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The Golden Age of Battlefield Preservation: The Decade of the 1890’s and the Establishment of America’s First Five Military Parks
The 1890s, argues Timothy B. Smith in his new book, represented the climax of battlefield preservation in America. But what makes this decade so important?
This decade was the perfect time for the establishment of these national parks. Five Civil War battlegrounds—at Gettysburg, Chickamauga and Chattanooga, Shiloh, Antietam, and Vicksburg—were commemorated as national sites during this time. Just past the bitterness and racial tensions of Reconstruction and prior to the explosive growth brought on by the Second Industrial Revolution, the time was right for the war's veterans from both sides to come together, in a spirit of reconciliation and brotherhood, to lead the efforts to open the parks. As yet unmarred by development, these battlefield sites were preserved mostly intact, just how the veterans would have remembered them. To date, they represent the country's finest preserved battlefields.
Smith's book is the first to look at the process of battlefield reservation as a whole. He focuses on how each of these sites was established and the important individuals—the congressmen, the former soldiers, the veteran commissioners—who were the catalysts for the creation of these parks.
The Golden Age of Battlefield Preservation is a watershed book about an essential period in the history of battlefield preservation and will be of interest to any reader who wishes to have a better understanding how such preservation efforts were initiated.
Timothy B. Smith is the author of This Great Battlefield of History, Memory, and the Establishment of a Civil War National Military Park and The Untold Story of The Battle and the Battlefield. He is a former park ranger at the Shiloh National Military Park and now teaches at the University of Tennessee at Martin.
This decade was the perfect time for the establishment of these national parks. Five Civil War battlegrounds—at Gettysburg, Chickamauga and Chattanooga, Shiloh, Antietam, and Vicksburg—were commemorated as national sites during this time. Just past the bitterness and racial tensions of Reconstruction and prior to the explosive growth brought on by the Second Industrial Revolution, the time was right for the war's veterans from both sides to come together, in a spirit of reconciliation and brotherhood, to lead the efforts to open the parks. As yet unmarred by development, these battlefield sites were preserved mostly intact, just how the veterans would have remembered them. To date, they represent the country's finest preserved battlefields.
Smith's book is the first to look at the process of battlefield reservation as a whole. He focuses on how each of these sites was established and the important individuals—the congressmen, the former soldiers, the veteran commissioners—who were the catalysts for the creation of these parks.
The Golden Age of Battlefield Preservation is a watershed book about an essential period in the history of battlefield preservation and will be of interest to any reader who wishes to have a better understanding how such preservation efforts were initiated.
Timothy B. Smith is the author of This Great Battlefield of History, Memory, and the Establishment of a Civil War National Military Park and The Untold Story of The Battle and the Battlefield. He is a former park ranger at the Shiloh National Military Park and now teaches at the University of Tennessee at Martin.
320 pages, Hardcover
First published February 15, 2008
About the author
Timothy B. Smith
44 books23 followersA former NPS ranger at Shiloh, Timothy B. Smith teaches history at the University of Tennessee at Martin.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
June 23, 2020
Great resource on the history surrounding the establishment of 5 of the more dramatic battlefield parks. It goes a very long way to showing why they are so dramatic and dramatically monumented and marked.
January 11, 2016
A thorough, interesting, informative and highly readable account of the establishment of America's Civil War battlefield parks during the 1890s. Combined efforts of veterans groups, Congress, and State legislatures provided the stimulus, and the means, to set aside five parks, four of which contain extensive portions of the actual battlefields.
Smith describes how the desire of veterans to memorialize their lost companions first led to establishing markers on the battle sites, then grew to the larger effort to protect these sites in their entirety. Quite interesting is the role these preservation efforts played in the process of reconciliation between North and South as veterans from both sides worked for the establishment of the battlefield parks which became the site of reunions, monument dedications, and assistance in marking positions where their respective units served at the battlefield. These events were celebrations of the combatants embracing one another and praising the reuniting of the nation. Each of the three man commissions which managed the parks echoed this reconciliation, reunification theme as a Confederate soldier was a member of each group, one of whom served as chairman of the Vicksburg commission.
In a larger sense. these parks, transferred from the jurisdiction of the War Department to the National Park Service in 1933, continue to serve a national function beyond the healing of the veterans of the battles. As Smith writes, "the establishment of these five parks...produced the physical foundation of our collective Civil War memory." This book expands that memory, not by addressing the war and its battles, but by detailing how that physical foundation came to be, a process with battles of its own.
The five battlefield parks, in order of their Congressional authorization are Chickamauga and Chattanooga, Antietam, Shiloh, Gettysburg, and Vicksburg. Smith at one time served as a park ranger at Shiloh National Military Park.
An interesting read in this centennial year of the National Park Service, and for those interested in historic preservation and American Memory.
Smith describes how the desire of veterans to memorialize their lost companions first led to establishing markers on the battle sites, then grew to the larger effort to protect these sites in their entirety. Quite interesting is the role these preservation efforts played in the process of reconciliation between North and South as veterans from both sides worked for the establishment of the battlefield parks which became the site of reunions, monument dedications, and assistance in marking positions where their respective units served at the battlefield. These events were celebrations of the combatants embracing one another and praising the reuniting of the nation. Each of the three man commissions which managed the parks echoed this reconciliation, reunification theme as a Confederate soldier was a member of each group, one of whom served as chairman of the Vicksburg commission.
In a larger sense. these parks, transferred from the jurisdiction of the War Department to the National Park Service in 1933, continue to serve a national function beyond the healing of the veterans of the battles. As Smith writes, "the establishment of these five parks...produced the physical foundation of our collective Civil War memory." This book expands that memory, not by addressing the war and its battles, but by detailing how that physical foundation came to be, a process with battles of its own.
The five battlefield parks, in order of their Congressional authorization are Chickamauga and Chattanooga, Antietam, Shiloh, Gettysburg, and Vicksburg. Smith at one time served as a park ranger at Shiloh National Military Park.
An interesting read in this centennial year of the National Park Service, and for those interested in historic preservation and American Memory.
October 14, 2014
At last, it's a book for the Civil War hobbyist who is also a Parks policy junkie.
Author is from UT-Martin.
Author is from UT-Martin.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews