Altogether Fitting and Proper: Civil War Battlefield Preservation in History, Memory, and Policy, 1861–2015 By Timothy B. Smith

Abstract

With a thorough historical and social perspective, Timothy B. Smith delivers a compelling discussion of Civil War battlefield preservation by examining a web of factors including government policy, private action, memory, and race relations. In Altogether Fitting and Proper, Smith begins with the serendipitous wartime preservation of parts of battlefields for burial of soldier dead, and leads the reader through decades of uneven attention to preservation that, despite recurring interest in so doing, never resulted in a national battlefield preservation policy. Smith suggests that the inevitable political struggle at the local, state, and national levels—including changing national priorities and evolving memories of the conflict—were inseparable from evolving race relations. Because his focus is not only on politics and on individual preservation actions, but also on surrounding social forces, Smith joins a growing number of scholars who directly confront the enormous impacts of these forces in shaping our history, our present, and our future.