Battling for Manassas: The Fifty-Year Preservation Struggle at Manassas National Battlefield Park

Table of Contents

Foreword

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Bibliography

Appendix I

Appendix II

Appendix III

Appendix IV

Appendix V (omitted from on-line edition)

Appendix VI

Appendix VII

Appendix VIII

Manassas Chapter 7

Great America in Manassas

Defining the National Park Service Position

The instant polarization of views, with Porter and her fellow supporters adamantly opposing the Marriott proposal and others strongly favoring construction of the theme park left the National Park Service with a limited range of options. The agency could join one side, but this would involve complications. First, Superintendent Berry and other NPS officials needed specific and reliable information about the theme park proposal and its relation to the battlefield park. To get the hard facts, Berry approached Marriott when news of the proposal first broke and explained that the National Park Service would not be an ally, but the agency had not decided to be an opponent. If Marriott refused to sit down and provide the information the agency needed, Berry explained, "I will have no choice but to oppose because I will fight the unknown." Marriott agreed to cooperate with the Park Service and began conferences with the agency in March 1973.

During the course of these meetings, the Park Service outlined its four major concerns about the theme park: (1) the location and uses of the 350-foot tower; (2) possible pollution and planned mitigations; (3) access to the theme park and whether Marriott expected significant travel along Lee Highway through the battlefield park; and (4) Marriott-provided picnicking and camping facilities to reduce recreational pressures on the battlefield park. Marriott agreed to take these concerns into consideration when finalizing its theme park plans, but the corporation did not provide a detailed site plan for the Service to review. [11]

A second factor that influenced the National Park Service's reaction was the increasing fervor of debate. In Berry's mind, supporters and opponents of the Marriott proposal had fallen into the trap of engaging in hysterical rhetoric, a tactic the Park Service wanted to avoid. The four controlling members of the board of county supervisors so fully supported the Marriott plan that they attracted more than the usual amount of attention. A group of residents joined together to publish a newsletter reporting on county board meetings in an attempt to increase public surveillance of the Four Horsemen's activities. Opponents to the theme park also contributed to the rising tone of the controversy by presenting what Marriott vice president David L. Brown called a "parade of horrors" of potential, but not probable, environmental and social effects of the theme park. [12]

Questions about the historical significance of the Marriott tract gave the Park Service further reason to avoid joining either side of the controversy. Former superintendent Francis Wilshin, keeping active in park affairs while living in Fredericksburg, Virginia, provided the Prince William League in March 1973 a historical evaluation of the Marriott property that supported incorporation of this tract into the battlefield park. Wilshin argued that the Marriott tract "profoundly influenced" the Union and Confederate battle strategies at Second Manassas. General Robert E. Lee established the Confederate nerve center and a signal station on Stuart's Hill in the western part of the tract. Under cover of the woods on this property, Lee concealed the major portion of Maj. Gen. James Longstreet's wing of 30,000 men. Knowing Longstreet was on the tract but unaware of his exact position, Union Maj. Gen. John Pope gravely weakened his left by advancing on Maj. Gen. Stonewall Jackson's troops in an unsuccessful and bloody attack at Deep Cut. Seizing on this defeat, Lee ordered Longstreet's troops into action and launched a successful counterstroke. Longstreet emerged from his woodland screen to hurl Pope's weakened left to Chinn Ridge and Henry Hill. A second Confederate victory at Manassas resulted. [13]

Joseph Mills Hanson, the historian who had developed the interpretive narratives for the Bull Run Recreational Demonstration Area and had served as the national park's second superintendent, was well aware of the historical events connected with the land later purchased by Marriott. Hanson had argued in his 1937 report on the park's proposed boundaries that its southwestern edge should extend half a mile west of the apex of Stuart's Hill to include the area where Longstreet's troops had deployed, screened by the topography and the vegetative cover. However, Hanson had placed a low priority on acquiring this land because it had not seen the heavy fighting that other areas experienced. He had ranked land acquisition based first on the intensity of fighting a given tract saw and second on how acquisition would assist in park development, especially the construction of an internal system of park roads. In the first round of obtaining lands, Stuart's Hill had been a low priority. [14]

Stuart's Hill was included in later efforts to expand the battlefield park's boundaries. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Superintendents Hanson and Myers tried to convince Congress to add Stuart's Hill to a larger battlefield park. Opposition from the Prince William Board of County Supervisors successfully defeated this proposal, and the resulting 1954 law set the designated western park boundary east of Stuart's Hill along Highway 622 and Compton's Lane. In the early 1970s the National Park Service revisited the idea of acquiring the Stuart's Hill tract when Sen. Alan H. Bible and his park subcommittee requested a review of the boundaries of certain national parklands. The National Capital Region's Land Use Coordination office investigated possible changes to the Manassas battlefield park boundaries, including the incorporation of Stuart's Hill, just as the Marriott proposal became public and the debate soared. [15]

The National Park Service avoided taking sides for several reasons. The Service needed hard data on the theme park and its effect on the battlefield park, which the agency sought through discussions with Marriott officials. The Park Service needed to present itself as a responsible party separate from the immediate hysteria, and this required that the agency avoid voicing an opinion until it had received all the information from Marriott. And the Service needed to determine the best course of action toward a piece of property known to have historic significance for the Second Battle of Manassas. In Berry's opinion, this neutral stance kept the agency above the fray and helped the park come out "with more respect for its ability to act calmly in the midst of a firestorm." This neutral stance did not prevent park officials from conducting meetings with the involved parties, which continued throughout the controversy. [16]

The Park Service also insulated itself from potentially damaging political undercurrents. Prince William officials committed the county as early as 16 February to Marriott's theme park and office building complex by voting to sign a letter of intent. This agreement outlined the county's determination to provide the necessary public services, highway access, and special permits for the project. Open opposition to the Marriott proposal by the Park Service would be seen as interference in local governmental affairs. In contrast, had the Park Service endorsed the plan, other charges might surface. In the national arena, the Marriott Corporation and the executive branch bad unofficial ties because President Richard Nixon's brother, Donald Nixon, headed Marriott's theme park division. Such circumstances made it necessary for the Park Service to act dispassionately and reasonably. [17]

The National Park Service and its employees had learned from past experience the difficult lesson that the Service must keep attuned to political forces to protect the agency's overall goals and avoid the pitfalls of participation in acrimonious public debate. Wilshin's removal from the superintendency during the national cemetery controversy served as a recent reminder of the costs of taking a firm stand for preservation without considering the political implications. Similar dilemmas had occurred in the for mative years of the national park system. When the city of San Francisco successfully petitioned the United States government in 1913 to dam the Yosemite's Hetch Hetchy Valley for a reservoir, national park supporters lost an important battle. The strength of local political support for the dam and of federal interest for promoting resource use over resource preservation left the keepers of national park lands with a lasting awareness of the power of politics. Once established in 1916, the National Park Service and its agents clashed from time to time with local political interests over dams, roads, and other developments that threatened national park lands. Sometimes the Park Service won, many times compromises ruled, and always the agency grappled with the delicate balancing act of upholding its mission while also addressing political exigencies. [18]

http://www.cr.nps.gov/history/online_books/mana/adhi7b.htm