re: Civil War battlefield restored with help of Smithsonian

Do you guys know where I might be able to find a map of the 115 acre plot or even if they have the Porter Maps online?
Thanks

[dusty27]

Re: Civil War battlefield restored with help of Smithsonian

Dane,

I would check with the NPS at Manassas. They may be able to help you.