Were it not for National Park Service and state park protection, many of the civil war battlefields would be strip malls and and Wal-Mart parking lots. You don't have to love the feds to recognize when they have done a "good thing."

As example (speaking as a Texian). Go visit the Alamo and visualize Santa Anna's army streaming out of the Woolworth's across the street and dodging traffic on the boulevard as they made their main attack. Consider the hardships of the Texians when they couldn't get provisions from the workers in the surrounding skyscrapers! Must have been worse that being out of beer in a dry county!

Many of the Civil War Battlefields are endangered by urban encroachment and all that keeps them from being obliterated completely is the efforts of State and National Parks and the foundations that support them. Blue or Grey, the men whose blood was spilled is honored by the National Park Service sites. If you don't ike the Fed facilities, buy the land yourself, protect it from commercial development and build the facilities to recognize it.

-kirby-