Video
157th Virtual Commemoration of Kennesaw Mountain - Final Thoughts
Transcript
Hello and welcome to Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park. My name is Ranger Amanda and today I'm coming to you from the Base of Cheatham Hill. Now Cheatham Hill is a large open field surrounded by a wooded area and on the top of the hill behind me in the shadows is the Illinois Monument. The Illinois monument is a 25 foot tall white marble monument with a federal eagle with its wings outstretched on the very top. On the front of the monument is three bronze figures. The figure in the middle is a Union soldier and he is flanked by three, I'm sorry by two, um women dressed in Greek wardrobe or Greek dresses and they represent liberty, peace, and the state of Illinois.
Now, here at Cheatham Hill is the location of our um, where we saw the most bloody portion of our battle and the greatest loss of life took place at this location. And so we're, come to you today to wrap up and say thank you for visiting us during our 157th Battle Anniversary here at Cheatham Hill. Now this weekend we are so glad that you were able to join us through social media to see a variety of different programs to commemorate the 157th Battle Anniversary. Of course, we highlighted a variety of stops that you can actually see on our park driving tour that is on our pro, park brochure. And so we really look forward to having that, or you come and visit and see each one of these spaces that we talked about. We also were able to provide you some information and some new programs about medical aspects during the battle, historic cooking, even a modern rendition on some historic music here as part of our programs. As well as, some kids activities too. So we really hope you've enjoyed your time online virtually for our Battle Anniversary. Now Kennesaw Mountain is incredibly important to us and to you the visitor and the viewer and just because we're commemorating the 157th, we want to remember those who fought here. And it's because of the men who fought here is why we are here today. The first 60 acres which is actually the property that we're standing on right now was purchased in 1899 by Union veterans with the sole purpose of preserving this spot and remembering their fallen friends and brothers in arms so that they could come back and remember. And have this sole purpose of having it part of the,what will eventually become the National Park Service. They took the time to try to raise funds for the Illinois Monument and some of the other markers that you'll see. Now they were not successful by raising the funds amongst themselves but they went to the states of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois in order to receive funds and the state of Illinois was the only state to provide money. Hence the Illinois Monument. But they had this thought and this dream of eventually giving it over to the federal government and in 1935 their dream would be completely realized when, but Congress creates Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park. Now the years leading up to that, it was controlled and managed by the War Department but would eventually transfer over to the National Park Service and so we hold this land sacred and honor those men who are willing to come before us to sacrifice everything. Now Kennesaw Mountain saw the loss of 4,000 lives or about 4,000 lives, 1,000 Confederates and 3,000 Union soldiers. Most of which actually died right here where we're standing today. And we just want you, to ask you when you come and visit us as you watch these videos, that just take time and remember those who have come before us who are willing to sacrifice everything for our liberties and freedoms that we hold so true. Of course we still have many service men and women out there today that are keeping us safe and making sure that our liberties are safe as well and we thank them as part of this. And we just want to say thank you again.
If you'd like these programs as part of our 157th please like and subscribe us on social media. Also we hope that next year for the 158th we'll actually be able to provide physical uh programs for you like we've had in the past .So we hope that that is going to become reality very soon. And we look forward to having you visit us not just on social media but right in person. Thank you so much for being part of our 157th Battle of Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park Have a great one and we look forward to seeing you again soon. Bye
Description
[Sun 4:00 pm ET] We hope that you have enjoyed the 157th Virtual Commemoration of the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain.
Please Join Ranger Amanda as she concludes this year’s commemoration and discusses how veterans of the battle thought it was important to preserve this area for future generations and established Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park.
Duration
5 minutes, 29 seconds
Credit
NPS/ A. Corman
Date Created
06/27/2021
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