Battlefield pilgrims at Gettysburg National Military Park

Abstract

Historic battlefields provoke a broad range of responses from visitors. This article reports on the reasons people give for visiting Gettysburg National Military Park and the perceptions and images they have of the park. The meanings that Gettysburg has for people are varied and in some cases highly affective. The research provides empirical support for the suggestion of other studies that sometimes battlefield visitors begin as tourists, but then are transformed into pilgrims. (Battlefield tourism, pilgrimage, historic sites) ********** Despite world history being riddled with events of war, few battlefields have been marked for remembrance, perhaps because the sites recall destruction, death, and sometimes feelings of disgrace, anger, or despair. Many battlefields, if stripped of casualties and the detritus of war, are physically unremarkable and need to be transformed from neutral terrains into culturally meaningful landscapes (Gold and Gold 2003; Kapralski 2001). The transformation is done by the placement of physical artifacts such as monuments, statues, and gelded war machines, as well as the use of verbal text: brochures, guidebooks, signs, plaques, and tour guides. All these shape and define the visitors' experience on ground that otherwise may seem unprepossessing. The growing literature on battlefield tourism documents some of the history of restoration efforts in Europe, North America, and Australia (e.g., Diller and Scofidio 1994; Gold and Gold 2003; Linenthal 1991; Lloyd 1998; Ramsay 2001; Weeks 2003). There is general agreement that battlefield restoration, a Subset of commemoration activities, began in the nineteenth century in association with the creation of national histories and patriotic fervor in young states such as America or the renewed states of Europe (Gillis 1994). Anderson's (1991) work has helped to show how the veneration of military death is linked to modern nationalistic impulses. In the nineteenth century, battlefields and military cemeteries came to be seen as holy places, sanctified by the death of soldiers. These deaths were framed as sacrifices for the highly abstract notion of a nation or what Anderson (1991) describes as an "imagined community." In the United States, where there was a dearth of religious shrines, battlefields, military cemeteries, and monuments came to be regarded as sacred places. Linenthal (1991:4) argues that in the nineteenth century, a common religious-style rhetoric he calls the "patriotic canon" permeated the text of remembrance at American military sites with the oft-repeated themes of "war as holy crusade, bringing new life to the nation and warrior as culture hero and savior." To the extent that battlefields are regarded as holy sites, visitors might think of themselves as pilgrims. This notion is apparent in Walter's (1993:72) study of a World War II battlefield in which he describes what he and others experienced, where "for a few moments [visitors] cease to be tourists and have connected with something very deep." The battlefield as shrine is also the central focus of a recent historical study of Gettysburg National Military Park, which has become "a great cultural icon" (Weeks 2003:6). The representation of Gettysburg in brochures, books, tours, and the park Web site uses highly charged language such as "hallowed ground," "national shrine," and "place of pilgrimage." Such language encourages the visitors to see the battlefield as a sacred shrine commemorating the country's most difficult period of conflict. But how do people actually regard the site? Are reactions generally congruent with the evocative language of the public portrayal, or is there a wide range of responses to Gettysburg? This basic problem, the focus of the article, is part of ongoing research on the appeal of history to Americans, the responses of visitors to heritage sites, and their preferences for different kinds of historical sites (e. …