Appalling

Apparently someone wants to build housing and retail on the site of the Battle of Chancellorsville.
This is indeed appalling, and shows little or no respect for our Civil War dead, and further indicates that the decimation of the troops of General M. Mouse at Third Manassas back in 1999 is a fading memory.
HOWEVER. As far as I can tell, unlike the case of the battlefield at Gettysburg which is actually owned by a preservation group (which continues to buy up land around the battlefield, I might add), no battlefield preservation group has ever gotten around to actually purchasing the land on which the battle was fought. So I’m not sure what all these battlefield preservation groups are on about. Ownership of the battlefield is 90% of the preservation effort. Just placing a battlefield on your preservation list isn’t sufficient. Everyone — including the land owners — have to agree that preserving the battlefield is more important than anything else.
So I’m not really surprised that the group lost their bid to reject the rezoning. I’m just appalled that anyone would want to essentially erase a Civil War battlefield.
(For what it’s worth, I’m not a big fan of neighborhood preservation. I find it a serious violation of property rights to tell a person that he can’t do what he wants, within obvious reason, to the outside of his property, if it would change the essential character of his historic home. Most historic homes aren’t worth the money poured into them to fix them up, and having been a contractor who did a certain amount of historic renovation work, I know whereof I speak. Most historic homes are also cramped and built on tiny lots in crappy neighborhoods. People left these neighborhoods for a reason, people. Think about it. Then tear that damn undistinguished 1880 row house down and build something else.)