Fight for 'hallowed ground'

WASHINGTON - Antietam National Battlefield survived the bloodiest day in American history. Now, historic preservationists say, it's under threat from modern technology.

The patch of Western Maryland farmland, where bucolic vistas have remained virtually unchanged since the September day in 1862 when about 23,000 soldiers were killed, wounded or missing in action, was named one of the nation's most endangered battlefields yesterday. The threat: a proposed cell phone tower that would rise 30 feet above the treeline - marring, critics say, views from nearly all of the battlefield's famous vantage points.

"It is the best-preserved battlefield east of Shiloh," said O. James Lighthizer, president of the Civil War Preservation Trust, which announced its 2008 list of the 10 most endangered battlefields at a news conference in Washington. "It is absolutely a model. We've got too big an investment in that battlefield to let some organization come and stick a monstrosity like that."

Also making the list: Monocacy National Battlefield, where preservationists fear the visual impact of a nearby waste-to-energy plant under consideration by Frederick County. South Mountain State Battlefield, near the site of a proposed natural-gas compression station, was named one of 15 "at-risk" sites.

In a report titled "History Under Siege," the trust - a private group that has spent $100 million in the past eight years to preserve more than 25,000 acres at 99 sites in 18 states - describes a nation rapidly losing touch with its heritage.

"Each and every day, 30 acres of hallowed ground are lost forever," said Cricket Bauer Pohanka, a trustee for the organization. "In the Metro D.C. area, we have several battlefields within easy distance, and in some ways they are the hardest hit by the development in this area."

She noted the telecommunications tower that a Rockville company is considering building near Antietam.

Mike Hofe, president and chief operating officer of Liberty Towers LLC, called it a "stealth" structure, disguised as a farm silo to blend in with the area.

Liberty Towers has yet to file for permits, but the company recently floated a tethered balloon to illustrate the height of the proposed tower. Hofe said the site is one of several that the company is considering but added that zoning restrictions and preservation guidelines limit the number of places that it could be built.

"We're working on a set of scenarios," he said. "We're very early in the planning stages."

Preservationists say the structure would dominate the view from Gen. Robert E. Lee's headquarters and the Bell, Piper and Reel farms, which are situated around the battlefield. Lighthizer, a former Anne Arundel County executive and state transportation secretary, vowed to fight the proposal "until hell freezes over."

"When you put up a monstrosity of a cell tower," he said, "you really desecrate the visual environment."

At Monocacy, the trust says, the 150-foot-tall smokestack from the proposed trash-to-energy plant would be visible from much of the battlefield.

The Frederick County Board of Commissioners has not yet decided to build the plant. Michael G. Marschner, director of the Frederick County division of utilities and solid waste management, says several sites are under consideration, but the one in question, in an industrial park next to an existing wastewater treatment plant, has the advantage of already being owned by the county. Marschner says a smokestack from a cement kiln and a Toys R Us warehouse already are visible from the battlefield.

Lighthizer warned that the nation is losing a sense of itself. He compared contemporary knowledge of Pickett's Charge, the relatively well-known Confederate attack during the Battle of Gettysburg that resulted in heavy losses, with a similar charge during the Second Battle of Franklin, Tenn., that was perhaps twice as large and twice as bloody but is now largely forgotten.

"What's the one variable that's different?" Lighthizer asked. "Around the turn of the 20th century, we paved over Franklin."

Joining the preservationists in Washington was country singer-songwriter Trace Adkins. When he was 13, he said, his grandfather told him about his grandfather, a private in the 31st Louisiana Infantry who was wounded and captured at Vicksburg, Miss.

Adkins described his first visit to the Civil War battlefield, where a monument marks the spot where the 31st Louisiana was deployed.

"You can look across that battlefield and it's been preserved, it's one of the success stories, it still looks the way it looks when my great-great-grandfather was there," he said. "And I can't explain to you what a spiritual moment it was for me. Just to stand there and know I was within 100 feet of where he had been, and seeing the exact thing he was seeing."

matthew.brown@baltsun.com

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