Blood money: Gettysburg's status as a national symbol is inseparable from its commercial success

Reason, March, 2004 by Damon W. Root

Gettysburg: Memory, Market; and an American Shrine, by Jim Weeks, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 288 pages, $29.95

IN JULY 1863, the Army of Northern Virginia under Gen. Robert E. Lee and the Army of the Potomac under Gen. George G. Meade met in battle in and around the quiet town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. More than 5,000 men were killed, some 10,000 went missing, and more than 27,000 were wounded. On the third day of fighting, Union forces decimated a Confederate charge led by Maj. Gen. George Pickett.

The Union victory halted Lee's second invasion of the North, severely weakened his army, and helped turn the tide of the war. By November 19, when Abraham Lincoln gave his most famous speech, entrepreneurs, promoters, and journalists had already declared the adjacent battlefield one of America's most hallowed places.

Today more than 2 million people visit Gettysburg each year, and the number of books on the subject dwarfs the number on any other Civil War topic. Millions watch movies and documentaries about the battle; hundreds of Web sites and e-mall lists facilitate discussion and debate; and tens of thousands of Gettysburg re-enactors take to the field annually in period uniforms, outfitted with expensive, historically accurate equipment. Devotees of the battle can buy recipe books and board games, take guided tours and ghost walks, stroll through the National Civil War Wax Museum in Gettysburg, even try to contact fallen heroes in a seance.

A combination of popular culture, technology, and desire has transformed a site of horrific carnage into one of the nation's biggest attractions, one that a motley mix of businesses, government officials, civic groups, preservationists, and everyday tourists has shaped and sold as "the most American place in America" Jim Weeks, a professor of American history at Pennsylvania State University and scholar in residence at the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, has written a fascinating, though flawed, account of this ongoing commercial and cultural phenomenon. "Gettysburg did not emerge as a shrine simply by popular will," Weeks writes in Gettysburg: Memory, Market, and an American Shrine. "Rather, a commercial web often intertwined with ritualistic activity packaged it for a consuming public and continually repackaged it for new generations."

The blood had barely dried when humanitarian groups, distraught relatives, and large numbers of wealthy spectators descended on the smoldering aftermath. Quick to meet the commercial challenges posed by this influx, intrepid locals sprang into action. Hacks offered guided rides, property owners preserved battle damage for display, and relic hunters hawked everything from bones to bullets. Genteel shoppers, many of whom had never visited the battlefield, soon filled their parlors with a variety of Gettysburg-inspired products, including maps, photographs, sheet music, and poetry. Such items encouraged meaningful reflection on the Union victory; they also provided hours of entertainment and diversion.

Remarkably, most of these travelers and shoppers viewed their consumption as an escape from the commercial world, rather than participation in it. Much the same happens today when self-styled eco-tourists and heritage buffs hotly deny that commerce has anything to do with their hobbies, all while wearing or carrying thousands of dollars in clothing and gear. Collectors of Gettysburg heirlooms regularly part with hefty sums to acquire historic items, just as bibliophiles buy rare first editions, sports fans bid on home run baseballs, food lovers travel across continents to dine at acclaimed restaurants, and art lovers tour the world's galleries. All of these consumers find satisfaction and meaning in the things they buy. Many of them doubtless regard their own activities as culturally enlightened and others' as shallow consumerism.

Sadly, Weeks reveals a similar elitism. He dismisses much of today's commercial culture as "further[ing] social fracturing by herding consumers." This view, usually associated with liberal elites, has its fans on the right as well. We're so busy renting sensational junk from Blockbuster, claim social conservatives, that we neglect God, country, and family. Or, say the liberals, we waste our money on video games and trashy novels while the fine arts totter on the brink of extinction. Both sides claim the marketplace debases "authentic" culture. Their complaint, moreover, is not just that we have bad taste but that our bad taste hurts society. The real disagreement, then, has nothing to do with whether commerce is a bad thing. Both sides clearly embrace commercial activity when it suits their agendas and interests. The fight is over what we "should" consume and why.

Thanks to spectacular advances in technology and communication, plus rising wages and increased leisure hours, great numbers of Americans joined this cultural debate at the turn of the 20th century. The railroads ushered in a new era of mass culture, allowing millions of working- and middle-class citizens to travel for pleasure for the first time, visiting such places as amusement parks, museums of natural history, and even rural cemeteries. These new visitors often began by putting the landscape itself to new use. Gettysburg, with its wide avenues and lovely vistas, made an ideal setting for picnics, sporting matches, and other less refined endeavors.