I just finished watching this, and it was very good. My thanks to you and Prof. Murray, whose book on the Park I intend to buy in a few minutes.
To follow up on one thing you all talked about, there are/have been serious issues of this nature at other battlefield Parks. Shiloh often has nesting eagles, which have to be protected from over-enthusiastic tourists (and potential poachers). Shiloh has also had a recurring problem with the river (actually, the upper reaches of Pickwick Lake) undercutting the bluff along which the River Road runs. For a long time in the 1990s (when I lived in the area and was a frequent visitor) auto traffic was not allowed on that piece of road. And there are the issues you and Prof. Murray talked about at Vicksburg, where the river is going to do what the river wants to do, and man can only watch. Other battlefields have been severely damaged by local development. I once took some friends---including a number of small children---to the Wilderness, where we were virtually assaulted by a bunch of local kids riding their dirt bikes (motorized) all about the Tapp Farm clearing, coming very close to some of the kids (including my 6-year old daughter). All of these become very complex management issues, which, IMO, need to be handled with the purpose of the Park in mind. The battlefield parks exist to honor the men who fought there, and to enable the public who visit to learn about what happened there. Restricting access to a part of Shiloh to protect a nesting pair of eagles is a minimal disturbance. Having a beaver dam (or two) create a lake (or two) where there should only be a small stream is, IMO, entirely different, especially when the pond threatens to undermine one of the regimental markers, and especially when it is possible to do things like live-trap the beavers and remove them to another habitat.
In all of this, however, I realized there was something I do not know: What is the hydrology of Plum Run? I have always assumed it flowed out of Big Round Top northward between Seminary and Cemetery Ridges (it features in some of the evening fighting on July 2nd). But, where does it end? What does it flow into? Or, is it simply a dead-end stream, formed by runoff from the Round Tops, but then just peters out somewhere in front of Cemetery Ridge? This is important in terms of the fish question---if it does not connect to any other watercourse, then there there would be, at best, only tiny fish there.
This was a home run, Kevin, with several men on base.
You will definitely enjoy Jen's book, Jim. Check out yesterday's post. John Hennessy mentioned that he dealt with beavers a number of times at Fredericksburg & Spotsylvania Military Park. Glad to see you found an answer to your question on Facebook.
Kevn, I just finished listening to the interview. It is great. You and Dr. Murray are addressing what I think are among the key questions facing anyone in the preservation, public history, public archaeology, cultural resource management fields. How much is enough and how accurate do you need any representation to be. How much is enough referrs to how much of the battlefield do we need to preserve (maybe also how many Civil War battlefields do we need to preserve) and for those that we do preserve, whether all or a few, how authentic does that preservation need to be. Is it enough to have signage over looking the Beaver ponds along PlumRun that say-here is an image of how what you are looking at appeared on July 1-3,1863. Or, do we have an obligation to restore the site to what it actually looked like, as closely as we can. I tend to lean toward restoration but clearly not everyone does. The let nature take its course argument has appeal. This is a debate, specifically about the PlumRun Beavers, and about the nature of preservation and memorization in general, that I don't see going away any time soon.
I just finished watching this, and it was very good. My thanks to you and Prof. Murray, whose book on the Park I intend to buy in a few minutes.
To follow up on one thing you all talked about, there are/have been serious issues of this nature at other battlefield Parks. Shiloh often has nesting eagles, which have to be protected from over-enthusiastic tourists (and potential poachers). Shiloh has also had a recurring problem with the river (actually, the upper reaches of Pickwick Lake) undercutting the bluff along which the River Road runs. For a long time in the 1990s (when I lived in the area and was a frequent visitor) auto traffic was not allowed on that piece of road. And there are the issues you and Prof. Murray talked about at Vicksburg, where the river is going to do what the river wants to do, and man can only watch. Other battlefields have been severely damaged by local development. I once took some friends---including a number of small children---to the Wilderness, where we were virtually assaulted by a bunch of local kids riding their dirt bikes (motorized) all about the Tapp Farm clearing, coming very close to some of the kids (including my 6-year old daughter). All of these become very complex management issues, which, IMO, need to be handled with the purpose of the Park in mind. The battlefield parks exist to honor the men who fought there, and to enable the public who visit to learn about what happened there. Restricting access to a part of Shiloh to protect a nesting pair of eagles is a minimal disturbance. Having a beaver dam (or two) create a lake (or two) where there should only be a small stream is, IMO, entirely different, especially when the pond threatens to undermine one of the regimental markers, and especially when it is possible to do things like live-trap the beavers and remove them to another habitat.
In all of this, however, I realized there was something I do not know: What is the hydrology of Plum Run? I have always assumed it flowed out of Big Round Top northward between Seminary and Cemetery Ridges (it features in some of the evening fighting on July 2nd). But, where does it end? What does it flow into? Or, is it simply a dead-end stream, formed by runoff from the Round Tops, but then just peters out somewhere in front of Cemetery Ridge? This is important in terms of the fish question---if it does not connect to any other watercourse, then there there would be, at best, only tiny fish there.
This was a home run, Kevin, with several men on base.
You will definitely enjoy Jen's book, Jim. Check out yesterday's post. John Hennessy mentioned that he dealt with beavers a number of times at Fredericksburg & Spotsylvania Military Park. Glad to see you found an answer to your question on Facebook.
Kevn, I just finished listening to the interview. It is great. You and Dr. Murray are addressing what I think are among the key questions facing anyone in the preservation, public history, public archaeology, cultural resource management fields. How much is enough and how accurate do you need any representation to be. How much is enough referrs to how much of the battlefield do we need to preserve (maybe also how many Civil War battlefields do we need to preserve) and for those that we do preserve, whether all or a few, how authentic does that preservation need to be. Is it enough to have signage over looking the Beaver ponds along PlumRun that say-here is an image of how what you are looking at appeared on July 1-3,1863. Or, do we have an obligation to restore the site to what it actually looked like, as closely as we can. I tend to lean toward restoration but clearly not everyone does. The let nature take its course argument has appeal. This is a debate, specifically about the PlumRun Beavers, and about the nature of preservation and memorization in general, that I don't see going away any time soon.
Anyway great interview.
Thanks for the feedback, Michael. Glad to hear that you enjoyed the discussion.