In the century and a half since the Civil War, various entities,
both private and public, have earnestly sought to safeguard the
legacy of that seismic conflict through the preservation of its
battlefields. In Altogether Fitting and Proper-a title taken from
Lincoln's Gettysburg Address-Timothy B. Smith provides the most
comprehensive synthesis ever written of the long, often fraught
history of those preservation efforts, which began even as the war
was still raging and have continued up through the present day.
Smith traces the story of battlefield park establishment from the
war and the Reconstruction era through the "Golden Age of
Preservation" at the turn of the century, to the New Deal period
and well beyond. He pays close attention to the evolution of public
policy, as the creation and oversight of parks shifted from the War
Department to the National Park Service, and explores the evolving
ways in which the Civil War has been remembered over the years,
most significantly with regard to its causes: slavery and race.
While Smith's primary focus is on the famous national
parks-Gettysburg, Shiloh, Antietam, Chickamauga, and others-he also
examines the endeavors of state and local governments, as well as
an assortment of private organizations, to establish parks and
monuments for lesser-known battle sites. The ongoing conflicts
between preservationists and commercial developers form another key
element of the narrative. As Smith makes clear, the story of
battlefield preservation is in many ways a story of people-from
Civil War veterans like Henry Boynton, the Medal of Honor winner
who oversaw the development of the first national military park at
Chickamauga, to Jim Lighthizer, the president of the Civil War
Trust, the private charitable organization spearheading the
twenty-first-century preservation movement. In their dedication to
this particular cause, such individuals and the groups they
represent have kept a central event in American history alive in
our collective memory. TIMOTHY B. SMITH, who teaches history at the
University of Tennessee at Martin, is the author of numerous books
on the Civil War and its battlefields, including This Great
Battlefield of Shiloh, A Chickamauga Memorial, and The Golden Age
of Battlefield Preservation, all published by the University of
Tennessee Press.
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