Will They White-Wash the Battlefields?

My son Nick and I visited the Petersburg National Battlefield yesterday. Springtime in Virginia is so beautiful, my favorite season here, and this was the best day so far, no jacket needed but a little brisk, fluffy cumulus in a sky blue sky, and white or pink splashes of dogwoods dotting the forest. The battlefield is part of the National Park system, free to visit, and laid out like a sprawling outdoor museum with numbered sites that tell the tale of the year-long siege that forced the Civil War to its bloody end. We stopped at the Visitor’s Center first, and saw this plaque in honor of a founder of the National Park System.

Note the last sentence: THERE WILL NEVER COME AN END TO THE GOOD HE HAS DONE.

A troubling irony now, when the Trump administration is gutting budgets and firing workers at the National Parks. Who knows how far they will go?  Inside the center, a kind gentleman behind the counter pulled out a map and explained the park's walking/driving route. We watched a short film about the siege and its battles, which of course described the site’s center-piece, the gunpowder-filled tunnel under Confederate lines that led to the Crater and the horrible skirmish following its detonation. But the film also focused on the valor of the Black soldiers who fought for the Union Army at Petersburg. 15,000 served in the “Colored Troops”. Fifteen won Medals of Honor for their exploits here. I knew about the Crater (the film Cold Mountain opens with a searing eight-minute recreation of the battle, and you can watch that scene on YouTube), but had not read about the Colored Troops. And then I thought, with the white-washing of history now underway (just last week the Naval Academy removed 400 books from their libraries), will this film at the visitor's center be re-cut?

We walked a circular path inside the building that displayed elaborate cavalry swords, a doctor’s kit featuring a short-saw used for amputations, and other wartime paraphernalia. We overheard a worker on the phone. She seemed distressed, and we soon learned why. It seemed that she was hearing that her budget was being slashed, that layoffs were coming. She hung up the phone and said to a co-worker, “That’s it for our supplies.”

I bought a book from her and asked, “Are the changes in Washington affecting y’all?”

She nodded sadly, said, “Oh yes,” then, when her co-worker coughed as if to warn her, she  pressed her lips together and left it there. Probably, like my wife who works at the Richmond VA Hospital (where they expect layoffs soon), she’d been warned not to talk.

Nick and I spent the next two hours exploring the expansive battlefield. Though dotted with decorative cannons and undulant earthwork fortifications, it’s a lovely park, pine and poplar woods, broad green meadows that once were trod by charging troops, and 12 miles of nicely tended trails winding through it all. We saw locals walking their dogs, retiree couples with canes, and a few cars with out of state plates, here on a pilgrimage. Two key photos:

Opening to the long tunnel leading to the Crater site.

The Crater as it looks today. A broad swale in a green meadow. Hard to imagine the carnage that happened here, but if you squint....

And this stone monument at the edge of the Crater:

We wondered, how long will this monument remain here?

Back home, I opened the battlefield website, which mentions the Union’s Colored Troops and the Confederacy’s last ditch effort to hire Black soldiers (promising them freedom and a plot of land after the war) as their resources dwindled. In the current censorious climate, you have to ask: How long will those paragraphs remain on that page?

Like everyone I’ve ever spoken to, I love our National Parks and take pride in them. Until this year, I’d never imagined that any American could feel differently. But here we are. Driving out of the Park at the edge of the Crater, Nick and I wondered what will happen next. If the budget cuts continue, who will mow the historic battlefield, keep up the forest trails, maintain the visitor’s center, tell the true story of what happened here at Petersburg? What will become of the nation’s other great outdoor treasures: Yosemite, Yellowstone, Glacier, Shenandoah, and all the rest? Already, the Trump Administration, in lockstep with the Republicans in Congress, has opened more than half the nation’s National Forests to logging. What is wrong with these people? Have they never visited any of America's National Parks?