Arkansas Post in the Civil War

Painting in the visitor center.

Arkansas Post in the Civil War

Even if you know a fair amount about the Civil War, you may not have heard of the Battle of Arkansas Post. It doesn’t make the indices of the one-volume histories on my shelf. Though a significant action in the Vicksburg Campaign, it was not part of Grant’s widely-studied maneuvers that led to Vicksburg’s fall.

The great egrets seem to like having the battlefield underwater.

The military historians don’t have much of a story to tell at Arkansas Post National Memorial, the site of a brief siege in 1863. First of all, most of the relevant battlefield is underwater, either washed away by the changing channels of the Arkansas River or flooded behind a dam project managed by the US Army Corps of Engineers. Only some rifle trenches from 1863 remain to interpret.

Second, military historians like to focus on battlefield tactics and, to a lesser extent, the operational decisions generals make at the campaign level. Those are not very interesting here since the story consists of overwhelming land forces accepting Fort Hindman’s surrender after Union naval guns pound the fort into submission. A park brochure (McCutchen 2003) tells that story, along with three signs along the park’s entrance road, near the rifle pits.

Lots of politics! The six flags of Arkansas Post’s history.

By seeing it in military terms, the park narrative misjudges events at Arkansas Post. The Civil War Battle of Arkansas Post (Fort Hindman) was a political victory by a political general, Major General John McClernand. As it turns out, the most interesting—and most important—aspect of the battle concerns McClernand and army politics.

McClernand was an ally of Stephen Douglas, presidential candidate of the Illinois Democratic Party, and a member of the national House of Representatives from Illinois from 1843 to 1851. He also filled a vacancy in the House briefly in 1860. Though he supported Douglas for president in 1860, McClernand was also a friend of Republican candidate Abraham Lincoln. Appointing him as a brigadier general helped President Lincoln maintain relationships with the Democratic Party at home, at a time when many in southern Illinois had Confederate sympathies.

Though vainglorious and self-serving to an extent that annoyed his military colleagues, McClernand proved to be a more reasonable soldier than many other political generals. His success at Arkansas Post was balanced by weaknesses in performance at Fort Donelson and Champion Hill, though a tenacity on defense at Shiloh balanced his slow movements on the advance. Capturing Fort Hindman was not without military advantages, but interpretation exaggerates them. Remarkably, McClernand’s success at Arkansas Post led to his removal.

Rear Admiral David D. Porter brought some city-class gunboats.

As commander of the Army of Tennessee, Major General Ulysses S. Grant thought his subordinate’s operation a “wild-goose chase” that diverted a large force of soldiers, transports, and gunboats away from the planned assault on Vicksburg. Historian Brian McCutchen (2003: 2; see also Coleman 1987/2009: 116) provides a more sober summary that, “Although Union losses were high and the victory did not contribute to the capture of Vicksburg, it did eliminate one more impediment to Union shipping on the Mississippi.” That said, McClernand undertook the operation without telling his commander until it was already underway.

Commanding, Grant did not think that prize worth the effort. As he saw it, McClernand diverted forces away from Vicksburg and from Grant’s plans to link up with General Nathaniel Banks as the Army of the Gulf moved upriver from New Orleans. As a general principle, Grant believed it unwise to divide his forces to achieve any goal other than the main objective, and that goal was Vicksburg. This guided his reply to McClernand when he learned what was afoot:

“I do not approve of your move on the Post of Arkansas while the other [Vicksburg] is in abeyance. It will lead to the loss of men without a result . . . . It might answer for some of the purposes you suggest, but certainly not as a military movement looking to the accomplishment of the one great result, the capture of Vicksburg. Unless you are acting under authority not derived from me, keep your command where it can soonest be assembled for the renewal of the attack on Vicksburg.” (quoted in Foote 1963: 137)

Replica of a gun from the period of Spanish Louisiana. But you get the idea.

