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Brian Black on the Copse at Gettysburg

WHEN I MADE my first childhood pilgrimage to Gettysburg, the battlefield attracted me because it did not equivocate. There was no doubt about what happened where and why. I learned how President Abraham Lincoln in November 1863 had spoken the words that had locked this place in immortality by stating preservation's futility: "But in a larger sense we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our power to add or detract."1 Today, as a historian researching this site, I have learned that confusion and doubt mixed with the valor of 1–3 July 1863, wound its way in and out of Lincoln's profound address, and extends to the present through contest over the meaning of sacred elements of the American landscape. In the twenty-first century, efforts to enhance the visitor's experience or to more effectively interpret the actual events of the battle have proven more embattled than ever.	1
Nestled in the midst of the Gettysburg National Military Park, the "Copse of Trees" (pronounced kohps) is arguably the most famous natural landscape that is tied directly to one of our nation's most important historic events.2 History blows through the leaves of these broad chestnut oaks, yet the meaning of their sanctity varies from viewer to viewer. Such is the plight of Gettysburg, where a contest for the nation initiated a contest of meaning that continues 140 years later. The preservation of the battlefield took a dramatic turn in 1999, when the National Park Service extended its mandate beyond the preservation of the memorial landscapes—such as monuments, markers, and the copse—to the current ecology of the park. Although the 1999 plan involved an Environmental Impact Statement and fifty public hearings, the extent of the planned alterations to the landscape have unnerved some observers. To these critics, allowing the natural elements of the battlefield to become the tools of historic preservation at Gettysburg ultimately could threaten the copse and other natural elements that define this site.	2
Courtesy of the Gettysburg National Military Park Library and Archive.
The preservation effort at Gettysburg began as early as 1865, when a few Gettysburg businessmen followed Lincoln's urging and their own business acumen and began purchasing land. However, few of these "preservationists" knew the details of the battle. In fact, the history of the battle was not authoritatively gathered and written until the 1880s, when the original preservationists formed the Gettysburg Battlefield Memorial Association and hired the battlefield's first historian, photographer and illustrator John Badger Bachelder. Beginning in 1864, Bachelder had met with many of the leaders from the battle. He sketched maps and illustrated books, which became quite ubiquitous during the 1870s.3 Bachelder almost single-handedly formed the events of July 1863 into a logic in which the landscape played a primary role.	. . .