American Civil War battlefield preservation

The practice of preserving the battlefields of the American Civil War for historical and memorial reasons has been developed over more than 150 years in the United States. Even during the American Civil War active duty soldiers on both sides of the conflict began erecting impromptu battlefield monuments to their recently fallen comrades.^[1] Since these initial attempts at preservation and commemoration, important Civil War battle sites have been preserved by various groups and many are now in the care of the National Park Service and overseen by the American Battlefield Protection Program (ABPP).^[2] Of approximately 10,500 acts of aggression that occurred between the United States and the Confederacy 384 have been identified in a 1993 federal report as being principle to the conflict.^[2] From these a select few have been chosen based on their historical significance, accessibility, and preservability to be federally curated.^[3] Beyond sites run by the U.S. Federal government many secondary battle sites across the United States are maintained and operated by state governments and private historical groups.