Grant also informed the General-in-Chief, Henry Halleck, of the action against Arkansas Post. Halleck backed him up, authorizing Grant to relieve General McClernand from command of the Vicksburg campaign, “giving it to the next in rank or taking it yourself” (quoted in Foote 1963: 137). Since McClernand was friends with Lincoln, Halleck presumably cleared this action with the president. Because McClernand enjoyed public acclaim after his success at Arkansas Post, Grant held back from dismissing him immediately “until the time was right to pounce” (Foote 1963: 138).

These internal Army maneuvers were clearly important for the war, but only in hindsight. With McClernand out of the way, Grant could begin planning the campaign against Vicksburg. After some false starts, he ended up producing a model campaign, swinging south and then east of the objective, ignoring his lines of supply and communication to points east of Vicksburg. From there he moved first to take the capital of Jackson before turning west to besiege and then conquer Vicksburg.

That campaign is a classic of American military history, and is rightly featured in interpretation at Vicksburg National Battlefield Park. It would not have happened if McClernand had remained in command of the Vicksburg operations.

None of this appears at Arkansas Post, however. Interpretation does not seem to mention that Grant had McClernand relieved for his actions at Arkansas Post. Instead, the park explains the battle in traditional military terms. A panel in the Visitor Center (“January 1863”) describes the Union attack as a “response to Confederate raids on shipping on the Mississippi.” However, any threat to Union shipping from Confederate gunboats was minor; Fort Hindman could be bypassed at this point in the war. Still, the fort had had some value earlier in the war, which is why Confederate engineers chose to build a fort here, to protect trade along the Arkansas River (Visitor Center, Panel, “Defending the Delta”).

The Daughters of the American Revolution helped pay for this replica Spanish cannon. They are stakeholders here too.

Interpretation reflects the bureaucratic interests of the National Park Service as well as the biases of military historians. As is true at most historic sites, the NPS has a stake in making the events here seem important—whether they are or not. The park’s resource study (Coleman 1987/2009) and administrative history (Carrera 1975/1987) emphasize the military events on site and what little physical evidence remains of them. Though the resource studies mention the political context briefly, park interpretation does not.

Of course, all authors bring their own biases to any narrative. Like most biographers, Ron Chernow (2017: 241) sees the story from Grant’s perspective, emphasizing his successes in internal Army politics while downplaying McClernand’s military successes. Shelby Foote (1963: 133-136) balances the political and the military, as does Robert Huffstot (1969). Both are more attuned to the political context of any war, and my perspective is closer to theirs than to other texts I’ve consulted.

Gunboats are not the only thing with armor at Arkansas Post today.

In fairness, the capture of Arkansas Post did have some military advantages that Grant may not have anticipated. First, the battle strengthened Union morale after the defeat at Chickasaw Bayou (December 26–29, 1862). Indeed, finding a reasonably-sized military success had been a goal of generals McClernand and Sherman when they met with Rear Admiral David Porter to decide their next moves (Huffstot 1969: 4-5).

A second important outcome of the battle was the Union capture of almost five thousand rebels, a considerable share of all Confederate forces in Arkansas. With the Union’s successful repulse of a Confederate advance at the Battle of Prairie Grove on December 7, 1862, Lieutenant General Theophilus Holmes’s Trans-Mississippi Department would remain on the defensive (Huffstot 1969).

The park’s focus on battlefield events in 1863 overlooks those military consequences, whether on the Army’s morale, national public opinion, or the weakening of the Confederate position in Arkansas and the Trans-Mississippi theater. The effect on Army politics, by allowing Grant to take over command of the Vicksburg campaign from McClernand, was even more important, paving the way for Lincoln to “put that key in his pocket.”

The NPS marks the town site by paving the historic streets, showing the layout.

REFERENCES

Carrera, Gregorio S.A. 1975/1987. Arkansas Post National Memorial Administrative History. US Department of Interior: National Park Service.

Chernow, Ron. 2017. Grant. New York: Penguin.

Coleman, Roger E. 1987/2009. The Arkansas Post Story: Arkansas Post National Memorial. US Department of the Interior: National Park Service, Southwest Cultural Resources Center, Professional Papers No. 12. Eastern National.

Foote, Shelby. 1963. The Civil War: A Narrative. Volume II: Fredericksburg to Meridian. New York: Random House.

