CVBT praises Tricord deal at Chancellorsville

The president of Central Virginia Battlefields Trust has a letter in the Fredericksburg paper today commending Civil War Preservation Trust for its deal with Tricord on land next to Chancellorsville.

On a lot of levels, CVBT is an admirable organization, one which CWPT needs to emulate: it publishes its members' names as they join the organization; it publishes a newsletter and makes it available online; it lists transaction specifics where it takes action on properties; and it invites feedback. CVBT celebrates transparency, unlike the secrecy nurtured at CWPT. Look at these wonderful records maintained on the Internet: here's the list of CVBT deals, here is an example. It would take a lawsuit to get this kind of information onto CWPT's website. I like this, too:

We (CVBT) have always prided ourselves on being able to claim that any donations sent to us would be used for dirt and grass, not paid staff.

Could they be talking about another organization, here?

All this to say how disappointed I am in CVBT's letter to the editor. The notion that "this hallowed ground so much a part of our history and heritage, was saved, forever, thank you," is both misleading and erroneous. The idea that CWPT "simply refused to give up their dream of saving this hallowed ground," follows from the CWPT's error of refusing to buy it in the first place, then antagonizing the seller, and finally paying covenant money to help a developer buy it for nursing home purposes.

CVBT - what nice people. And how wrong they are in this matter.