BY CLINT SCHEMMER
THE FREE LANCE-STAR
GLENDALE—When it comes to using tourism, parks and American history to create jobs, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar, Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell and National Park Service Director Jonathan Jarvis sound remarkably in accord.
That’s what many people concluded Wednesday afternoon after taking part in a bipartisan “town hall” meeting at a small country chapel, Willis United Methodist Church, astride two Civil War battlefields just east of Richmond.
Salazar, McDonnell and Jarvis spoke forcefully about the power of tourism, both domestic and international, to create U.S. jobs “that can’t be exported,” in Salazar’s words.
Salazar heralded the Obama administration’s new “Brand USA” effort to boost tourism as a job-creation engine, an initiative that the Democratic president unveiled in Florida last week during a trip to Disney World.
McDonnell spoke proudly of his work to increase visitation in Virginia and to sell the state as a key destination for international travelers.
Partisan differences seemed absent in the church sanctuary and outside on the Glendale and Malvern Hill battlefields, which overlap at this spot near the James River.
The battlefields figured prominently in the failed 1862 campaign by Union Gen. George B. McClellan to capture Richmond, capital of the Confederacy.
McDonnell, who attended with members of his Cabinet, emphasized the key role that Virginia played in the Civil War. Half of the war’s battles were fought on state soil, he noted. A third of the major battles happened in Virginia.
“The history of Virginia is the history of our country, and we want all Americans and visitors from across the world to come to the commonwealth to learn about his incredible history,” the governor said.
“The events that unfolded on this landscape are as important as those that took place in Gettysburg and Manassas,” Jarvis said. “What happened here changed how this war would be fought and what it would be fought over.”
McDonnell supported Salazar’s job-creation goal, saying tourism is a nearly $19 billion industry in Virginia that employs more than 200,000 people.
“This is the time we want to tell the story of the Civil War and emancipation,” he said.
Their two-and-a-half-hour visit and listening session kept Willis Church Road busy for a little while and filled the historic, sunlit church with more than 130 people. During the Seven Days’ battles of 1862 around Richmond, the church sheltered Confederate wounded from the Battle of Malvern Hill, a harsh defeat for Gen. Robert E. Lee’s army.
Park, museum, historic site, winery, travel and tourism representatives from across Virginia packed the pews to listen to the three men and offer their ideas for the administration’s fast-tracked tourism initiative. More than 20 people, representing areas from Chincoteague to Petersburg to the Shenandoah Valley, spoke.
Stafford and Spotsylvania county tourism officials and Russ Smith, superintendent of Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park, were among those attending.
Once the 90-minute town-hall meeting ended, the VIPs moved across the street to the caretaker’s lodge in Glendale National Cemetery, which functions as a visitor center for Richmond National Battlefield Park. More than 1,200 Union soldiers, most of them casualties of the Glendale and Malvern Hill battles, are interred in the small, circular graveyard centered on a tall flagpole flying the U.S. flag.
There, during a news conference, Salazar announced a $4 million grant from the federal Land and Water Conservation Fund to benefit battlefield preservation at the Richmond park. Salazar noted that fees from offshore oil and gas finance the Land and Water Conservation Fund.
The grant appears to be the largest one-time sum the federal government has allocated to battlefield preservation in about 10 years, since the National Park Service—for about $6 million—acquired Hamilton’s Thicket on the Wilderness battlefield in Spotsylvania County, a pivotal spot in Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant’s 1864 pursuit of Lee’s forces toward Richmond.
The grant will aid ongoing work by the Park Service and the private, nonprofit Civil War Trust to preserve portions of the Glendale, Malvern Hill and Deep Bottom battlefields. The effort was begun 25 years ago by one of the trust’s parent groups, the former Fredericksburg-based Association for the Preservation of Civil War Sites.
The $4 million will buy at least 320 acres, most of them at Glendale. Until now, the Glendale battlefield was inaccessible to visitors. With the grant, the battlefield will be almost completely preserved and made accessible to people for the first time.
As Salazar noted, the trust is able to buy land more quickly than the federal government.
The VIPs, joined by first lady Maureen McDonnell, Richmond park Superintendent David Ruth, former Civil War Trust Chairman John Nau and trust President James Lighthizer, joined in a ceremony and ribbon-cutting that opened new exhibits at the visitor center—part of the Park Service’s multi-year commemoration of the war’s 150th anniversary. The first floor of the cemetery caretaker’s lodge, itself designed by Union Quartermaster General Montgomery C. Meigs, was retrofitted to contain interpretive displays that spotlight stories of the Glendale and Malvern Hill battles.
Salazar hailed the Richmond battlefields as possessing “one of the great American stories,” where the power of place can draw even more heritage-tourism visitors than they already do.
Ruth said the Seven Days’ battles were more important that Gettysburg in determining the course and length of the conflict, and making emancipation of enslaved people part of the Lincoln administration’s war agenda.
Nau said the day was the realization of a dream forged many years ago, during his student days at the University of Virginia. He visited Malvern Hill then and was shocked to discover that only a few acres of the field, the last of the Seven Days’ battles in which Lee prevented the Union army from seizing Richmond, were preserved as parkland.
Today, thanks to collaboration between the trust and the Park Service, about 1,500 acres of the various Seven Days’ battlefields have been incorporated into Richmond National Battlefield Park. Nearly all of the Malvern Hill battlefield has been preserved. It is possible for a visitor to hike 3.1 miles on preserved battlefield land, following the entire Confederate attack route from the north end of Glendale to the south end of Malvern Hill, Park Service historian Robert E. L. Krick said.
Civil War Trust President James Lighthizer welcomed Salazar’s decision on the land-acquisition grant.
“Today’s announcement means that historic Civil War battlefields around Richmond will be fully integrated in Richmond National Battlefield Park, enhancing tourism and creating new jobs in time to commemorate the events that took place 150 years ago this spring and summer,” Lighthizer said.
Richmond National Battlefield Park, established in 1936, contains 13 individual units commemorating the numerous battles fought around Virginia’s capital from 1862 through 1865. The park’s congressionally authorized boundary encompasses 7,100 acres, but only about 30 percent of that land is now protected by the National Park Service.
Clint Schemmer: 540/368-5029
cschemmer@freelancestar.com
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
