Civil War Battlefields
Amid the solemn beauty of the national battlefield parks, you walk the ground where infantry assembled, where cannon and cavalry took position, where generals pored over maps, where bugles blew and muskets roared, where regiments advanced, where the tide of battle surged and receded, and where finally the victorious and the vanquished tended their wounded and collected their dead.
The dozens of battlefields and related Civil War sites capture a unique page from our nation's history, one that Americans continue to find fascinating, even nearly 150 years after the guns fell silent and the war came to an end in the village of Appomattox Court House. More than 50,000 books have been published on the topic-800 titles are published every year. Forty million viewers watched Ken Burns' 11-hour documentary on the Civil War, first broadcast on PBS in 1990, by far the network's most-watched offering.
"Popular interest in the Civil War eclipses interest in any other aspect of American History," wrote James McPherson in his book, Drawn With the Sword: Reflections on the American Civil War. "Momentous issues were at stake: slavery and freedom; racism and equality; sectionalism and nationalism; self-government and democracy; life and death."
Indeed, 620,000 Union and Confederate soldiers lost their lives in the four-year war, compared with just under 700,000 soldiers lost in all other American wars combined; add the deaths of American civilians to the total, and Civil War deaths likely surpass that number. Two percent of the American population in 1860 was killed in the Civil War: If the United States suffered the same proportion of deaths in a war fought today, the number of American war dead would approach six million. But if the war was fought at great cost, it also achieved quite a lot, preserving the United States as a single nation and freeing four million slaves.
Looking back on the war, there's something romantic, even quaint, about the notion of soldiers wearing uniforms of a different color, lining up in formation, carrying battle flags. The most literate soldiers that war had ever seen, thousands wrote letters back home and kept journals, revealing much of the individual experience of war that is rarely seen today - 21st-century armies generally censor letters and discourage journaling. In fact, the Civil War was also the first major event in American history to be extensively recorded by photographers. Although newspapers of the day did not have the technology to print photographs, artists often created sketches based on the images, giving readers an opportunity to see the destruction and devastation of war. It would be decades until television would bring images of Vietnam into people's living rooms, and digital photographs of prisoners in Iraq would show Americans yet another side of war.
View Civil War Images
The Becker Collection contains drawings by Joseph Becker and other nineteenth-century artists who drew images of the Civil War and other events for Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Weekly Newspaper. Many of the images recorded scenes of daily military life and the action of battles. Learn More >
In the early months of the war, many Americans were more than willing to fight for their cause, so the conflict was waged by largely volunteer armies. But because recruiting policies generally urged all the young men in a town to join the same company or regimen, one bad day in battle could cripple the future of an entire community. As time wore on and reports of casualties mounted, young men from both sides became more ambivalent about the war: In 1862, the Confederacy's dwindling ranks prompted the South to institute a draft, a first on American soil; the Union followed shortly thereafter. Near the end of the war, nearly 200,000 black soldiers were given the chance to take up arms and fight for their cause, an opportunity many embraced, as documented quite well in the film Glory and several recent books.
Americans continue to debate the reasons for the war-was it essentially a war over states' rights or a war over slavery? Lincoln was clear in the early years that it was a war over the sanctity of the Union; before the war, the government took no action to end slavery in the southern states, although the North and South fought bitterly over the practice of slavery in the fledgling territories. In the years before Lincoln took office, the South had ruled the federal government, and many perceived the southern states' move to secede as nothing more than sour grapes following a contentious election. But without the sanctity of the union, a state might defect anytime it disagreed with the majority, leaving the continent nothing more than a group of bickering autocracies. Lincoln made it clear that he was against slavery, but he had acknowledged that he would do whatever it took to keep the union together, whether that meant ending slavery or preserving it for the time being. But eventually, Lincoln recognized the ways in which the issues were inextricably linked, and saw that freeing the slaves might bolster his own army's numbers and demoralize the southern effort. So the Emancipation Proclamation, announced in 1862, combined the issues of unity and freedom where they had once been separate and distinct.
From the beginning, Union forces worked to capture the Confederate capital in Richmond, Virginia (hence the Union battle cry, "On to Richmond!") while Southern forces fought to invade the North, nearly capturing Washington, D.C., so it should come as no surprise that many of the battles were fought in states near the border-Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. Some of the battlefields are immense canvases on which thousands of men maneuvered and fought. Others are comparatively small and thread through farmland or cities. Many, in both rural and urban settings, are vulnerable to development of adjacent areas. Most sites are open daily from daylight until dark. Some charge a modest entry fee. You will generally find:
- The battlefield, reflecting its historic appearance in varying degrees
- A visitor center with films, historical exhibits, maps, brochures, a bookstore, and a staff prepared to assist you
- Interpretive programs offered seasonally, including living history demonstrations in some parks, where demonstrators in uniforms and period dress reflect life during the Civil War era
- Monuments and markers, from a handful to hundreds
- Varying degrees of accessibility for those with disabilities
- Picnic facilities, but no restaurants or overnight accommodations within the park
As you plan your visit to these hallowed grounds, try to prepare yourself by reading up on the history of the region, the importance of the battle, the major military figures involved, and the timeline of the war, to make your experience even more meaningful.
