Shiloh National Park Gains New Land
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Re-enactments may have started last weekend, but the Civil War Sesquicentennial is still going strong. On Thursday, Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam and other state and local officials made a big announcement at the commemoration’s signature event, saying that Shiloh National Military Park is growing. If you thought Shiloh Park was big before, now it is even bigger. “Shiloh’s been extremely beneficial in that we’ve been able to add several hundred acres to the park through the recent years to begin to maybe finish the battlefield, and acquire the remaining acreage,” said Chief Park Ranger Stacy Allen. Both state and local officials announced Thursday that the Civil War Trust, a nonprofit battlefield preservation group, is transferring 167 acres to the park. “Shiloh’s been a work in progress. I think a lot of people thought Shiloh was finished. Shiloh’s never been finished,” Allen said. And the trust still has about 260 acres of more land that it has purchased, but still has not given to the park. The goal is to eventually make Shiloh 100 percent preserved. Officials also announced they are currently raising funds to buy an additional 491 acres inside the park. And if they can raise the money? “We will have saved one quarter of all the land that has been saved at Shiloh,” said Civil War Trust President Jim Lighthizer. Trust members said this battlefield is not important to just preserve history, but to promote tourism, too. “Heritage tourists will spend an extra day-and-a-half in an area, as compared to recreational tourists,” said John Nau, III, Civil War Trust Chairman Emeritus.