Huffstot, Robert S. 1969. “The Battle of Arkansas Post.” Historical Times, Inc.: Civil War Times Illustrated.

McCutchen, Brian K. 2003. “The Battle of Arkansas Post ~ January 9-11, 1863: Overview and troop positions.” US Department of Interior: National Park Service, Arkansas Post National Memorial.

Yellowstone 2013 – The Grand Tetons

Emma Matilda Lake

In previous years, we have started class in Grand Teton National Park.  We often have students who choose to fly, so we pick them up at the Jackson airport. Being further south than Yellowstone, GTNP is also a little bit closer to Illinois, and we can cover the 1350 miles in two days.

 

Dependable moose

Seeing the Tetons first can shape students’ views of Yellowstone in negative ways.  For many students, Yellowstone can be a bit of a disappointment, as they decide that they like the spectacular scenery of the Tetons more. Jackson Hole also has a more visible elk population, which shapes students’ perceptions of the landscape.  Wildlife such as moose is more dependably visible on Teton trails.

The Tetons are hard to beat

Interestingly, seeing Yellowstone first in 2013 produced the same result – the Tetons show better.  The reasons varied a little. Students preferred the scenery in the Tetons to that in Yellowstone. Students preferred the feel of Teton trails over the boardwalks and greater development of Yellowstone’s trails, even in the backcountry.

Making bad choices?

Students also though that the Tetons attracted “higher quality” hikers, even on the very popular trail to Inspiration Point. It’s been interesting to me that “lower quality” hikers (unprepared in clothing, supplies and demeanor) make my students view a trail as more like developed frontcountry.

This year’s wildlife viewing was not noticeably better in either park. We did not see pronghorns in either park, though we saw many outside the parks. We did not see moose, wolves or bighorn. We did see some smaller species for the first time in my classes, notably badger and pika. Yet even without wildlife sightings, students preferred the Tetons.

 

Tetons at Dawn

Is there something wrong with Yellowstone? You can’t do much about the scenery.  The Tetons are one of the world’s great mountain ranges in scenic terms. Yellowstone has the Absaroka, Beartooth, Gallatin, Red, and Washburn ranges — all beautiful but they do not match the Tetons. Spectacular as Yellowstone Lake is, Jackson Lake has the better setting.

Far from the madding crowd

More important than the scenery, the visitor experience in Yellowstone clearly impacts the students’ own visitor experiences in undesirable ways.  Visitors are more likely to seem ill-prepared in Yellowstone, are more likely to stick to the parking lots, and seem to crowd the wildlife more. That makes Yellowstone seem less natural, even less “wild.”

Better without people?

Sadly, in the world’s first national park, visitors can be a problem for other visitors.

 

Autumn in the Dunes

Entrance to Portage Lakefront Unit

In early November, I took a group of students from my “Environmental Politics” class on a field trip to Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore.  A few of them knew the dunes as a good place to go to the beach – but that wasn’t our agenda on a windy November day.

Midwest Steel from Portage Lakefront

We started at the Portage Lakefront Unit to talk about the political history of the region.  From the breakwater, you can see the full sweep of the Lake Michigan shoreline from Michigan City, Indiana, to Chicago.  We couldn’t quite see Chicago, but the industry of East Chicago, Whiting, Gary, and Hammond were all visible.

 

At this spot, the park faces a steel mill across the channel of Burns Ditch.  The Port of Indiana and a NIPSCO power plant, both of which serve the mill, are barely visible on the other side of the factory.  The town of Ogden Dunes lies on the other side of the park, a well-to-do community that benefits from the protected landscape of the national park.

Dunes and Industry

The political geography of national parks is nowhere more visible than here. Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore owes its existence to a political compromise in 1963.  Dune advocates accepted a subsidized harbor bill while industrialists acquiesced in creation of a national park unit here.  Each got the core of what they wanted, while each had to accept the existence of the other next door.

