Greetings,

So, I went to the New Visitor Center Open House last night. It was was truly disappointing, and pathetic on some levels, they could so so much with it. The amount of reproduction items on display is ridiculous (ranging from uniforms, to equipment, and even letters (apparently)), they rush through everything, with a few trinkets of nothing thrown in, to put it a rather blunt fashion, its complete shit. Keep in mind, the New VC has 1% of total collection, opposed to the 3% the old one had, and its larger, makes sense to me. The exhibits try to prove some kind of point, but it never fully clear what it is. At least they include a life size portion of the 114th's Ambulance Drill photo. Basically you walk away thinking that poor farm boys from the North & South really fought and died because of slavery, rather then their own personal ideals of what America truly is.

We saw the movie we worked on back in Sept., if you were to divide the 22 min. out you get: about 10 min of Slavery slash Civil Rights movement in the late '50s through the '60s (it ends with a picture of MLK), about 5 min of battle, the rest is misc. crap (at least they mention the hardships of the towns people in the aftermath). You can see everyone that worked on it, in some way, at least once.

When you exit the museum aspect of it you walk through a corridor with pictures of the battlefield, all fields, with worm fences, except one of the Sherfy House. (there because the foundation uses it for functions, i'm sure). Didn't go to the book store, for obvious reasons. The scariest part that someone actually thinks this place is awesome, and i'm afraid this may have set people getting the right info. back several years.

At least they kept the plaques,
Anyhoo,
All and all, it was a real let down,
Chris Aronhalt