The art and architecture of Civil War battlefield monuments memorialize the courage and sacrifice of soldiers and the resultant reunification of the nation on the ground where these soldiers fought and died for their respective ideals of freedom. The common thread that ties together these thousands of Union and Confederate memorials erected over the course of 150 years is the concept of site-specific commemoration. On the eve of the sesquicentennial, a few memorials were placed for individuals and groups whose service had not been properly commemorated in the past.
Twenty-five years later, during the Centennial of the war several southern states finally found the incentive and funding to build memorials to their sons who had earlier fought the federal government in a lost cause. By the dedication of the Eternal Light Peace Memorial at Gettysburg in 1938, most of the white Union troops who had served on the major battlefields had been commemorated with markers or monuments, and the popular perception of the war had evolved to one that recognized it not as the culmination of the nation’s division over slavery or states’ rights, but the cauldron in which the nation was reunited for all time.
The first battlefield monument to African Americans was erected at Vicksburg in 2004. However, the skin color of all of those commemorated was white. Those raised between the 25th and 50th anniversaries memorialized the fallen as well as the survivors on the ground where they displayed their courage, and a few reflect the sectional reconciliation that was occurring nationwide-fostered in part by the formation of national military parks and joint veteran reunions held on the fields. Monuments raised before the 25th anniversary of the war were funereal in character. Even as the Civil War raged, soldiers began erecting monuments where they fought and buried the dead.
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