A Chickamauga memorial

Timothy B. Smith

A Chickamauga Memorial tells the full and fascinating story of how the country's first federally preserved national military park came into being and how it paved the way for all that came afterwards, including preservation efforts today. As Timothy B. Smith explains, most battlefield preservation and commemoration efforts before 1890 were done on a private and state level, with veterans' groups and states marking unit positions on battlefields, most notably at Gettysburg in Pennsylvania. In 1890, however, the federal government became involved on a large scale, ushering in a wave of battlefield preservation that would continue through the decades that followed. The brainchild of Henry Van Ness Boynton, a Union officer and veteran of the battle, Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park served multiple purposes as a commemorative memorial to the soldiers who had fought there...