National Battlefields

[RedRover]

General Boynton, the first park commissioner at Chattanooga/Chickamauga, reported in 1891 of the purpose of Congress in establishing the park...

Boynton commanded the 35th Ohio regiment of Van Derveer's brigade at Chickamauga and Missionary Ridge. There were some veterans, including generals, who felt crowded off the high ground by the subsequent park commemoration of that regiment and brigade. In the 1890s General Turchin was put out by the monuments to Van Derveers' brigade at De Long point on Missionary Ridge, which he states his command stormed in 1863, but being the most prominent point of the ridge, Gen. Boynton established monuments to his command. Turchin's complaint;

"In making the battle-field he has systematically attempted to glorify himself and the command to which he belonged, as is proved by the fact that on various monuments, markers, and tablets on the battle-field the names of Van Derveer and Boynton appear no less than eighty-one times.
It doubtless struck him that it would be a fine thing to have the monuments on such a conspicuous place as De Long Point echo his name, so he conceived the brilliantly simple scheme of crowding my brigade further to the right and marking De Long Point for his own brigade. And in the face of this scheme the indisputable proofs produced to show that the position belonged to my brigade were absolutely unheeded by him and the chairman of the commission."


In 1893 Boynton was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions at the Battle of Missionary Ridge. During the War with Spain in 1898 he was returned to active duty with the Army, while the Chickamauga park was an encampment for a large number of troops mobilized for the war with Spain.

 

[uaskme]

I think it makes good sense.
Chickamauga and Chattanooga were major battles. The South won Chickamauga, The North won Chattanooga.
It was about 25 years after the war and time to rebuild and unify.

Also local sentiments were about equally split. N GA and E TN had a lot of Unionist.

 

[JeffBrooks]

Alas, I just wish the battlefields around Atlanta had been preserved. There was talk of creating a battlefield park there, but city fathers decided that regular urban development would be better.

 

[Kyle Kalasnik]

I thought of Trenton, but the battle was fought throughout a town not open fields. Could a town become a National Military Park? On a side note, there was a second battle there the day before Princeton.

Good point

The Battle of Assupink Creek or Second
Battle of Trenton.

2 Jan 1777

 

[Jamieva]

They picked the big 5 cause they felt they best represented the major battles of the war. So it was Gettysburg. Antietam, Shiloh, Vicksburg and chickamauga to start. They didn't perceive battlefield preservation like we do now, or we would have a lot more land at the second wave of sites that started in the 1930s and forward in time,

 

[bdtex]

My very first guided battlefield tour was at CCNMP in June 2016 and Jim Ogden was our guide for 2 whole days. Others here have posted in bits and pieces the story Jim told us about the formation of CCNMP.

 

[uaskme]

It was all about Re Union. Veterans wrote what is on the tablets. They designed the park. Many of these guys became the political force for a generation. They came back to this location. Designing and fulfilling the dream of these National Battlefield Parks were a part of reconciliation.

There is about 2 to 3 hundred article about the dedication of the park. It is on the NPS website somewhere. I read it several years ago. Probably more interesting to a local fanatic. Has the soldiers dedication speeches in it. From memory, slavery was mention about twice. Not saying slavery didn't play a bigger part of of it. However most of the different controversies were set aside. Soldiers honor, sacrifices, valor, appreciation of the opponents achievements. Dedication to principles if you believed the other guys or not. Things that were put on various monuments of the period. Same chatter on Confederate monuments which are deemed to be repulsive today.

Somehow, all of this has been lost. Those guys, not all of them, by 1890 or so had reconciled by some measure. I think we should respect that.

 

[121st PA Vols]

Has this been discussed? Showing that Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park was the first battlefield protected by act of Congress- in 1890.

Why was Chickamauga/ Chattanooga selected as the first?

Well, it was a horrific battle with casualties either 3rd or 4th behind Gettysburg and the Seven Days.
What's interesting is it wasn't Gettysburg whose importance was recognized immediately....as in immediately (!)....with land being purchased (became the Soldiers National Cemetery on Cemetery Hill) and dedicated four months after the battle with Lincoln "addressing" the crowd November 19, 1863.

 

[farrargirl]

@Sheltowee

It was all about Re Union. Veterans wrote what is on the tablets. They designed the park. Many of these guys became the political force for a generation. They came back to this location. Designing and fulfilling the dream of these National Battlefield Parks were a part of reconciliation.

There is about 2 to 3 hundred article about the dedication of the park. It is on the NPS website somewhere. I read it several years ago. Probably more interesting to a local fanatic. Has the soldiers dedication speeches in it. From memory, slavery was mention about twice. Not saying slavery didn't play a bigger part of of it. However most of the different controversies were set aside. Soldiers honor, sacrifices, valor, appreciation of the opponents achievements. Dedication to principles if you believed the other guys or not. Things that were put on various monuments of the period. Same chatter on Confederate monuments which are deemed to be repulsive today.

Somehow, all of this has been lost. Those guys, not all of them, by 1890 or so had reconciled by some measure. I think we should respect that.

I have a very good book by Timothy Smith here that addresses a lot of the beginnings:

Including his first page in his Introduction:

As the two veterans stood that day, they envisioned a bold thought, "Why preserve only the Union side, as had occurred at Gettysburg?" "Aye, it should be more than Gettysburg, with it's monuments along one side alone; the lines of both armies should be equally marked," Boynton thought"…..
Born in the mind that day, was the novel idea, not only of an all-inclusive park at Chickamauga, but of the entire military park system as we know it today.

 

[BuckPvt]

Chickamauga was also an easy battlefield to preserve. There was no city in the middle of it. There were barely even that many farms. It could almost be described as wild.

It also didn't have the case of "my great great great grandpappy cut this farm out of the wilderness." The battle took place barely 25 years after the Cherokee were expelled from the land. The white settlers just didn't have that much connection to the area.