Ghosts of Gettysburg? See the two orbs floating above our heads just after we delivered petitions to the PGCB. The headline says "Gettysburg Casino Faces Long Odds
Grant, Lincoln and Lee, 9/8/05
Living Historians Express Opposition to Gettysburg Casino at Pa. Capital
Historian-Actor Patrick Falci as Lt. Gen. AP Hill
"How could anyone think that building a casino near the Gettysburg battlefield is a good idea? That after those three days in July, 1863 with 51,000 casualties, our society should honor those men with a casino? The brave souls who made the supreme sacrifice would, I'm sure, be offended at such a thought. All Americans, both northern and southern, should be against such a disgrace. I am a New Yorker who would be devastated if, sometime in the future, someone proposed building a casino near the site of the World Trade Center after what occurred on 9/11.
Therefore, I indeed offer my support to all who oppose the prospective casino near Gettysburg National Military Park.
Patrick Falci is an historian /actor who portrayed Lt.General A.P.Hill in the film "Gettysburg."
STATEMENT OF HISTORIAN ED BEARSS REGARDING IMPORTANCE OF EAST CAVALRY FIELD World-renowned historian and preservationist calls East Cavalry Field an ‘unsurpassed opportunity to walk in the footsteps of history.’
March 16, 2006
(Washington, D.C.) –World-renowned historian and preservationist Edwin C. Bearss issued the following statement today about the historic significance of East Cavalry Field, an important component of Gettysburg National Military Park. Bearss is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Civil War Preservation Trust (CWPT). In recent weeks, Chance Enterprises, the investment group trying to build a new casino within a mile of East Cavalry Field, has tried to diminish the historic significance of the East Cavalry Field site, in order to improve their chances of getting a license for a slots parlor. As a result of the casino controversy, last month CWPT identified Gettysburg as one of the ten most endangered battlefields in the nation. Bearss’ response follows:
“The East Cavalry Field fight is as much a part of Battle of Gettysburg as Little Round Top. The fight for East Cavalry Field underscored the coming of age of the Union cavalry. From here on in the Civil War, the Union cavalry in the east will achieve the same dominance over the Confederate cavalry that the Confederate cavalry heretofore had had over the Union.
“You can not divide the different parts of the segments of the Battle of Gettysburg. East Cavalry Field is as important to understanding the Battle of Gettysburg as the Angle or Little Round Top.
“The decision to include East Cavalry Field in the Gettysburg National Military Park was made by the veterans. Who has a better right to decide what was important and what was significant than those men who fought there? The fight on East Cavalry Field was a significant success for the Union horse soldiers and underscored that the Union cavalry could now meet the cavaliers in gray and best them. Henceforth in the Civil War, the Union cavalry in the east will become increasingly dominant over the Confederate cavalry.
No place on the battlefield of Gettysburg possesses greater integrity to time and place than East Cavalry Field. You could bring one of Stuart’s horsemen, or one of Custer’s, back and he would recognize the landscape, the woods, the topography. And here today’s visitor has an unsurpassed opportunity to walk in the footsteps of history.”
Bearss is considered a national treasure. Tens of thousands of people, including many national figures, have toured battlefields and historic sites with Bearss, both here in America and overseas. He is an award winning author; having written or edited more than 20 books. In 1983, he received the Department of the Interior’s Distinguished Service Award, its highest honor. Bearss was also the first recipient of CWPT’s most prestigious national award, which is now named after him. In November 2005, he was identified in Smithsonian Magazine’s cover story, “35 Who Made a Difference.”
