Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park, 1890-1942
CHAPTER TWO: THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHICKAMAUGA AND CHATTANOOGA NATIONAL MILITARY PARK, 1890-1942 1 COMMEMORATING THE CIVIL WAR The Civil War was a watershed event in American history and a signal event in the lives of all who participated in it. Of the 2.75 million Americans who saw action in the war, 621,000 died and 470,000 were wounded. Efforts to memorialize the fallen and recognize and aid veterans and their survivors began even before combat ceased. The creation of the first Civil War national military parks in the 1890s was preceded by twenty-five years of private and state memorial efforts. Commemorative efforts began in the mid-1860s with the formation of local memorial associations in the South, the creation of Union soldiers’ cemeteries at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and Antietam, Maryland, the preservation of land at Gettysburg, the establishment of national cemeteries by the federal government, and the creation of veterans’ groups, mostly in the North. In the early postwar years, commemoration took different forms in the North and the South. In the 1880s and 1890s, as the veteran population aged, commemorative activity expanded, and contact between ex-Confederates and ex- Federals increased. Blue-gray reunions, often held on the battlefields, became common. The interaction at reunions, a spirit of sectional reconciliation and commemoration of the sacrifice of both sides, and an increased appreciation of the nation’s past all contributed to the successful movement to establish national battlefield parks. In the South, independent, local memorial associations sprang up rapidly during and after the war. Many originated in women’s wartime groups organized to do hospital and relief work.
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