That, in essence, is the cheering news contained within the announcement that much of Rome’s Fort Attaway on DeSoto Hill had been saved from the bulldozers because of the sheer obstinacy and refusal to give up of David Fowler, who owns and lives upon much of the site. Fowler, a professional rodeo competitor for many years, simply refused to be bucked off the back of bureaucracy.

For more than five years, in what most citizens no doubt viewed as some sort of “Mission Impossible,” Fowler and a small band of supporters — all wearing “One Rebel Remains” T-shirts — have been fighting what looked like a rear-guard action to preserve the site of Rome’s single major Civil War skirmish.

Fowler, using mostly his own resources, fired salvo after salvo of lawsuits, archeological studies and letters at the combined forces of the City of Rome, the Georgia Department of Transportation and everybody else that was insisting the widening of U.S. 27 (Martha Berry Boulevard) and relocation of the Norfolk Southern trestle had to sheer off much of the face of the hillside earthworks that once stopped an advancing Union army in its tracks.

IN THE END, the DOT — pretty surprisingly, actually — announced a revision of construction plans that would save the hillside. While billed as a “compromise” it seems clear that Fowler actually managed to carry the day.

When the DOT agrees that throughout the construction archaeologists will be on hand to study any artifacts discovered and have the power to stop work in its tracks, that’s no compromise. That’s a concession that Fowler has been right all along: The site is historic, worth protecting and more valuable as a potential tourist site than as a pathway for coal cars.

To be sure, Fowler picked up significant supporters for his efforts along the way including, early on, this newspaper which believes, and continues to believe, that both Fort Attaway and, even more so Fort Norton, are the potential keys to making Rome a tourist “destination.”

In the end, expert after expert, historic preservation group after historic preservation group, had visited the site and lined up with Fowler — who also came up with engineering studies how much easier (and cheaper) it would be to build all this stuff some other way.

WHILE THE STATE could, of course, have insisted on having its way there’s no doubt the battle was beginning to turn into something of a public-relations nightmare. Even the governor wound up asking the transportation department to take another, closer look at what it was doing.

And, with construction on the edges of the fort property already ongoing, and the bluff on the other side of the highway already dynamited into oblivion, the thousands of citizens driving by daily were getting a really good look at how much mayhem mankind could inflict upon Mother Nature.

In the end, taxpayers might well ask themselves what all this fuss was about and why Fowler had to make so much noise, for so long, in order for common sense to prevail.

The revised plan, after all, only means moving the railroad bed 18 feet. Not only that, but the relocation means saving taxpayers $200,000 out of what is a $10.3 million project because fewer utility lines will have to be relocated.

With a key portion of the former fort — a misnomer, actually, as it was more a dug-in defensive line — now saved from eradication a new question arises: What next?

Unlike Fort Norton on the shoulder of Jackson Hill right behind the Visitors Center, Fort Attaway is not in an “untouched” state. And while Norton is public property and on the National Register of Historic Places, what used to be Attaway is in a variety of private hands and has not yet acquired “officially protected” status.

YET, BOTH deserve some serious city attention and not simply lip service as regards making them enduring historical attractions as well as ground that is hallowed by the blood, sweat and tears of both sides in the great national conflict of almost 150 years ago.

Indeed, with that anniversary fast approaching (2010-2015) and its expected spark to tourism, Rome is actually running short of time to make the investment, and do the work, that would make its remaining Civil War sites something both to see and understand.

Heck, at Fort Attaway at least they ought to put up a new historical marker: “Here’s where ‘the little guy’ stood up for the right thing and actually won one.”