Where Southern soldiers fought and died a century before, I played Wiffle ball with my cousins. A hit over the defensive mounds to the trenches beyond, a home run.

Historical reverence means little to kids. Then again, the park interpreting this Civil War battleground included a mini-golf course.

The battle of Columbus-Belmont proved significant in the war’s western campaign. The Confederate Gen. Leonidas Polk moved troops onto the 150-foot high bluffs at Columbus, Ky., in September 1861, wanting to strangle Union movement on the Mississippi River.

Southern forces dragged a huge chain across the river to stop northern gunboats and supplies. With huge cannons firing from on high, Polk’s troops wanted to devise the “Gibraltar of the West.”

That lasted about six months. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, combing southeastern Missouri in pursuit of St. Joseph’s own Gen. M. Jeff Thompson, helped chase the Confederates from Columbus, which never again left Northern control.

And the state park, with its ramparts, displayed armaments and a portion of the big chain, made for some weekend picnics during my youth.

In roughly this period and farther west, the Union Army moved earth to create a fortification on a bluff above the Missouri River in St. Joseph. This is Fort Smith. Some local folks want to resurrect it from nearly a century and a half of vegetation.

Given my memories of preserved Civil War encampments (after the Wiffle ball, I visited the Columbus-Belmont museum and got my picture taken atop artillery), I favor the project.

But the suggestion to fund this rising puts in focus a broader discussion about the distribution of federal dollars.

A city application went out for a Land and Water Conservation Fund grant, a matching-money program of the National Park Service that furthers, in the federal agency’s words, “the concept of a permanent, national recreation estate.”

In other words, a pool of money exists for the development of sites like Fort Smith. Much of the fund derives from offshore oil leases. Score one for the “drill now” crowd.

A reasonable question arises. Why would a nation with a debt approaching $11 trillion (that’s 11 with a dozen zeroes behind it) contribute money to a project that has languished for 15 decades?

The answer: Inertia stands as the greatest force against fiscal responsibility. The Land and Water Conservation Fund has money, and someone will get it.

Dangle a pork chop, and hungry canines will leap. We might as well get a dog in the fight.

In 15 of the 16 Missouri counties covered by this newspaper, voters favored John McCain in the November election. And John McCain stood on his legislative record of opposing the overextension of federal spending.

The U.S. budget stands horribly out of balance. Still, no blushing seems apparent in seeking federal assistance for a local Civil War fort long left to nature.

As concerns the grant, it appears dumb to ask but even dumber not to. That’s the system.

An added note. For more than 70 years, the battlefield at Columbus rested fallow. A local initiative began for a Civil War memorial, but it gained no traction until labor became available in 1934 from one of FDR’s New Deal programs.

The circle of history continues.

Ken Newton’s column runs on Tuesday and Sunday.