NIPSCO from Bailly Beach

The geography of Portage Lakefront makes this compromise visible, and always sparks a conversation. How can nature and humans coexist? What are the benefits, and what are the costs? Seeing a national park, residential community, and major industry lying cheek-and-jowl shows students what these issues look like on the physical landscape.

 

Cowles Bog Trail

After Portage Lakefront, we explored the natural landscape that the park preserves. The best place to do this is the Cowles Bog Trail.  The trail begins by walking along Cowles Bog, a National Historic Landmark that recognizes where Henry Chandler Cowles (1869-1939) pioneered the study of ecology. The swamp forest here includes pin oak, red maple, and yellow birch. Some of these trees are moving into the swamp and transforming it.  In one stretch, the NPS kills these trees by girdling them, to halt this natural process of ecological succession. The park honors Cowles’ studies of ecological succession by arresting this process in time, thereby displaying it better in space – keeping both the fen and the swamp forest.

 

The final dune

As we climb into the dunes, we gradually see more habitats, including oak savanna with black and white oaks and shrubs such as chokecherry, witch hazel and sumac. We pass some ponds behind the dunes, and then finally arrive at the foredunes above Lake Michigan.  On top of the dunes we see various hardwoods that have established themselves.  They can move in here because the marram grass near the beach has stabilized the soil and transformed the ecosystem, providing a place for cottonwood, oak, hickory, and white ash to move in.

Root and Leaf

These diverse microhabitats characterize Indiana Dunes, and explain why this small place holds more than one thousand plant species. Congress preserved not only recreational opportunities on the beach and trails but also a hotspot of biodiversity.  Microhabitats are scattered among towns, factories and transportation networks – a microcosm of the wider problem of environmental politics today.

Park Pavilion and Steel Mill

Can we preserve natural places and a full range of biodiversity in a landscape dominated by humans? Does preserving our natural heritage require killing native trees? While they enjoyed getting out of Champaign-Urbana for the day, we also left them with some questions for their reflective essays on the trip.

 

Additional links and resources

For four seasons in Indiana Dunes, see my Flickr set.

For my essay comparing Indiana Dunes with Michigan’s Sleeping Bear Dunes, see the National Park Traveler.

For my photo essay on the Midwest’s national park units, see Illinois Issues.

Official site for the Indiana Dunes.

The Dunes of Lake Michigan

Portage Lake Unit in Winter

Lake Michigan has two great national parks, Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore (Indiana) and Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore (Michigan). Both are biologically rich, and reward exploration. Don’t stop at the beach!

 

 

The Old Man and the Sea

There’s also a political back story in each place, with questions of race and class, and trade-offs between economic growth and the environment.

See my full story here.

Photos from Indiana Dunes.

Photos from Sleeping Bear Dunes.

Further reading

For Indiana Dunes, see
Franklin, Kay and Norma Schaeffer. 1983. Duel for the Dunes: Land Use Conflict on the Shores of Lake Michigan. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press.

For Sleeping Bear Dunes, see
Kalt, Brian C. 2001. Sixties Sandstorm: The Fight Over Establishment of a Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, 1961-1970. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press.

For data and charts on visitation to Indiana Dunes by underrepresented groups, see the following article. Indiana Dunes is unusual compared to other park units, apparently because it lies close to minority-dominant communities.
Weber, Joe and Selima Sultana. 2012. “Why Do So Few Minority People Visit National Parks? Visitation and the Accessibility of ‘America’s Best Idea.’” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 1-28.

The Manitous

Warning! No More Signs!

Fireweed

America’s wilderness laws have some odd effects.  The lines separating a designated wilderness from the rest of the country are arbitrary, and invisible.  Yet the apparatus of civilization lies behind those invisible lines.  We make rules, and the rules change when you cross the line.
Isle Royale National Park consists of one large island in Lake Superior, surrounded by many smaller islands.  Almost all visitors arrive by boat, so there are two marinas and some campgrounds with developed docks or small ranger stations.  Outside these few developed locations, the entire national park is designated wilderness.

 

Tobin Harbor

There’s only one lodge in the park, at Rock Harbor.  Rock Harbor has some walking trails around the lodge, and these provide a little island of civilization in the middle of the wilderness.

