Mapping Battlefields
Angela Dautartas '05 will spend two weeks this summer
lugging a hefty backpack up steep hills, tripping over big
rocks, avoiding slithering snakes and other creepy crawly
creatures and getting filthy from head to toe, all while
baking in the hot July sun.
Why is in the world is she doing this? Because she wants to help a smallSouthwest Virginia
town continue its efforts in building a tourism base after an
industrial exodus there more than 30 years ago left the town
a bit dry on revenue sources.
Dautartas graduated from RU in May with a degree in anthropology and is set to begin graduate studies in the fall. In the interim, the eastern
Pennsylvania
Last summer, RU received a grant worth more than $43,000 from the American Battlefield Protection Program (ABPP) to conduct archeological and cultural resource surveys in order to map and evaluate the rich Civil War features in Saltville. The purpose of the project is to develop a battlefield protection plan and a National Register of Historical Places nomination for the town’s Civil War resources.
This summer, Dautartas is helping run the show as the student project intern. Last year she was hand picked by the National Park Service and the Colorado-based Partners in Parks for the role of dual internships on the Saltville job. RU anthropology professor Cliff Boyd recommended Dautartas for the job after she had completed one of his global information systems class.
“Angela is by no means a gofer on this battlefield project,” said Bob Whisonant, a retired RU geology professor who now serves as a research faculty member at the university. “She is the lead author on the Saltville project. Working with her has been a great experience.”
The challenge for Dautartas this summer is determining which parts of the battlefield sites – if not entire section of both battlegrounds – to nominate for federal protection.
“Our main focus is to use the GPS (Global Positioning System) to map all of the features of these battlefields,” Dautartas said. “We want to access and map everything possible. From there we can figure out which area to put a tag on for federal protection.”
Two significant battles erupted in Saltville in late 1864, months before the War ended. The first battle ensued in October with Confederate soldiers holding back Union invaders, who were desperate to destroy the town’s valuable salt works. Much of that battle took place with the opposing soldiers engaging in hand-to-hand combat on and around a town cemetery with the Confederates forcing the Union soldiers out of town.
Then in December, just days before Christmas, 5,500 Union troops successfully pushed their way past the few hundred defending Confederates, temporarily disabling the salt works and the town’s railroad system.
According to Whisonant, Saltville operated nearly 40 furnaces for salt production in 1864, producing approximately four million bushels of salt a year. That was about two-thirds of all the salt needed by the Confederacy.
Federal protection for the battlefields does not turn over the targeted areas to the government, Whisonant quickly points out. “All it means is that this particular area in Saltville has special features,” he said. “There are tons of battlefield resources lost every year across the country. A protection plan in Saltville would go a long way toward preserving what they have in Saltville.”
In addition, protection of these sites means potentially increased tourism for the Salt Capital of the Confederacy, a commodity the town of 2,200 people craves and is steadfastly developing with the help of its Civil War history and archeological excavations of mastodon and woolly mammoth fossils that links the town back to the Ice Age. Since the early 1990s, Saltville has been home to the Museum of the Middle Appalachians, which exhibits numerous artifacts chronicling the town’s rich past.
Why is in the world is she doing this? Because she wants to help a small
Dautartas graduated from RU in May with a degree in anthropology and is set to begin graduate studies in the fall. In the interim, the eastern
Last summer, RU received a grant worth more than $43,000 from the American Battlefield Protection Program (ABPP) to conduct archeological and cultural resource surveys in order to map and evaluate the rich Civil War features in Saltville. The purpose of the project is to develop a battlefield protection plan and a National Register of Historical Places nomination for the town’s Civil War resources.
This summer, Dautartas is helping run the show as the student project intern. Last year she was hand picked by the National Park Service and the Colorado-based Partners in Parks for the role of dual internships on the Saltville job. RU anthropology professor Cliff Boyd recommended Dautartas for the job after she had completed one of his global information systems class.
“Angela is by no means a gofer on this battlefield project,” said Bob Whisonant, a retired RU geology professor who now serves as a research faculty member at the university. “She is the lead author on the Saltville project. Working with her has been a great experience.”
The challenge for Dautartas this summer is determining which parts of the battlefield sites – if not entire section of both battlegrounds – to nominate for federal protection.
“Our main focus is to use the GPS (Global Positioning System) to map all of the features of these battlefields,” Dautartas said. “We want to access and map everything possible. From there we can figure out which area to put a tag on for federal protection.”
Two significant battles erupted in Saltville in late 1864, months before the War ended. The first battle ensued in October with Confederate soldiers holding back Union invaders, who were desperate to destroy the town’s valuable salt works. Much of that battle took place with the opposing soldiers engaging in hand-to-hand combat on and around a town cemetery with the Confederates forcing the Union soldiers out of town.
Then in December, just days before Christmas, 5,500 Union troops successfully pushed their way past the few hundred defending Confederates, temporarily disabling the salt works and the town’s railroad system.
According to Whisonant, Saltville operated nearly 40 furnaces for salt production in 1864, producing approximately four million bushels of salt a year. That was about two-thirds of all the salt needed by the Confederacy.
Federal protection for the battlefields does not turn over the targeted areas to the government, Whisonant quickly points out. “All it means is that this particular area in Saltville has special features,” he said. “There are tons of battlefield resources lost every year across the country. A protection plan in Saltville would go a long way toward preserving what they have in Saltville.”
In addition, protection of these sites means potentially increased tourism for the Salt Capital of the Confederacy, a commodity the town of 2,200 people craves and is steadfastly developing with the help of its Civil War history and archeological excavations of mastodon and woolly mammoth fossils that links the town back to the Ice Age. Since the early 1990s, Saltville has been home to the Museum of the Middle Appalachians, which exhibits numerous artifacts chronicling the town’s rich past.
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