Battlefield Unit Markers?

davepi2

Corporal
Joined
Jul 2, 2011
Location
columbus ohio
I visited the 4 battlefields around Fredericksburg over the weekend and I was struck by the fact there wasn't one unit marker at any of the battlefields. For that matter the interpretive signing was lacking and in one instance (Chancellorsville) a tour stop marker was missing. Since I have over the last year come to depend on unit markers more then any other marking on the battlefields I was disappointed to say the least. I know there can be many reasons for this so I don't want to condemn those parks. Money of course would be the obvious especially when explained to me that these parks were among the later ones and money was not appropriated for them as the early ones were. Another reason I could think of was there may local ordinances against it because of local citizens thinking it mars the landscape. Still even parks like Richmond (Ky) have these markers and it was a big letdown. To finish this point though I will admit I didn't take the walking trails. It rained Saturday evening and into Sunday so The Wilderness and Chancellorsville were about impossible. Maybe I missed units markers there, I don't know.
Does anyone have any other ideas on why this is so?
Also I stopped at Antietam on the way home (it was only 10 miles off the freeway so why not?) and I noticed a big difference in the color of unit markers. At most battlefields I have been at they are blue or red as opposed to all brown at Antietam. No complaint here but it is noticeable. Does anyone know why the difference and are there any other examples like this?
 
Is there a history of how NPS parks developed? I've only seen Blue / Red signs at "Western" battlefields. Signs at Gettysburg are all black and silver. As a Northeastern, I'm far more used to this method on battlefields.
 
Yes - there's a history as to how the National Battlefields were selected, funded and administered/maintained. Originally under the jurisdiction of the War Department they were transferred to the Dept of the Interior who administers and oversees them today. If you Google it, you'll find many articles and references to how the program worked, but for here, if memory serves me - there were originally the Big 5: Gettysburg, Chickamauga, Vicksburg, Shiloh & Antietam. They were the original NBs established in the late 1800s and were the sites of many reunions, monument dedications and so forth involving veteran organizations. Monuments and unit markers abound at the Big 5 and most of the existing NPS artillery at one point probably was displayed at or stored at one of these locations prior to being moved to a newer battlefield, and then perhaps even moved again as the need arose at newer location. Later additions to the NPS system, say from Stones River (established in 1927) to today all have less interpretive signage, monuments and markers than the Big 5 for various reasons, including land lost to development, the passing of the veterans themselves, other national distractions (2 World Wars, Depression, etc...) and the need for the organization proposing and providing the marker/monument, for instance the "3rd SC Infantry of Someone's Brigade", etc. to "petition" for placement of the marker. Should the NPS accept the notion of a new monument/marker the organization submitting it needs to not only pay for the display but to also financially insure its upkeep for repairs, etc in the future. Land additions to a National Battlefield and the creation of a new National Battlefield or National Park takes an act of Congress, literally, to expand the borders provide financial upkeep or to acquire land. Even when a preservation group "saves" property from development, that doesn't insure that it can be added to a NB, or that one can be created, without the government getting involved. Simple tour marker signs are usually NOT included in this petition/funding from outside sources, but they still cost money and the government must budget for them. So, in short...later battlefield have less resources than the Big 5. Personally, as mentioned earlier by another poster, I also find some of the smaller sites, with less monuments and markers, to be more enjoyable.
 
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I visited the 4 battlefields around Fredericksburg over the weekend and I was struck by the fact there wasn't one unit marker at any of the battlefields. For that matter the interpretive signing was lacking and in one instance (Chancellorsville) a tour stop marker was missing. Since I have over the last year come to depend on unit markers more then any other marking on the battlefields I was disappointed to say the least. I know there can be many reasons for this so I don't want to condemn those parks. Money of course would be the obvious especially when explained to me that these parks were among the later ones and money was not appropriated for them as the early ones were. Another reason I could think of was there may local ordinances against it because of local citizens thinking it mars the landscape. Still even parks like Richmond (Ky) have these markers and it was a big letdown. To finish this point though I will admit I didn't take the walking trails. It rained Saturday evening and into Sunday so The Wilderness and Chancellorsville were about impossible. Maybe I missed units markers there, I don't know.
Does anyone have any other ideas on why this is so?
Also I stopped at Antietam on the way home (it was only 10 miles off the freeway so why not?) and I noticed a big difference in the color of unit markers. At most battlefields I have been at they are blue or red as opposed to all brown at Antietam. No complaint here but it is noticeable. Does anyone know why the difference and are there any other examples like this?
I can tell you EXACTLY why it is so, and have in other past threads: It simply has to do with the HISTORY of the National Military Parks.

The first of them were Shiloh, Vicksburg, Gettysburg, and the VERY first, Chickamauga-Chattanooga. (Two distinct and separate battles, but created as only ONE park.) They were products of the 1880's and 1890's when veterans' groups were beginning to buy land and place markers and memorials to their own (mainly Federal) units. These individual groups began to coalesce around the ideas of preserving entire battlefields or the most significant portions; since these were mainly in the South, Confederate veterans groups also became involved. Once the projects were firmly underway with backing from the War Department the battlefields became immense outdoor laboratories for the study of military tactics and the kind of markers you're missing were written by the veterans themselves with text and placement authorized to be as close to correct as possible; unlike the previous efforts, since the purpose had changed from mere commemoration of units to the study of tactics, naturally both sides were included and represented on the unit markers placed by the Army.

Only slightly and fitfully were additions made to the War Department's original few battlefields, Antietam being one of the next but actually preserving VERY little land, mainly right-of-ways through still-privately-owned farmland. (This accounts for why the markers at Antietam, instead of being color-coded to sides or oriented to face in the direction of units during the battle, are instead placed for the convenience of being read from vehicular traffic on the byways, like reading from the pages of an open-air guidebook.) Ca. 1933 the War Department divested itself of the whole, with the parks being transferred to the then-new NPS. New park acquisitions like Manassas and Appomattox were put on the back burner as it were by first the Great Depression and then our involvement in WWII. By the end of that war most of the Civil War vets were long gone and the impulse to mark any *NEW* battlefields was noticeably lacking, like at Fort Donelson for example. Fredericksburg-Spotsylvania NMP is another on those dating to around this post-WWII-era, hence the comparative and unfortunate lack of interpretation so useful in the original Big Four.
 
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I'll add that there's also a hierarchical structure to the National Parks that I can't fully explain; for example, places like Yellowstone, Grand Canyon, Everglades, Smoky Mountains, etc. are true National Parks and what we're describing are considered to be somehow lesser units within the National Park System. The first four along with a very few others - even latecomers like Fredericksburg-Spotsylvania and Arkansas' 1962 Pea Ridge which is also notably lacking in anything like unit markers though there's plenty of descriptive signage - are National Military Parks, while Antietam and Manassas are National Battlefields. Many related sites that aren't strictly speaking battlefields like Appomattox are National Historic Sites or even National Monuments like Little Big Horn which IS a battlefield!?! And of course, many other relatively famous battlefields like Perryville, KY which you mentioned are instead State Parks with entirely different circumstances and regulations.
 
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Thanks everyone. I must admit my ignorance in these matters as I am still relatively new to visiting the battlefields. I still enjoyed the trip and the park rangers I spoke to at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville were great.
 
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