For the National Park Service, Isle Royale’s wilderness provides a major “interpretive theme” for the park  The NPS wants “wilderness” to be one the main idea that each visitor learns about the park, and a major theme that she brings home with her.  The visitor centers emphasize wilderness, as does the website.

So does one of the trails behind the lodge.  The Stoll nature trail is shaped like a long, skinny figure eight along most of the length of Scoville Point.  After leaving the lodge and its outbuildings, the trail goes through a mix of terrain.  When the trail goes through wetlands it becomes a boardwalk.  As you walk along there are signs that explain the natural environment that the visitor sees.

Stoll’s Wilderness

Near the middle of the figure eight you reach the last sign on the walk.  This sign introduces the concept of “wilderness,” and gives the visitor a choice.  You could turn and complete the lower loop.  Or, you could go forward and hike the second loop.  If you continue, though, you must be warned: beyond this sign is a federally-designated wilderness and there are no more signs.  The Park Service is very clear:

“Beyond here you enter designated wilderness.  You will find no more signs that explain what you see.  The purpose of designated wilderness is to retain a primeval character, with the imprint of humans substantially diminished.  Beyond this point you must make your own discoveries.”

Skylight at Rock Harbor

You stand on an important invisible line.  Congress has proclaimed that wilderness lies before you, with civilization behind.  That line at your feet is a choice—do you dare make your own discoveries?

 

Can you survive without signs?

 

 

 

 

Click on any image to see it on Flickr.  My set of Isle Royale images is here.

What makes something a national park?

Vendome Well

The town of Sulphur, Oklahoma, lies a few miles off the interstate between Oklahoma City and Dallas. After you fight your way through the modern chain stores and gas stations, you arrive at small-town America. On the right is a lovely city park, well cared for, and a fine example of the civic virtues of small-town America.

That lovely city park is actually a former national park.

Once known as Platt National Park, this site exemplifies a long battle over the question, “What is worthy of being a national park?” From the moment of its creation in 1906 until its decommissioning in 1976, people fought over whether Platt “deserved” to be a national park. The National Park Service and its allies in the environmental movement generally said it did not.

Former Park Headquarters

Congress established Platt National Park in 1906, ten years before creation of the National Park Service. At the time, there were no procedures to establish standards or review park proposals. There were no outside groups dedicated to the parks, like the National Parks Association today (now the NPCA).

 

Travertine Creek

Both the NPS and NPCA worry about the “standards” of national park status, and see clearly the risks of not setting standards. In the most egregious example, Secretary of the Interior Albert Fall tried to create an “All-Weather National Park” that consisted of a handful of scattered parcels centered on . . . Albert Fall’s ranch.

Even without Albert Fall’s corrupt intent, standards are important. If you don’t worry about standards, politicians will press for more and more parks of ever-lower quality. After all, every state has some lovely spots that aren’t really national in significance, such as Starved Rock in Illinois or Turkey Run in Indiana. I’m a big fan of both, but they are properly state parks.

Travertine Nature Center

Platt is one of those lovely spots. It preserved a group of cold springs, some mineral and some freshwater. Many of the springs are in a surprisingly deep valley of Rock Creek. The hills provided some shade, and the springs some water, supporting an eastern deciduous forest on the valley floor. The shaded valley, trees, and cold water made Platt a great place to keep cool on hot summer days in Oklahoma and North Texas, an “oasis on the prairie.”

Swimming hole

Pleasant it may be, but Platt lacks any distinctive natural resources, culture or history. The NPS, NPA, and some members of Congress recognized this. People made serious attempts to disestablish Platt National Park in 1910, 1913, 1924, 1927, 1928, 1930, 1932, 1938, 1941, 1957, and 1958. In each case the Oklahoma congressional delegation stopped the effort.

As Americans’ recreational interests changed, Platt became less popular – though it still gets more than a million visitors a year. When the Bureau of Reclamation dammed Rock Creek to form the Lake of the Arbuckles in 1968, the NPS took over management of recreation on the lake. That provided an opportunity to create Chickasaw National Recreation Area here in 1976, and to fold Platt into the NRA.

