From the article: Top 5 Battlefield Sites to Visit
I've selected five battlefield sites—parks and historic reservations that are the locations of battles—that I think are interesting ones to visit. But there are others. Which ones do you recommend? Share Your Experience
Antietam
- My favorite battlefield is Antietam. It probably looks more like it did in the civil war that any other I've been too. Also, it is probably the bloodiest piece of soil in America.
- —ccglea
Little Bighorn Battle
- This site is so very awesom. By the placement of the headstones (each man lost was buried where he fell) you can "read" the battle. You can "see" the terror, the panic and the massacre. One headstone is 600-800 yards away from all the rest. Try to imagine why. The ever present daytime wind across the prairies or the haunting silence at sunrise and sunset are haunting. You can almost hear the bugles or the music of "Garry Owen" or "Boots and Saddles". Far down on the flats below you swear too that you can hear the everyday sounds of a very large and peaceful indian village. This is a hallowed place that you ill not ever forget. My 2nd choice has to be the Gettysburg battlefield.
- —Guest VEWenneker
Shiloh or Pittsburg Landing
- In Tennessee and Mississippi was a ghastly battlefield, called Shiloh I visited from Tishomingo, MS, in 1979 working on the archeology of the Tennessee-Tombigbee Barge Canal connecting the waters of the Tennessee with Mobile, Alabama through northern MS. Near a place reported in the American Bicentennial research as where former VP Aaron Burr was after the deadly duel with Alexander Hamilton, the battle led to the first protest songs in America. There next to cemetery one can see three large Parrot rifled cannons, made in the West Point Foundry in Cold Spring, NY across the Hudson River from the Academy Robert E. Lee was once commandant of, their muzzles symbolically silenced, pointed into the now sacred ground where many fell, but apparently few were formally buried. I would later work in the foundry and recover the R.P. Parrot "gun platform" used as the "Swamp Angel" in the 1863 bombardment of Charleston, SC in EPA HAZMAT archaeology, in 1992, from NIKE missile nicad batteries.
- —georgejmyersjr
What about Gettysburg?
- I found Gettysburg to be really the most moving place. And the museum is just wonderful, and they have reenactments, which I've never seen but would love to go to.
- —Guest Agnes
