The Virginian-Pilot
                            THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT  
              Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: Sunday, October 27, 1996              TAG: 9610280191
SECTION: COMMENTARY              PAGE: J2   EDITION: FINAL 
TYPE: Book Review
SOURCE: BY CHILES T.A. LARSON 
                                            LENGTH:   89 lines

THE PIEDMONT WORDS AND PICTURES TELL THE STORIES OF A HALLOWED GROUND IN VIRGINIA.

HALLOWED GROUND

Preserving America's Heritage

RUBY ABRAMSON

Foreword by JAMES M. McPHERSON

Thomasson-Grant & Lickle. 192 pp. $40.

Hallowed Ground: Preserving America's Heritage actually preserves in historic context and color photography Virginia's Piedmont, an area 125 miles by about 50 miles, bounded roughly by the Potomac and James rivers on the north and south, the Blue Ridge Mountains in the west, and a line running from Richmond through Fredericksburg and Alexandria in the east. It highlights notable aspects of the Piedmont's natural beauty and also details the geological, historical and cultural significance of the area.

The book's primary focus is on the northern Piedmont, where Disney's America staked out a site three years ago for a theme park near Haymarket in Prince William County. Although this locale is within an easy drive of 16 Civil War battlefields, 13 historic towns and 17 historic districts, it also fringes on an urban sprawl fed by thousands who don't wish to live in Washington but who must creep nearly bumper-to-bumper in and out of the city each working day to earn a living.

Veteran journalist Rudy Abramsom has marshaled a wealth of information about the Piedmont in Hallowed Ground. Important details about how this special place was formed millions of years ago blend smoothly into descriptions of what this wilderness was like when the Manahocacs, Monacans, Saponis and other Native Americans hunted its forests and fished its rivers before the English arrived. There are wonderful scarcely remembered stories of historic near-misses: Albemarle militia Captain Jack Jouett's 40-mile midnight ride from Cuckoo tavern in Louisa to Monticello to warn Governor Thomas Jefferson and members of the legislature of approaching British dragoons; and the selection by General Washington of Sergeant Major John Champe of Loudoun County, to kidnap traitor Benedict Arnold by infiltrating his British command.

There are also reminders that many of America's fundamental documents were penned by the quills of some of the Piedmont's most eminent benefactors: Thomas Jefferson's immortal preamble to the Declaration of Independence; James Madison's Constitution, brilliantly shepherded through a host of detractors; George Mason's Virginia Declaration of Rights, from which the nation's Bill of Rights was adopted; James Monroe's Monroe Doctrine, which established U.S. foreign policy for decades.

The 133 color images are the work of commercial photographers Kenneth Garrett and Jack Kotz. They include sweeping panoramic aerials and subtle architectural shots of well-known and lesser-known properties. Notable among the pictures are a fossilized dinosaur skin imprinted on a hardened surface found on James Monroe's former Oak Hill estate; an ancient fishlike effigy carved into a rock high above the Potomac, suggesting a prime fishing spot; and the quiet beauty of the smallest national cemetery at Ball's Bluff, where 25 Union soldiers' graves are laid out in a near-circle.

Hallowed Ground concludes with the story of how a local Prince William County land-use debate initiated by the Walt Disney Co. turned into an epic battle, galvanizing such nationally known figures as David McCullough, James McPherson, Shelby Foote, C. Vann Woodward, John Hope Franklin, William Styron. A groundswell of opposition raised by historians, preservationists, environmentalists and citizens from across Virginia thwarted the construction of a proposed 3000-acre, $650 million Disney theme park.

The skirmish with Disney may be over, but pressing issues abound in the Piedmont, including construction of a high-speed corridor supplanting U.S. Route 29 from Washington through Warrenton, Culpeper and Charlottesville, and an ever-widening superhighway rimming outward from the Capital Beltway. When taken as a whole, Hallowed Ground is a reminder of the old adage, ``A picture is worth a thousand words,'' being reinforced by a new one: ``It takes words to make that point.''

One can only hope that Abramson's well-crafted text and Garrett's and Kotz's splendid images will help to blunt future efforts at wiping out irreplaceable treasures of the Piedmont. MEMO: Chiles T.A. Larson, a photojournalist, lives in southwestern

Piedmont near Ivy. ILLUSTRATION: Photo

FROM ``HALLOWED GROUND''

The graves of 25 Union soldiers are arranged in a near-circle in the

smallest national cemetery at Ball's Bluff.

Graphic

An exhibit of the photographs in Hallowed Ground: Preserving

America's Heritage will be on display at the Smithsonian Institution

in Washington through the end of the year. by CNB