Desecration

If you have any information concerning these despicable, unconscionable crimes, please notify the National Park Service. And please, if you have a blog or web site, post a link to this article or post one of your own with the NPS contact information. The more widespread the search, the more likely the apprehension of these pathetic, thoughtless, idiots.

From The Boston Globe

Three Gettysburg battlefield monuments vandalized

February 16, 2006

GETTYSBURG, Pa. --Monuments honoring Civil War soldiers from Pennsylvania, New York and Massachusetts were damaged late Wednesday or early Thursday morning, Gettysburg National Military Park officials said.

The head of a sculpture was stolen on Devil's Den, a rocky part of the battlefield, and a sword was taken from a second memorial. A third marker's sculpture landed on a decorative iron fence, which also was damaged.

"It's terribly sad, and the monuments were put there by the veterans and survivors of this battle. So what's happened is, it's their memory that is vandalized," said park spokeswoman Katie Lawhon.

The bronze sculpture of an artilleryman from the monument to Smith's Battery, also known as the 4th New York Battery, was dragged from its place and its head was removed and is missing, Lawhon said.

The top stone and sculpture from the 11th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Monument were toppled, and a sword was stolen from it.

Also, the vandals pulled down a bronze sculpture of a Zouave infantryman from the 114th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry Monument, and a fence was damaged when it fell.

Thieves have damaged park monuments three times in the last year-and-a-half. They also stole a bronze sword from a Pennsylvania cavalry marker in January 2005 and a sword from the monument to Alexander Hays in September 2004. Those crimes have not been solved.

Bronze markers, including state seals, also are occasionally stolen from the park.

Motorists also have taken a toll on the park's historical objects in recent years. Drivers crashed into the 4th Ohio Volunteer Infantry right flank marker in 2004, and destroyed a cast-iron cannon carriage and damaged the 74th Pennsylvania Infantry Monument in separate 2003 incidents.

The 6,000-acre park houses some 1,300 monuments to the tide-changing July 1863 battle between the Union and Confederate armies.

Respectfully submitted,

Randy