What does battlefield preservation mean? Is it a type of landscaping, not allowing trees to grow on an old battlefield? Is it archaeology and excavation? Giving tours? All of these?

I am originally from Middle Tennessee. Two local Civil War battlefields with very different preservation trajectories immediately come to mind: Shiloh and Stones River.

Shiloh, for the most part, is still wooded, serene, tucked away from the mass of crowds, and appears on the surface to be relatively safe from development. Stones River is right on I-24 near Murfreesboro. The area is undergoing tremendous development, with a massive shopping complex recently finished that encroaches on the outer areas of battlefield.

Do you know of plans to further develop the land near the Battle of Murfreesboro?

What can we do, as private citizens and historians in other fields, to lobby for preservation of the site?

Thanks.

In preserved areas, is the goal to keep the battlefield as close to the state it was in at the time? I'm thinking of the tree cover specifically. At Gettysburg, I saw some stands that might have been saplings at the time of the battle, and wondered about the age of the forest then

Also, how would you deal with open land that is no longer farmed? Mowing to keep down encroachment seems expensive.

What kind of work goes into preservation? Is your group mostly working to reclaim, so to speak, former battlefield land, and then turning it over to the NPS, or do you continue to work with the NPS afterwards to maintain and curate the space as well?

What is the biggest challenge your organization faces when it comes to preserving Civil War battlefields?

Does it make a difference when dealing with battlefields up in the Mid-Atlantic region versus the deep south? By which I mean both in terms of natural obstacles like climate, but also dealing with people such as property owners and the like.

Also, a few more minor questions:

I love touring battlefields, and have gone to quite a number over the past few years. Which ones are the personal favorites of y'all? Is there some minor one that I might not realize is worth the visit and should add to my list?

Also, there are tons of cannons at every battlefield. I know that almost all the wood is modern replica, but how many of the guns themselves are original? Rough estimate at least?

In your work preserving battlefields, does "The Lost Cause" ideology cause problems with local populations or tourists?

How do you select which battlefields to preserve? The war had an amazing number of conflicts ranging from tiny up to massive. Why would you preserve Palmito, for example, but not Columbus/Girard? (Both are claimed as the "last battle of the Civil War")

Do you use size as a major criteria? Condition? Imminent threat? I imagine you don't have unlimited resources (who does?), so how do you decide what to preserve and what not?

Thanks for the AMA, by the way.

Two questions, if I may:

1. What are some of the most currently threatened battlefields that are not in the public eye (in other words, I think that the plight of say Gettysburg or Stones River is well known; are there other historically significant battlefields that are threatened)?

2. What is your favorite/most interesting battlefield that you've worked on? Feel free to interpret that however you'd like.

Thanks for doing this!

What sites should I see sooner than later because they won't be there any more?

Why preserve a battlefield? What are the motives behind preserving a place where men fought and died?

My father fancies himself a "relic hunter". How do you feel about those civil war buffs that go from battlefield to battlefield with metal detectors and scoop up artifacts? Do you think they should report their findings to anyone?

First off, THANK YOU for all you do. I'm a big supporter.

There have been a few instances of national battlefields and/or military parks having to "give up" property in cases of imminent domain (the example I'm thinking of was the addition of turn lanes at the Sudley Rd-US29 intersection by the stone house at Manassas).

Does the Trust have concerns about something similar occurring in regards to ground you turn over to the NPS and is anything being done to ensure that doesn't happen?

You have a great mission, and I fully support your efforts. From what I understand based on your website you purchase the land, so am I correct in assuming that you handle ground-keeper works as well? What is your procedure for archaeological extraction on these battle sites? Or do you prefer to leave these artifacts in the grounds? If you do dig up artifacts (such as rifle rounds, bayonets, personal affects), do you sell them, donate them to museums, or do you keep them on site?

Don't you think the Lincoln movie really should have shown more of the agency on the part of the black population which obliged policy makers to respond to realities on the ground with regard to emancipation?