Platt Historic District

Today, the NPS tells the story of Platt National Park in a historic district here.  That interpretation ignores the debates over standards. Perhaps it would be too awkward to admit that the National Park Service still manages lands that it found unworthy for seventy years.


This blog post draws from material in my book manuscript, “Telling America’s Stories: How the National Park Service Interprets Westward Expansion.”

For more photos, see my Flickr set.

If you’d like to read a more favorable account of Platt, see
Parker, Albert J.  2010.  “A Park of the People: the Demotion of Platt National Park, Oklahoma.” Journal of Cultural Geography 27(2): 151-175 (June).

Wray, Jacilee and Alexa Roberts.  1998.  “In Praise of Platt: Or, What is a ‘Real’ National Park?” George Wright Forum 15(1): 68-78.

The Civil War in New Mexico

Colorado Volunteers

On Memorial Day, we remember the sacrifices of individual soldiers. It’s worth remembering that the battles they fought were not the only factor in victory or defeat. Civilian morale plays a key role in many wars, as does munition manufacture or international trade.

But today I want to think about the importance of logistics. We tend to overlook logistics by focusing on battlefield heroism. Sometimes the battlefield gets the story wrong.

 

Windmill Hill

 

The Battle of Glorieta Pass was the decisive engagement in the trans-Pecos theater of the Civil War. The idea of the New Mexico campaign is pretty simple. Confederate Brigadier General Henry Hopkins Sibley and his Texan volunteers would drive up the Rio Grande to Albuquerque and Santa Fe. From there, they planned to cross the mountains at Glorieta Pass, moving eastward along the Santa Fe Trail (roughly modern I-25).  The rebels would resupply by seizing the major supply base at Fort Union and then move on to take the rich mines of Colorado. The campaign would also disrupt Union communications with California, Nevada, and Oregon.

The key to the campaign was logistics. The Confederates would have a long supply train stretching back to El Paso, and they needed to seize Fort Union to make the plan work. The Union commander, Colonel Edward R. S. Canby, understood the situation well. Though he “lost” every battle, he won the campaign. The Confederates lost their supply train, forcing them to retreat back down the Rio Grande. After taking a desperate escape route through the mountains, less than half of the Texans found their way home to Fort Bliss.

Kozlowski’s Ranch

The decisive moment came over three days at Glorieta Pass, March 26-28, 1862. On the third day, Canby split his forces in the face of the enemy. Almost half of his troops marched over Glorieta Mesa to the Confederate rear, where they destroyed the rebel supply train. The other half of the Union forces fought a delaying action. They gradually gave ground to Sibley’s Texans while remaining in good order and holding a position across the Santa Fe Trail.

The National Park Service notes that both sides suffered high losses (about 15% killed, wounded and captured). It also claims the battle was a tactical Confederate victory because the rebels held the ground at the end of the day – though Colorado volunteers did “save the Union” here.

Civil war artifacts

Those claims miss the point: the ground of Glorieta Pass didn’t matter. The supply train did. Destroying the Confederates’ supplies while keeping the rebels away from Fort Union made this a decisive Union victory.

Don’t believe me? Look up pages 293-305 in Shelby Foote’s three-volume history of the war. He’s sympathetic to the Confederates and their strategic vision, and he always has an eye for Southern valor. Even so, Foote rightly sees logistics as key here. The fact that Canby sent almost half his men after the wagon train makes his own priorities clear.

Rabbitbush on the Civil War trail

Why does the NPS get the story wrong? First, we must remember the professional mindset of military historians – they like battles. Understandably, the NPS hires military historians to develop the interpretation of military sites. That perspective leads to a view that “the Battle of Glorieta Pass represented the high water mark for a bold Confederate offensive into Union Territory on the western frontier. Here volunteers from Colorado clashed with tough Texans intent on conquering New Mexico.” Battlefield heroism rules.

