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  • American Battlefields: Conflicting Memories/Conflicting Functions
  • Gaines M. Foster (bio)
Thomas A. Chambers. Memories of War: Visiting Battlegrounds and Bonefields in the Early American Republic: Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2012. xvi + 232 pp. Illustrations, maps, tables, notes, and index. $29.95.
Bradley S. Keefer. Conflicting Memories on the “River of Death”: The Chickamauga Battlefield and the Spanish-American War, 1863–1933. Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 2013. xiii + 406 pp. Illustrations, map, notes, bibliography, and index. $65.00.

“Americans love their battlefields,” begins Thomas A. Chambers’ Memories of War. In 2010, he offers as evidence, “over 8.5 million people visited the twenty-two battlefields administered by the National Park Service” (p. ix). That same year, by comparison, the top twenty theme parks in North America attracted 123.6 million visitors, attendance that dwarfs those of the battlfields.1 Measuring cultural impact proves difficult. Nevertheless, many Americans, including the authors of these two books, see battlefield parks as sacred spaces, or at the very least sites of considerable cultural meaning. Many Americans today probably agree and assume it has always been so. Memories of War and Conflicting Memories on the “River of Death,” however, suggest that is far from the case and thereby help historicize current American reverence for battlefields. Together, they examine what happened to battle sites from the French and Indian War through the Spanish-American War.

In Memories of War, Chambers looks at the development of battlefield tourism in the years from the Revolution to the Civil War, discussing battle sites from several wars. Bradley S. Keefer, in Conflicting Memories on the “River of Death,” focuses instead on only one battlefield—Chickamauga—and examines its history, particularly during the Spanish-American War, when it served as a staging area for troops. Despite their differing conceptualizations and time frames, the two books have much in common. Both are well written and solidly researched. They address some of the same issues and put the story of battlefields in larger historic and historiographical contexts, though Keefer does a better job of that than Chambers. Both books therefore touch [End Page 296] on matters beyond the history of battlefields. Historians who study the coming of the Civil War will find interesting Chambers’ discussion of the use of Revolutionary battlefields in the context of increasing sectionalism. Historians of the Spanish-American War will appreciate Keefer’s careful analysis of life and the problems at Chickamauga during mobilization for that conflict. The major contribution of the two studies, though, remains how, together, they help explain Americans’ changing attitudes toward battlefields.

Americans ignored, for the most part, the battlefields of the French and Indian War; after many years, in some cases, soldiers’ bones still littered the ground. The War for Independence came too soon after the earlier war, leaving little time for commemorating the conflict, but the public initially displayed no more interest in its battlefields. The public memory of the Revolution instead focused on “celebrating its key figures,” such as George Washington and the Marquis de Lafayette. Commemorating “the places where patriots bled to win independence” did not draw so much attention (p. 87). Before 1830, public interest in battlefields slowly developed in tandem with tourism, particularly along the Niagara River; and the battle sites that became tourist destinations, such as Lundy’s Lane and Queenston Heights, were from the War of 1812 rather than the Revolution. Reconciliation between the United States and Canada aided the process; “citizens of both nations came to remember martial valor and personal honor, not territory gained, the result of a particular battle, prewar grievances or ideological quarrels, as the war’s central meaning” (p. 156). Over time, tourism to battle sites increased, at least in the North. Visitors did not ignore the history of the battles; veterans and guidebooks helped Americans interpret what had happened on them. But Americans “began to understand their past . . .” Chambers argues, “in highly personal ways that differed from histories constructed by cultural arbiters. History served to compliment landscape and emotion, never occupying the sole focus of the touristic gaze” (p. 37). Indeed, Chambers emphasizes, in the early decades of battlefield tourism, visitors viewed the landscape as a source of...

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