[VAcourier] Wal-Mart advances on Lee's last battlefield

[Virginia Division SCV Communication List]

  Wal-Mart advances on Lee's last battlefield


  By Robert Lee Hodge

from roanoke.com (Roanoke-Times)

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.

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://scvva.org/pipermail/vacourier_scvva.org/attachments/20070430/da5f75ff/attachment.html