I'm sorry, I know it's a slanted question, but while I quite enjoyed the movie it bothers me that what black characters there were in the movie were mostly passive save for the soldiers at the start.

What type of espionage was conducted by either side during the war? What effect did the war have on the way intelligence was gathered?

An old family friend, and avid Civil War buff, used to take part in taking classes from the Army War College around the Gettysburg battlefield, where, I would assume, they evaluated the strategies employed at the both the strategic and tactical levels.

Does your foundation work with schools, like the Army War College, to explain and/or study strategies and tactics employed at the sites, or is it more focused on preservation and familiarization with the sites themselves?

Which non-American groups go to Civil War battlefields in the most numbers? Why do they visit?

What do you feel is the biggest challenge facing battlefield preservation, in a global perspective?

I am a huge Civil War fan (as in I love reading about it) and have a nice collection of books about the subject including "Battle Cry of Freedom" by McPherson, "Lee's Last Campaign" by Dowdey, and "The Civil War" by Catton. What is your favorite Civil War book or one that you recommend I read?

I am a huge civil war buff and I've always wondered this but haven't found a satisfactory answer. What were southerners told in order to convince them to fight for what really amounted to a few wealthy people's right to own slaves in their states, a policy which devalued their own labor and didn't benefit the 10s of thousands that died. Must have been a true feat of PR. Thanks!

Have there been any projects in any battlefield's history that have compromised the original landscape, such as the one at Waterloo? If so, how has the trust handled them?

I imagine that human remains are still found on old sites once in a while. What is the procedure for dealing with any remains? Do they get studied before being re-interred? Are efforts made to ascertain any kind of identity? Are remains buried with military ceremony?

Thanks for your time, and for all the work you do!

Portions of Gettysburg Battlefield were used for tank corps training before and during World War I. How did the wear and tear caused by tank movements change the landscape? Is this kind of damage taken into account when restoring areas to their original battlefield conditions?

Hello, thanks for doing this, I live in Australia but I have an American friend who lives close to an area that was a civil war battlefield who says he and other locals have witnessed what might be described as ghosts of dead soldiers, do any of you who might spend lots of time on the grounds have any personal experiences or stories?

Do you have any contact with (or are aware of) similar organisations abroad?

Do we have record of and know the location of every civil war battle fought? Or are there some that are mentioned, but we don't know the exact location? If so, how much of your efforts go into locating lost battlefields?

I had heard that the old fort in the dry Tortugas (Fort Jefferson) was to be closed down. Any news on this and if it will happen?

How do you decide the boundaries of a battlefield? When you come into a stretch of land where a battle was fought, how do you decide where, exactly, the battlefield ends and territory not important to the battle begins?

Are there any battlefields that were identified too late, such that post-war development had already occurred? What would you do, in such a case? For instance, So-and-So's command post is now a gas station.

Do you know how long the XVII Corps of the US Army of the Tennessee carried smoothbore muskets? I used to have one that could be attributed to them, and could never answer that question to my satisfaction.

What is the current, preponderant scholarly consensus on exactly when McClellan received Robert E. Lee's famous Lost Orders? What does this mean for the present assessment of McClellan's merits as a general?

Do you know of any Civil War reenactors' experiences which illuminated disputed questions of historical battlefield tactics and deployments?

What are some good books or articles on civil war telegraphy, and did telegraphy ever play an important roll in the outcome of a battle?

Tell my friend Sam Smith (he works with the trust) that I said hi :)

I visited Gettysburg this summer and our guide told us that some of the battlefield is loaned out to farmers to use as farmland to keep parts of the battlefield looking as it did during the battle and I thought it really made the fields immersive. I'm wondering: why isn't more of the battlefield treated like this?

The grounds of Pickett's Charge are terribly overgrown and completely unlike they would've been at the time. And I can only assume it would be a steady source of income to lease out the land.

Are you in contact with non-American similar organization? If so, is there an exchange of tips, ressources, manpower on certain projects ?

What was the worst decision Abraham Lincoln made as President?