Plaza of the Governors

Second, the NPS inherited a particular landscape of memorialization here. The Texas Division of The United Daughters of the Confederacy got to the site first.  They erected a monument on the battlefield in 1939, in belated recognition of the Texan centennial. It took Colorado more than fifty years to follow suit, with a State Historical Society monument erected in 1993. New Mexico recognizes its soldiers on an obelisk in downtown Santa Fe, honoring “the heros of the Federal Army who fell at the battles of Cañon del Apache and Pigeon’s Rancho (La Glorieta), fought with the Rebels March 28, 1862.” All three monuments celebrate the battlefield heroism.

Park advocates share an interest in battlefield bravery. The site had remained in private hands until the Glorieta Battlefield Unit of Pecos National Historic Park was established in 1990. The Glorieta Battlefield Preservation Society, a group of regional Civil War reenactors, worked to preserve the site. The Council of America’s Military Past, the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC), and other military heritage groups worked with them.

Hispanos at Glorieta Pass

When the NPS took over in 1990, that heroism lay across the landscape in roadside signs and memorials. Park advocates provided funding for the interpretive trail and most of the signs the visitor sees.  Signs funded by Texan and Confederate groups highlight the bravery of Sibley’s troops. Signs placed by the State of New Mexico highlight the role of Hispanos, New Mexican Volunteers, and U.S. Regulars.

Texas Mounted Volunteers

The UDC provided some of the text on its signs, and local history enthusiasts provided text on some New Mexico signs.  The UDC even thanks itself on one NPS-branded sign:

The Texas Monument honors the Texans who fought here and praise is due the Texas Division, UDC members for their perseverance and determination to dedicate this monument and establish the first park to preserve the memory of the Battle of Glorieta Pass.

Bravery, heroism, perseverance, and determination are all fine military qualities – – but don’t forget to burn the wagon train.

Kozlowski’s Ranch served as field hospital

This post draws on material from my book manuscript, Telling America’s Stories: How the National Parks Interpret Westward Expansion.

For another piece on how the NPS interprets the Civil War, see
“How the Cherokee Fought the Civil War,” Indian Country Today, 28 March 2012.

The Stories of the Black Hills

The Racetrack of the World

The Black Hills (Pahá Sapa) are a sacred cultural landscape. Sacred sites litter the landscape – unusual geologic features, hot springs, sacred peaks, and the locations of many legendary doings. Perhaps most important, the Hills hold a cave out of which Buffalo Woman, the first bison, and the Lakota people themselves sprung out of the earth. Many Native names remain on the landscape for those who see them, including Pe’ Sla, Wicicala Sakowin Pahá, and Mato Tipila.

Mato Tipila

The Pahá Sapa have seen many battles over their ownership and meaning. General George A. Custer successfully sparked a gold rush that led the United States to seize the Hills. This seizure violated previous treaties with the American Indians of the region. A century later, the U.S. Supreme Court recognized the justice of Lakota claims, and ordered the federal government to compensate the tribe. The Lakota have continued to demand return of the land instead of cash, so the compensation funds continue to accrue interest in an escrow account.

 

 

Inside Jewel Cave

The Black Hills are home to three national park units – Jewel Cave National Monument, Mount Rushmore National Memorial, and Wind Cave National Park.  Two more sites lie near the Hills and arguably part of them: Badlands National Park and Devils Tower National Monument.

Though all are part of the same landscape, National Park Service interest in Lakota stories varies enormously from one sites to another. Jewel Cave says almost nothing. Wind Cave acknowledges that the cave opening is the site of the Lakota origin story, but that’s about all it says. If you look at the visitor center, roadside signs, and website, Wind Cave is clearly much more interested in Anglo history. It tells of the struggles over cave ownership before this site became a national park, the work of the Civilian Conservation Corps to build the park’s infrastructure, and the government’s efforts to build a game preserve here.

Badlands South Unit

The South Unit of Badlands National Park does tell these stories. It’s in a portable trailer along the side of a state highway, and many of its exhibits do not meet the current quality standards of the NPS – clearly telling the occasional visitor how important the center is for the NPS. It’s also far off the beaten tourist track, and lies on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

Playing with Souvenirs

Changes are afoot at Mount Rushmore. The brochure opens up the story a little bit, saying, “The faces on this mountain remind some of the founding fathers and the birth of this nation.  For others these faces remind them of cultural injustices and the loss of land and heritage.” In the summer, a “Lakota, Nakota, and Dakota Heritage Village” interprets the traditions of local Native communities.

