Sunday, April 29, 2007
Wal-Mart advances on Lee's last battlefield
From the RoundTable blog
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America is in an internal war today; perhaps the biggest threat to the very existence of future generations of this blessed country is the struggle for the future of our lands.
Will the pastures of the family farms and the mountains and valleys of hardwood forests succumb to the asphalt and concrete that overpopulation brings? Fairfax County is a prime example of how not to plan a community. I think the Northern Virginia sprawl creeping down the interstate is criminal.
Mankind has always fought over land, and in a nonviolent way that is what we must do to save our history, if we value it.
As I toured Appomattox last year, I saw that development in historic areas has increased more in the last five years than in the past 142 years since the surrender. Wal-Mart announced this month that it will build on the ground that was fought over primarily by a Federal cavalry brigade under Gen. Henry Davies and Confederate troopers under Gen. Thomas Munford -- including the 2nd Virginia Cavalry in which Company H was the Appomattox Rangers.
This is where Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia fired its last shots and suffered its last casualties. The Confederate dead are buried on the ground slated for development. The Robertson house that once stood there was used as a Federal headquarters and probably a hospital. This is of interest to reverent people throughout the country.
There are three and soon to be a fourth Wal-Mart in the Lynchburg area, and there is also one in nearby Farmville. Is it necessary that there be another in Appomattox?
And if it must be built, why build it on the ground soaked with the life-blood of our ancestors? Is this what they gave their lives for? Surely Wal-Mart would do just as well on nonhistoric property a mile or two along U.S. 460 in either direction.
If there is not enough interest or support to preserve the land in its entirety, the optimum choice, can't the people of Appomattox work with Wal-Mart to protect a portion of that hallowed ground?
Whether you are a Southerner or a Northerner; Democrat or Republican; domestic or imported; black, white, yellow, red, blue or gray -- these places tell us more about who we are than any other single historical period in our brief existence. It is our road map to tell us who we are, where we are, where we have been, and where we may go.
What will you do, Appomattox? What will your legacy be?
Hodge is co-founder of an Emmy award winning film company, Wide Awake Films.
