The Richmond National Parks Quarterly Newsletter

INSIDE THIS ISSUE Superintendent's Message New Exhibits at Chimborazo Archeology Dig at Gaines' Mill Employee Profile: Veronica Harvey CFC Recognizes Barry Krieg Director's Remarks on opening Tredegar Site Medal of Honor Program at Drewry's Bluff Richmond Civil War Visitor Center Dedication Remarks By Robert G. Stanton, Director, National Park Service The following is an excerpt from Director Stanton's remarks on the opening of the Civil War Visitor Center at Tredegar Iron Works, June 17, 2000 Good Afternoon. I'm honored and privileged to be here with you today. The National Park System has responsibility for maintaining a remarkable number of places associated with this nation's military history. We have this task because most nations measure themselves at least in part by the yardstick of conflict. "Battle-tested" is a term used with respect for men or machines. This nation--OUR nation--has been battle-tested. Nowhere has that test been any sterner than at Richmond. For four years, two competing armies, supporting different notions of the suitable political, social, and economic future of our Constitutional Democracy engaged in combat for control of the political and industrial hub of the South: Richmond. To help new generations of Americans understand both the tactics and the purposes of theses opposing forces, the National Park Service has long maintained a series of properties around this great city where we could recount that story. Today, the story gains a new, and stronger, voice from a new, a better platform. Just as the city was the linchpin over which two armies fought long and hard, the Richmond Civil War Visitor Center will be the linchpin to the tale of what happened in and around this great city nearly a century and a half ago. The mission of the National Park Service can be summarized in four words: protection, preservation, presentation, and perpetuation. We have been handed a trust. We have been given responsibility for the heritage of this great nation. We are responsible for places and things that represent the values of America and American society. We have been asked to protect that heritage from loss or damage from cataclysmic acts of God and malicious acts of man. We have been asked to preserve that heritage in the face of ordinary daily deterioration or extraordinary dramatic destruction. We have been asked to present it in ways that will foster understanding of that heritage by those who share it with us and those who will inherit it from us. And we have been asked to perpetuate it--to make certain to the best of our ability that it will be undiminished when we pass on the mantle of responsibility to the next generation. That's a tall order. . . . This visitor center will tie together the elements, not just of war, but of the time that spawned the war and the time that grew from it. And the site itself, now so wonderfully restored, reminds us that the Tredegar Iron Works not only supplied vital weaponry and munitions to the Confederate forces, but jobs and products that were essential to family finances and regional economics. And this center is ready just in time. . . . The National Park Service is already pointing toward 2010 and the resurgence of interest in the Civil War that will inevitable come with the 150th anniversary of the conflict. This will be the staging ground for a new army of visitors, hungering for an understanding of what brought a great nation into great conflict with itself. Our responsibility is to use the opportunity afforded by that anniversary to enhance public understanding of the varied meanings and enduring legacy of the people, places and events of that time and this place that has shaped a direction for the America of our own time and beyond. Page 2 Richmond National Battlefield -- Home Page Maggie L. Walker Home Newsletter Home Page