Memories of War: Visiting Battlegrounds and Bonefields in the Early American Republic

Even in the midst of the Civil War, its battlefields were being dedicated as hallowed ground. Today, those sites are among the most visited places in the United States. In contrast, the battlegrounds of the Revolutionary War had seemingly been forgotten in the aftermath of the conflict in which the nation forged its independence. Decades after the signing of the Constitution, the battlefields of Yorktown, Saratoga, Fort Moultrie, Ticonderoga, Guilford Courthouse, Kings Mountain, and Cowpens, among others, were unmarked except for crumbling forts and overgrown ramparts. Not until the late 1820s did Americans begin to recognize the importance of these places. In Memories of War, Thomas A. Chambers recounts America's rediscovery of its early national history through the rise of battlefield tourism in the first half of the nineteenth century. Travelers in this period, Chambers finds, wanted more than recitations of regimental movements when they visited battlefields; they desired experiences that evoked strong emotions and leant meaning to the bleached bones and decaying fortifications of a past age. Chambers traces this impulse through efforts to commemorate Braddock's Field and Ticonderoga, the cultivated landscapes masking the violent past of the Hudson River valley, the overgrown ramparts of Southern war sites, and the scenic vistas at War of 1812 battlefields along the Niagara River. Describing a progression from neglect to the Romantic embrace of the landscape and then to ritualized remembrance, Chambers brings his narrative up to the beginning of the Civil War, during and after which the memorialization of such sites became routine, assuming significant political and cultural power in the American imagination.

About the Author :
Thomas A. Chambers is Professor of History at Niagara University. He is the author of Drinking the Waters: Creating an American Leisure Class at Nineteenth Century Mineral Springs.

Review :
Solidly researched and clearly written.... Chambers has moved the debate about public memory into new territory. This is a valuable book that demands respect from historians of the early republic. (Journal of American History) Chambers explores how and why key American battlefields became memorials and tourist attractions, and the potentially powerful psychological and emotional effect these sites can have on visitors evoking the past.... His descriptions demonstrate first-hand knowledge of each place as well as deep research into primary sources. Fascinating and original, this is recommended to scholars and informed readers of American military and cultural history. (Library Journal) Elegantly written and imaginatively researched, Chambers's book draws a welcome connection between constructions of memory and individual encounters with place. The book is especially illuminating when the author grounds visitors' particular perceptions of place in their prevailing hopes and anxieties, such as in his excellent final chapter set amid the bitter section controversy of the 1850s. (William and Mary Quarterly) This fascinating study is ideal reading for the ongoing sesquicentennial of the Civil War and bicentennial of the War of 1812. It offers a close examination of just how overgrown fields and crumbling fortresses came to be reclaimed as objects worthy of preservation and visitation. (The Weekly Standard) Thomas A. Chambers makes a significant contribution to the field of memory studies with his treatment of early American battlefield tourism, commemoration, and preservation. Chambers's study relies heavily on the accounts of early travelers to the battlefields of the Seven Years' War, American Revolution, and War of 1812 in New York, Virginia, South Carolina, and Canada. Memories of War: Visiting Battlegrounds and Bonefields in the Early American Republic is an excellent book that makes an important contribution to understanding the preservation and commemoration of these historic battlefields. (The Journal of Southern History) Thomas Chambers's engaging and illuminating book describes an era when Americans had little interest in either preserving or touring sites, such as Fort Ticonderoga and Yorktown, that have become gems of America's heritage.. The research on which Chambers draws includes diaries, guidebooks, speeches, art, and his own visits to every battlefield from the Seven Years' War through the War of 1812 cited in his book. (The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography) Makes a useful scholarly contribution as an informative excavation of place and memory in the early American republic. (Journal of the Early Republic) Chambers's enthusiasm for visiting and studying battlefields has spurred him to write a thoroughly reseached volume that goes a long way toward explaining how, for better or worse, American nationalism became rooted in blood-soaked ground. (The New England Quarterly) Chambers presents rich descriptions of iconic figures and their battles as well as details of contemporary travel, accommodations, and experiences in voices of time. A fine study accompanied by maps, renderings of landscapes and battlefields, and portraits of protagonists that illustrate how the meaning of historic places and memory changed, as did the motivation for visiting them between the 1760s and 1850s. (Choice) His sources are rich with personal interactions with battlefields: speeches given at dedications, guide books, and perhaps most compellingly, diaries and letters of visitors to the fields.... Chambers not only explains how those of the Early Republic came to construct memories of their past, but he also inspires public historians to think about how contemporary visitors do the same. (The Public Historian)