With 75,000 members, CWPT is the largest nonprofit battlefield preservation organization in the United States. Its mission is to preserve our nation’s remaining Civil War battlefields. Since 1987, the organization has saved more than 22,000 acres of hallowed ground, including 591 acres in Gettysburg. CWPT’s website is located at www.civilwar.org
I am Tom Carhart, author of five military history books, the most recent of which, LOST TRIUMPH, is about the Battle of Gettysburg, with emphasis on the fight on East Cavalry Field.I understand plans have been made to place a gambling casino at the intersection of Route 15 and York Road in Gettysburg, less than a mile from East Cavalry Field. The crucial significance of East Cavalry Field has only just begun to be realized, as it was the outcome of the cavalry fight there that determined victory or defeat for the two sides in the larger Battle of Gettysburg. As a key place in American history, that area needs special protection. Professor James McPherson, Pulitzer-Prize winning author of BATTLE CRY OF FREEDOM, has formally recognized the importance of that ground when he says, in his Foreword to my book, “One cannot understand the Battle of Gettysburg without understanding what happened at what was then known as East Cavalry Battlefield”.
On the morning of 3 July, 1863, 3,000 Confederate horsemen under General J.E.B. Stuart came out York Road from Gettysburg while another 3,000 came south from the farmlands on which they had spent the night. These Rebel horsemen assembled at and around the proposed location of the casino, moved less than a mile southeast, then halted. That afternoon, they tried to plunge into the Union rear at the height of the main battle but were stopped on East Cavalry Field by some 2,400 Union cavalrymen, most under command of General George Armstrong Custer.
If Stuart’s drive to reach the Union rear had succeeded, he would have met Pickett’s Charge at the Clump of Trees, thus cutting the Army of the Potomac in half, after which it would have been defeated in detail. Had this happened, the Union would have then and there effectively lost the Civil War, with unimaginable consequences. It is fair to say, then, that the Union was literally saved when Custer stopped Stuart that day on East Cavalry Field.
You must stop construction of a casino on this hallowed ground. While small businesses have sprung up along York Road, these are nothing more than roadside commercial outlets where shoppers briefly stop on errands. But a casino in that location will bring thousands of more cars day and night, a loud barrier that would deter tourists trying to reach nearby East Cavalry Field. This travesty would destroy the integrity of East Cavalry Field, minimize its accessibility, and begin the slide in that area from hallowed ground to rampant commercial development.
I do not protest gambling itself, of course, for Pennsylvania can pass whatever laws its residents want. But I doubt very much that Pennsylvanians generally would choose to see the town of Gettysburg become renowned nationally as a gambling center rather than the ground on which the Civil War was won (and, for the Confederacy, lost). If this or any casino is allowed, the outcome could be such unfortunate notoriety for Gettysburg, with its latest and potentially largest attraction for tourists becoming games of chance (compare Las Vegas or Atlantic City). Is this how Pennsylvanians want to draw visitors to that town from out of state and out of country?
Presently, tourists come to Gettysburg out of curiosity about the battle and almost always make reverent visits to the fields on which our forefathers on both sides poured out their life’s blood in defense of their homes and values. President Abraham Lincoln spoke of these fields when he said: “The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have hallowed it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, while it can never forget what they did here”. It is sacred ground. Pennsylvania is entrusted with preserving the integrity of these fields, a national treasure. Allowing development of this area in the ways proposed violates this trust and demeans the importance of this land to all Americans.
I hope that the Gaming Control Board will see the proposal in this new light and cause the casino to be built in or near another town. That town could then become known as a gambling resort without desecrating the honored reputation of Gettysburg and its battlefields, in particular East Cavalry Field, as the ground on which the Union was literally saved. This is a crucially important national memory for all Americans, and I earnestly request you to honor it.
Tom Carhart, Ph.D. HISTORIAN
Civil War Preservation Trust put together an awesome map location of the battlefield and the casino, designed for Civil War buffs. (It's not a road map.) The map was designed by Steve Stanley, a gifted designer who did most of the graphics work for the Chancellorsville Coalition during the fight to save part of that battlefield. Steve is a former Fredericksburg resident who now lives in Gettysburg:
"In great deeds something abides. On great fields something stays.
Forms change and pass; bodies disappear, but spirits linger, to consecrate ground for the vision-place of souls.
And reverent men and women from afar, and generations that know us not and that we know not of, heart-drawn to see where and by whom great things were suffered and done for them, shall come to this deathless field to ponder and dream;
And lo, the shadow of a mighty presence shall wrap them in its bosom, and the power of the vision shall pass into their souls."
Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain Professor of Speech, Rhetoric and Oratory, Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine Lieut. Col., commanding the 20th Regiment of Maine Volunteers (Fifth Corps, Union Army of the Potomac) "Savior" of Little Round Top, Battle of Gettysburg and, later, Brigadier Gen'l.; 1866-70: Governor of the State of Maine 1870-1883: President of Bowdoin College born Sept. 8, 1828; died Feb. 24, 1914
Below are photos of Generals Lee and Grant with President Lincoln at our first news conference, 9/8/05. The three living historians spoke on why a casino near Gettysburg is unacceptable. If you click on the small photos they will get larger. The news conference was held in the Capital East Wing Media Room, and also featured Rep. Paul Clymer and Rep. Steve Maitland. After the conference we all attended the Pa. Gaming Control Board meeting. See more photos on "press release" and "politics" page.
Civil War Reenactment unit, the 57th North Carolina Co A. 6/5/04
We the members of the Civil War Reenactment unit, the 57th North Carolina Co A. are shocked and upset that Gettysburg would allow itself to become a new Atlantic City, or Charles Town, WV. And it is clear to us that again, someone is trying to get rich from the blood of thousands. When has it ever been OK for that? Gettysburg is one of the places in the world that is hallowed.
While there are going to be the people who feel that there is nothing wrong with putting up a Pizza Hut on top of a graveyard, or another Disney World in the Battlefield of Manassas, you don't put up a Taco Bell in the center of Ground Zero, or set up a Black Jack table in the center of Pearl Harbor. One must wonder what the men who fought there would think of the idea of taking a place that families go to honor them, and replace them with people who have gambling problems. What would they like to do next? Maybe neon lights in the National Cemetery? A dog track at Pickett's Charge?
The families who come to Gettysburg, come for the history and the battlefield. It is a chance to be with your family in a place that has something for the whole family. If a Casino opens its doors anywhere near the town of Gettysburg, then the shops in Gettysburg will close. There is no one who will come to Gettysburg to see the battlefield and gamble. The one time I went to Atlantic City, I don't remember seeing people out on their beaches. But I did see what the city looked like away from the Casinos. And that would be a very sad day should Gettysburg become that way.
If the men in Blue and Grey did not find their way to Gettysburg that July of 1863, then the town of Gettysburg would not be what it is today. We reenact what they did there in 1863. We don't reenact how someone lost their money on a rigged machine.Should the casino open there, then the reenactment units will stop going there. As we are only there to honor the men who fought there, and talk to the people who come out there to learn about history, if the people stop coming out to see us reenact, then we stop coming to town. The Casino cannot make up for all the money and people that the town will lose.
We of the 57th North Carolina will stand with anyone who will fight to keep the casinos out. And as with Disney a few years ago, Blue and Grey will meet on the fields of Gettysburg. Both sides have a battle to fight, and a war to win, only this time, we will stand together. Both the Blue and the Grey fighting for one cause.
Jonas Hartsell of the 57th North Carolina, who fought there in Gettysburg, and is my ggg-grandfather, would have laid down his musket and ordered his men to do the same, and start back to NC if he knew that the blood of his friends, and family would be the fuel for a money hungry machine. The Army of the Potomac would have given the town and the state to Robert E. Lee if they knew of this. In the next 50 to 100 years, will all their pain and death be forgotten, in place for a new Vegas? How will the future remember Gettysburg? What started in the 1880's with saving the battlefield could end with the battlefield built up. The Casino is just one step toward that fate, with the remains of the battlefield ending up someone’s backyard. And the future will only have the pictures of the past in a now and then book. Little Round Top flattened into a parking lot of a new building should not happen.
If they were not banking on the good name of Gettysburg, then they could go anywhere else in the state of PA, and make their money. Family members who never got to see their loved one return from the field of Gettysburg would not want to see the name Gettysburg attached to something like a Casino. The townspeople should stand up and say they will not let this happen. We of the 57th NC will do all that we can to make sure that this does not happen. The 57th NC lost men to the Battle of Gettysburg, and we are not about to let their memory disappear so someone can make a fast buck.
