The state had planned to restore the battlefield, make it a state park with visitor’s center and interpretative materials, in order to cause the expected army of American and foreign tourists to stop on their way between the Chickamauga and Kennesaw Mountain Military Parks.
Gov. Sonny Perdue had been actively pushing to get this done but the House, in its $300 million mid-year budget, stripped out the $5 million earmarked for the effort.
All hope is not yet lost, as Rep. John Meadows, R-Calhoun, believes it might show up in the regular budget — although as bonds, not a tax revenue expenditure.
FOR BOTH THOSE with a love of the nation’s history and Gordon County’s economy this is a setback.
Resaca was not some off-to-the-side clash during Union Gen. William T. Sherman’s drive into Georgia. It was one of the major battlefields and this particular clash had, as the Union hero, a future president of the United States (Benjamin Harrison) and as the key Confederate unit an artillery battery from Floyd County.
It was because the advancing Yankee tide could not be stemmed at Resaca that Rome shortly thereafter fell.
Let’s concede that, largely due to bad management, the State of Georgia has many pressing needs at the moment and preserving a historical site isn’t likely to get on its priority list.
But then, neither should the “Go Fish” effort that’s now being waged in the middle of a drought.
The trouble with history, particularly when it is to be found right next to I-75, is that when it is not saved it soon gets swallowed up by “progress.” Many Civil War battlefields of note have already been swallowed or forever marred because of this.
PERHAPS that $5 million is a lot of money now but it is pretty little to save for all future American generations an important part of their history.
The General Assembly, already having shown itself to be a poor steward of the future, should not compound its “living for the moment” errors by also becoming a poor guardian of the past
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