
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, June 30, 1993                   TAG: 9306300193
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-4   EDITION: STATE 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WOODSTOCK                                LENGTH: Medium

CONFEDERATE DOCUMENTS GAIN ALLY

The Shenandoah County Board of Supervisors has joined a movement pressuring the National Archives to protect Confederate documents that some historians believe are rotting.

The board agreed to seek help from U.S. Sens. John Warner, R-Va., and Charles Robb, D-Va., and Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Fairfax County.

"It's probably going to require congressional action to appropriate the necessary funds and to put on the pressure to get these records preserved," D.W. Burruss of the Shenandoah County Historical Society told the supervisors.

"If action is not forthcoming, why a very great part of our history and our heritage is going to be lost forever," Burruss said.

Michael J. Kurtz, acting assistant director for the National Archives, said the Confederate documents are "an important collection and we take the responsibility to preserve them very seriously."

Kurtz said the archives, which has more than 5 billion pieces of paper to deal with, appreciates the concern for the Confederate documents and that "we share their concern."

The Confederate Veteran Magazine reported that Confederate documents from the Civil War years, 1861-1865, are being stored in ordinary cardboard boxes in the basement of the National Archives' central building in Washington and that no precautions are being taken to protect them.

"Perhaps of all the records that are detained, the greatest loss will be the muster rolls of the Confederate Army," an article in the magazine's March-April edition said. The muster rolls contain names of people on active duty and shows whether they were wounded in battle.

According to the article, national archives officials claim they don't have enough money to preserve the Confederate documents. But it said the archives found money last year to preserve records of the 54th Massachusetts - the first black unit - after it was depicted in the movie "Glory."

"In these times, it seems that anything to do with the South or with the Confederacy, especially during the Civil War period, is not a politically correct thing these days," the article said. "And so consequently, these valuable records are continuing to rot away in the archives basement."

by CNB