Re-enactors playing President Lincoln read the Gettysburg address and 200 soldiers fought four engagements in a state park just west of Las Vegas earlier this month. Canons fired and cavalry units rode through the dust to the delight of an audience of about 1,500.

Reporter Erin Dostal captured the weekend of desert battles and ordinary camp life in her story for the Las Vegas Sun.

Congressional conferees have agreed to the largest ever, single-year allocation of $9 million for the Civil War Battlefield Preservation Program. It is included in the 2010 Fiscal Year Interior Appropriations Act Conference Report. The conference report is scheduled for a final vote in the House and Senate this week.

Since its creation in 1999, the Preservation Program has, through matching grants, been used to protect more than 15,000 acres at 60 battlefields in 14 states. Civil War Preservation Trust President James Lighthizer applauded the action, saying, it comes at a critical time when 30 acres of battlefield land is being lost each day to development.

John Latschar, the controversial superintendent of Gettysburg National Military Park, was removed from that position, effective Monday, by National Park Service officials, according to an article by Erin James in the York, Pa. Daily Record/Sunday News. She interviewed him today.

Latschar, who held the job for 15 years, was investigated by the Department of Interior, whose agents seized the hard drive from his office computer that was found to contain explicit sexual material. Washington Post reporter Kimberly Kindy broke the story of the investigation on Monday.

According to the Post story: "An internal Aug. 7 memo from an investigator to Daniel N. Wenk, the acting director of the National Park Service, details the discovery of the images on the computer hard drive that was seized by investigators. But the office of Mary L. Kendall, acting inspector general for the Department of the Interior, omitted details of the computer probe or any mention of the violation from a 24-page report that was released Sept. 17."

Latschar was cleared of criminal wrongdoing and was assigned to a lesser, staff position.

At the recent re-enactment at the Cedar Creek Battlefield in Middletown, Va., visitors got a chance to meet author Michael Zucchero, who wrote, "Loyal Hearts: Histories of American Civil War Canines." His book relates the history of regimental mascots, usually dogs who wandered into camp.

Northern Virginia Daily reporter Sally Voth talked to Zucchero.

Following the Union loss at First Manassas, President Lincoln and the country needed reassurance the government could put a formidable army in the field. On Nov. 20, 1861, Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan gave that assurance with a Grand Review at Bailey's Crossroads, Va., which Lincoln attended.

The Lincoln At the Crossroads Alliance wants to create a version of that important event as part of the Civil War sesquicentennial observance. To support that effort, the Alliance is holding a benefit, period dinner at the Willard International Hotel in Washington on Nov. 4.

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We have good news from the Northern Virginia Regional Park Authority on the preservation front. Park officials have announced plans to purchase a 275-acre farm on the Potomac River that includes the ford where the Army of Northern Virginia crossed into Maryland on Sept. 5-6, 1862, bringing the war to the North. Twelve days later came Antietam.

The property, near Leesburg, Va., includes the home and farm of Elijah Viers White, commander of the 35th Battalion of Virginia Cavalry. The ford, named for him, is a wide, shallow crossing on the river where the water is usually only a few feet deep.
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This weekend at Harpers Ferry is the commemoration of John Brown's raid of the federal arsenal there and what some historians contend was the real beginning of the Civil War. Brown's life mission was to end slavery. Although he failed 150 years ago to obtain the guns needed to arm local slaves and was hung for his actions, he did badly frighten slave owners and guaranteed himself a place in history.

Fifty years ago, the National Park Service dropped plans to commemorate the event when conservative politicians objected. The upcoming three day program of lectures, tours, films, plays and re-enactments should make up for that.

Retired president of Washington College and former Commander in Chief of Confederate Armies, Robert Edward Lee, died at 9: 30 a.m., on Oct. 12, 1870, at his home on the college campus. He had collapsed while at tea on Sept. 28 and although he recognized those who came near, his mind also wandered back to the war years, calling for a general to visit him and for his tent to be struck.

VMI Cadet William Nalle, in writing to his mother a few days later, describes how VMI and Washington College and the town of Lexington, "looked as if they had been trying to cover everything with festoons of black cambric." He also comments on seeing Lee in his coffin.

Two Civil War soldiers will receive full military honors at ceremonies this week, one for a replacement grave marker and the other for a burial. First Sgt. William A. Francis, of the Massachusetts 54th Volunteer Infantry, whose marker at Albany Rural Cemetery, Albany, N.Y., was missing for many years, will be honored with a new stone on Wednesday at 11 a.m.

In Franklin, Tenn., an unknown solider whose remains were found during commercial construction on the Franklin battlefield will receive a proper burial at Rest Haven Cemetery in Franklin on Saturday at 10 a.m. A son of a Confederate solider and one of a Union solider will participate in the burial service.
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A wind farm developer trying to plant 400-foot turbines on a mountain top that overlooks the battlefield at Camp Allegheny on the Virginia-West Virginia line is meeting determined resistance from many residents in Highland County. Laurence Hammack of Roanoke.com has written a balanced, thoughtful story on the controversy.

Since that story appeared, the Virginia State Corporation Commission has ruled that the Virginia Department of Historic Resources can present testimony concerning the visual impact of the turbines on an historic site, which could delay or derail the project. That hearing is scheduled for Oct. 13.

The National Trust for Historic Preservation and others filed suit today in the Circuit Court of Orange County, Va., seeking to overturn a recent Board of Supervisors decision to allow Wal-Mart to build a super-center on the Wilderness battlefield.

Joining the Trust in the suit are the Friends of Wilderness Battlefield and six residents who live near the proposed site. The suit comes after nearly two years of efforts by national and local preservation organizations to convince the supervisors that large-scale commercial development is not appropriate use for a Civil War battlefield.