By Ben Stein on 7.7.09 @ 6:09AM
A battlefield sanctified by American blood is no place for a
Super Store.
So, here I am at the Ponderay, Idaho Super Wal-Mart. It is
beautiful. They've totally redesigned it to be far more wide
open, with immense aisles, immaculately clean surfaces, and
somehow still a fabulously good selection of items.
Anyone who follows me even a little bit knows I am an extreme fan
of Wal-Mart, which basically adds several percentage points of
extra income to every worker's pay check by offering such low
prices as it does. Plus, the Wal-Mart is a friendly, upbeat
shopping experience. You leave the store feeling good.
But I am feeling a bit down about Wal-Mart and a super store it
is proposing in an area not far from Orange, Virginia. The
problem is that this particular store would be on land that is an
important part of the battlefield area of the crucial Battle of
the Wilderness. This battle, actually a series of battles, all
important, was fought in early May of 1864. It marked the first
time that Robert E. Lee and Ulysses Grant had fought each other.
It was a classic of the struggle that would go on between them
and their brave armies from then on until Appomattox. Lee showed
his characteristic imagination and unorthodox tactics to offset
his inferiority in manpower and materiel. Grant, every bit as
smart and capable, showed his determination to grind down the
Rebels no matter how costly in blood.
The battle was called the Battle of the Wilderness because it was
in a densely wooded area with thick, thorny underbrush that made
maneuver difficult and lessened Grant's numerical advantage.
Interestingly enough, it was only a few miles from where the
famous Battle of Chancellorsville was fought one year earlier. It
was there that Stonewall Jackson was accidentally shot by his own
men in an incident that ended his life and gravely harmed the
Confederate cause.
Historians generally consider the Wilderness a Lee tactical
victory because the Yankees withdrew from the battlefield. But in
fact it was the beginning of the end for Lee and Dixie because
while Grant withdrew, he moved his army in position for yet
another battle. Grant began the long, murderous process of
endlessly drawing a noose around Richmond and Lee's army, a noose
that would eventually hang the Confederacy. It has been reported
that when the Union troops saw that they were not going back to
D.C. to regroup but were moving to keep encircling Lee and keep
him engaged, they cheered.
It was a black moment for Lee for another reason. His top general
in the East, James Longstreet, was seriously wounded by his own
men -- accidentally -- and required convalescence for months.
This was a giant loss, especially after the loss of Jackson and
other top officers, that Lee could ill afford.
So, all in all, it was a major battle. About 16,000 Union
soldiers were killed, wounded, or captured by the Confederates.
Maybe 10,000 Confederates were casualties or captured. In a
ghastly “twist," after the first night of battle, a number of
wounded from both sides were burned to death when sparks ignited
the dry brush between enemy lines where they were lying.
Now, you would think that this ground would be sanctified by
American blood. And some of it is. About 20 percent of the
battlefield is a national park.
But most of it is in private hands. Some of it, some of the most
vital of it, has now been slated to be the home of a Wal-Mart
Super Store and several other stores possibly drawn there by
Wal-Mart. The Wal-Mart would be almost 140,000 square feet, not
counting parking. It would be right across the street from the
park entrance. It would be visible from much of the battlefield
park.
Frankly, I wonder if the nice people in Arkansas who run Wal-Mart
have thought this through. This battlefield is incredibly
important environmentally and historically and emotionally. It
reeks of the blood of men fighting for causes they considered
sacred. How can it possibly be that it will be used even in part
for a Wal-Mart Super Store? Wal-Mart is a great American
institution. I am, as noted, about as devout a fan as there is in
the national media. But a store is a store and blood is blood.
There is plenty of other land in the area that is not
historically sensitive. There is ample precedent for commerce to
be informed by national emotion: Top brass at Walt Disney
canceled its plans for an amusement park at or near the
Battlefield at Manassas when its attention was drawn to the vital
historical nature of the area some years ago.
Wal-Mart has shown that it is flexible on a number of issues
lately, including employee health care. Now may be the time to
show that Wal-Mart has a heart as well as a calculator. The blood
of those men burned to death, shot through and through, some
alive but leaving without their limbs, in what is still America's
greatest tragedy, cries out for sanctity. I hope they can hear it
in Northwest Arkansas.
topics:
Civil War, Wal-Mart, Ulysses Grant, Robert E. Lee, Battle of the Wilderness
