Treatment Philosophy and Guidelines for the Battlefield Commemorative Area, Gettysburg National Military Park

Auwaerter, John

The Battlefield Commemorative Area of Gettysburg National Military Park is the portion of the battlefield developed by veterans between 1864 and 1927 for commemorative and financial purposes. The area is a designed landscape historically characterized by mostly narrow corridors that contained avenues flanked by monuments, memorials, markers, cannons, observation towers, mown turf, rebuilt earthworks, fences, and other post-battle features. The Eternal Light Peace Memorial on Oak Hill, dedicated in 1938, was the final historic addition to the Battlefield Commemorative Area. The national military park landscape is comprised of two main areas: Major Battle Action Area (1863 battlefield) and the Battlefield Commemorative Area, which together comprise one historic landscape with two nationally significant layers of historic development. Begun in 1864 under the Gettysburg Battlefield Memorial Association, the Battlefield Commemorative Area was developed under veteran leadership through 1927 by the Gettysburg National Park Commission and the US War Department under the leadership of Colonel John P. Nicholson (1842-1922) and commission engineer and later superintendent Colonel Emmor B. Cope (1834-1927). The park as completed by 1927 honored those who fought in the battle, marked the movements of both armies, and instilled military character and order into the visitor experience of the battlefield. The Park Commission designed the commemorative area as a distinguishable but compatible overlay on the rural landscape of the 1863 battlefield without altering the battlefield's key terrain, observation and fields of fire, cover and concealment, obstacles, or avenues of approach/withdrawal. This report provides guidance on treatment of the Battlefield Commemorative Area as a companion to a report completed in 2004 to guide rehabilitation of the vernacular battlefield landscape, entitled "Treatment Philosophy: The 1863 Landscape." The current report has not been developed in response to a specific rehabilitation program but rather to inform future planning and foster consistent landscape treatment. This report is based on the broad guidance in the park's General Management Plan (1999) and documentation in the National Register of Historic Places (2004). The report also builds on research, planning, and treatment from recently completed cultural landscape reports, but its guidance is less prescriptive.

Treatment Philosophy and Guidelines for the Battlefield Commemorative Area, Gettysburg National Military Park

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