The Civil War lives on in the tourism of its battlefields. These locations housed some of the… The Civil War lives on in the tourism of its battlefields. These locations housed some of the bloodiest battles Americans have ever fought. Spotsylvania, Cold Harbor and the Siege of Petersburg were grim foreshadowings of the trench warfare of World War I. New technologies such as the Minié ball, rifled artillery and barbed wire transformed the battlefield in ways that many leaders failed to grasp. The battles spanned our nation: Some engagements were fought as far west as New Mexico, and the most important strategic objective of the war, control of the Mississippi River, had to be achieved a thousand miles away from Washington, D.C. and Richmond Va.

A few of the battlefields have been forgotten or built over. Others are seriously threatened by development. A few have been preserved in a condition very similar to what they were at the time. I have had the good fortune to visit four such battlefields: Gettysburg, Antietam/Sharpsburg, Stones River/Murfreesboro and Bull Run/Manassas. Despite a lifelong personal interest in the Civil War, the war itself seemed abstract until I made those visits. In commemoration of 150 years since the start of the Civil War, it is time that you gain the same connection to the conflict: Visit a battlefield.

The first battlefield you should visit is one administered by the National Park Service. These are usually well-preserved and have helpful plaques throughout. Your first stop should definitely be the visitor’s center, where maps are available with explanations of the battle itself. If there is a park ranger leading a tour, take one. They are fantastic. Alternately, if you’ve got a friend who is a Civil War buff, drag him along and he’ll talk your ears off about why the hill you’re standing on might just be one of the most important hills in American history.

Why should we visit battlefields? Because in so doing we make sense of the battles. What I have found most striking is that the logical order of a battle map dissolves when actually on the field. Further, many of the maps printed in books simply don’t reflect the reality of the field. Many of these maps are not topographical, which means that they convey no information about elevation. This omission is especially important in the case of Antietam, where the countryside ended up blocking General McClellan’s view, leading him to commit tactical blunders. One rise in particular allowed General Lee to conceal some important troop movements. The bluff overlooking Antietam Creek at the Rohrbach Bridge allowed 400 Confederate riflemen to hold off General Burnside’s entire corps for several hours. On a flat map, none of this is clear. On the field itself, all of it is obvious.

On a battlefield, another thing is obvious: the courage of the men of both sides. The Confederates who attacked Cemetery Ridge on the third day of Gettysburg had to cross a mile of open ground to reach Federal lines. Standing at the Bloody Angle gives the visitor a true appreciation of what an inviting target those 15,000 men must have made, advancing without cover over a plain. Conversely, walking among stalks of corn taller than you are while imagining that you are under artillery and musket fire from places you saw earlier but can barely see now gives an appreciation for what troops of Federal I Corps faced in the first minutes of Antietam.

These realizations conspire with other intangibles to make the battle seem more real to us. The first time I visited Gettysburg was in late August. The weather was very similar to that which greeted Pickett’s Charge: nearly 90 degrees and very humid. Walking around all day was tiring to say the least, and I wasn’t even wearing a woolen jacket like the soldiers did. The second time I was at Gettysburg I had a very eerie experience. At a series of jumbled rocks called Devil’s Den, I looked at the soil and saw something that was yellow-white. It appeared to be the end of a human collarbone. On further examination, I realized it was nothing more than a rock. I tittered at my melodramatic assumption that it was a human remain. Yet in another sense, my reaction —  melodramatic almost anywhere else — was completely reasonable there. I was standing at a spot where someone my age may have been killed or wounded. After visiting Antietam, I have a similar experience every time.

I see an iconic photograph of bodies next to a caisson near the Dunker Church. I have stood on top of where those bodies were. Knowing that someone died where you now stand is a strange and moving experience. No other experience can so neatly bridge the 150 years that separate us from our nation’s bloodiest conflict.

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