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“Can you tell me why so many famous Civil War battles were fought on National Park sites?”
Joan Bogun
Belhaven Public Library
Belhaven, NC
The distinctive American pattern of preserving battlefields as parks owned and administered by the federal government is largely a consequence of the efforts of Civil War veterans.
Actual battlefield preservation by the federal government began in 1890, following a reunion at the site of the battle of Chickamauga, when veterans conceived the idea of obtaining federal aid to preserve the battlefield there as a memorial to the valor of both armies and as an aid to reconciliation between the North and the South, according to Encyclopedia of the Veteran in America (ABC-CLIO). You can learn more about the Civil War and our National Parks in these resources available from the Virtual Library:
The Librarian's Brain 