Bear Lodge

Devils Tower (Mato Tipila) does much more. It tells visitors that this is a spiritually significant place to many tribal nations, and it uses the peak’s name in those languages. It explains the colored flags and tobacco offerings that visitors may see at the site. The park asks rock climbers not to climb the Tower in June because the month of the summer solstice has special religious significance. It also explains both sides of the rock climbing controversy, since many Native Americans would like people not to climb the Mato Tipila at all.

Makaopta Makosica Oinajin

What do the more successful sites have in common? The changes at Mount Rushmore occurred under Superintendent Gerard Baker (Mandan-Hidatsa), who grew up on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation. Devils Tower has seen many of its changes under Superintendent Dorothy FireCloud (Rosebud Sioux) and her successor Reed Robinson (also Rosebud Sioux). Interpretation at Badlands South Unit is provided by the Oglala Lakota Nation through a cooperative agreement with the NPS.

Shield at Badlands South

Quite simply, when American Indians get a chance to manage these sites, Native stories appear. If Anglos have always managed the site, Native stories appear in only a pro forma way. Under Anglo management, centuries and millennia of Native heritage in the Pahá Sapa become a few sentences on a roadside sign. Those words are far less than attention than failed homesteaders, summer paleontology expeditions, or the Civilian Conservation Corps receive.

Telling everyone’s stories of the Pahá Sapa is better than only telling some people’s stories. Achieving that is pretty simple in principle: hire Native American superintendents and/or develop cooperative agreements with affiliated tribes. Because about eight percent of NPS employees are Native Americans, there’s a strong talent pool already available.

—-

This post draws on material from my book manuscript, Telling America’s Stories: How the National Parks Interpret Westward Expansion.  You can find some spin-off articles on my research page.

For some related articles, see
“No Longer Circling the Wagons: Many National Parks Get Indian Stories Wrong,” Indian Country Today, 7 September 2011.

“How the Cherokee Fought the Civil War,” Indian Country Today, 28 March 2012.

Click on any photo to go to my Flickr pages.

Badlands

When is a National Park not a National Park?

When the National Park Service doesn’t want it to be.

David Berger Memorial

Congress designated the David Berger Memorial as a national park unit in a 1980 national parks bill. As is its custom, Congress included a statement of national significance and assigned authority over the memorial to the Department of the Interior, of which the National Park Service is a part. As is also congressional custom, it did not provide funds for what it had authorized.

Reach for your dreams

The memorial makes up the entire David Berger National Monument. It remembers David Berger, a weightlifter with dual US-Israel citizenship who was one of the eleven Israeli athletes killed by Palestinian terrorists at the 1972 Munich Olympics. Eight Cleveland families, all friends of Berger’s parents, commissioned and paid for the sculpture.

Broken Rings

Berger’s parents, Dr. Benjamin and Dorothy Berger, were long-time friends of Howard Metzenbaum, who represented Ohio in the U.S. Senate from 1976 to 1995. That’s presumably how the monument ended up getting designated as a national memorial.

Is it a national park unit? You can argue it either way.  The National Park Service doesn’t have it on the official list of park units but it’s on several official websites and brochures. The unofficial word is that NPS staff have never thought it “worthy.”

More of the history at the National Parks Traveler.
More photos here.

Wake, Nicodemus !

Everyone loves a ribbon-cutting ceremony, but the work of bringing a new national historic site to reality is a lot less interesting. Nicodemus National Historic Site in Kansas tells some great stories, but it’s far off the beaten track.

Old First Baptist Church of Nicodemus, built in 1907.

The bottom line in this article: “It will cost money to preserve this place and tell its stories the way they should be told. If the American people and its representatives in Congress don’t want to spend that money, it’s a mystery why they bothered to preserve the site in the first place.”

 

Read more here.
Additional images on Flickr here.