"Visiting Battlefields" Topic

What is your preferred way if visiting a historical battlefield?

A. With a tour?
B. What a individual battlefield guide?
C. Walking it with friends?
D. Walking it solo?
E. Letting your fingers do the walking online?
F. Reading about it in a book?
G. You dont walk battlefield?
H. Whats a battlefield?
I. Cant visit the battlefield in fantasy or space?
J. Not your cup of tea?
K. This is ridiculous?
L. Other?

Good question. It can depend on the battlefield. For example, Culloden or the Boyne have Visitor's Centres, free maps, marking & pathways etc. You can easily walk it yourself. I believe a lot of ACW & AWI battlefields are equally visitor-friendly?

That being said, I have also taken a guided tour of Culloden & the excellent guide provided extra information.

Walking an "empty field" can be useful & also entertaining but you have to put the effort in.

So in the spirit of being totally unhelpful (sorry), A, B, C, D.

I once spent several hours walking the site of Mons Graupius – at a site in Aberdeenshire my cousin assured me was the place.

After clambering through heather etc, a local farmer approached & told us the battle field was several miles away "over there".
And further research has convinced me he was probably wrong too.

D. with a boardgame or scenario guide of the battle. I have done Gettysburg with a Park service guide in the car. That was 30 years ago, I'm not sure if this is still available. I find as a gamer having a guide not worth it, we know too much trivia.

I have done A thru F.

Have done a considerable number here in the US over 50 years, Have started to add a few in Europe over the lest several years.

Kim

Used to walk independently before I lost my leg. Now I try to hit souvenir show or theaters.

A through F for me too.

In Normandy. And Arnhem.

Walked Epsom, Goodwood, Totalize and Bluecoat battlefields including Pavee where Sidney Bates won his VC.

It's quite something being at a battle site compared to just reading about it in a book.

Also then visiting the cemeteries near where battles took place to see those that didn't make it.

And knowing relatives of mine were in these battles.

B

With friends, half the value comes from doing the research beforehand. It's very rewarding trying to tie down the location where incidents from people's memoirs happened.

With a fellow enthusiast friend I have walked the battlefields of the 1805 & 1809 Campaigns in the Danube Valley. This was in the summer of 1998. The field of Aspern-Essling just outside Vienna was still discernible and not fully built over. All the other battlefields were away from significant towns and thus had survived very much intact. At Austerlitz there was a McDonalds Restaurant and car park not far from Napoleon's Command position but that was it.

We had maps and books with us and found we could hike around all the fields. It was wonderful!!

Enjoyed them the most when performing living history for the battlefields. Could drive the fields before visitors arrived in early morning, or after camp closed. Some licensed guide tours. Stories by the Rangers around campfires at night. Sleeping on the same ground as the battles. Behind the Pennsylvania monument at Gettysburg, beside and once inside the rebuilt Dunkard Church during a storm, Kelly's Field, Snodgrass Hill, even put on a impromptu cabin dance in the Snodgrass cabin with some stranded tourists and my group during a horrible storm that brought huge trees down, destroyed our camp and closed the park the rest of the day. So many more.

That was my way.

D. Research first, come with good maps and select narratives and pack a pair of binoculars along with the water bottle. Hit the visitor center if there is one.

It's C for me. I have been to Gettysburg and Antietam over twenty times, and several other ACW battlefields once or twice. Little Bighorn is also one of my favorite places, and I visited that many times. The site of the Fetterman massacre was pretty underwhelming to me as a kid, but I would like to revisit it as an adult.

In the US I like to use a park ranger as a guide. They are very knowledgeable and often drive the car too. The ACW battlefields are easier to navigate and appreciate than the AWI ones.
In Normandy the battlefield is divided into many small parts. That makes each part easy to navigate.
Bigger European battlefields usually need some background work by myself to appreciate the battle (waterloo , Bastogne, Falais , Berlin etc)
In England, battlefields are very poorly "guided". Lack of funds means no park rangers and often no visitor centre et al. WOTR, ECW. Shame on England.
Scotland seems to have done better (Bannockburn, etc) but I have not been there.

martin

Ive usually done D. Many battlefields are spread out (like the Little Big Horn with several miles between Custer Hill and Reno Hill) and you need to drive between the segments.

Not sure how to categorize this, but I drove over the James River bridge in Virginia, and off to the east was a sign sticking out of the water letting me know that this is the site of the battle of Hampton Roads, where the USS Monitor fought the CSS Virginia in 1862.

Grelber

I missed that one Grelber!

Done C. and D. But if a tour guide had been available I'd have used them.

Like many others – several
Guide: Normandy (he was really good)
Older brother as a Guide: Gettysberg, Antietam
With a friend: Bull Run
Self walk: Little Big Horn
Self drive: Vicksberg

Read about them" many

M. Commute

Wiki – Battle of Adwalton Moor 1643

Mostly by myself, or following notice boards. Thinking about it, I am amazed by the range of battlefields I have visited, from Isandlhwana and Rourke's Drift, one of the Boer war battlefields, several WoR Battlefields (St. Albans 1 and 2, Towcester), Flodden, Lewes, Hastings.

Not counting sieges, from Colchester (ECW) to Dover.

It's C, D and F for me. As a student at the Army War College, also did two fascinating staff rides focused on leadership at Gettysburg and Antietam. And as a senior official at USNATO, we brought in the USAREUR historian to lead a staff ride at Waterloo focused on the "alliance politics" of the 1815 campaign. In Normandy and the Bulge, I did some research and found the Band of Brothers Brecourt mansion hedge and the foxholes in the woods outside Foy. Also traveled to Arnhem to see the Airborne Museum at Hartenstein villa, the British HQ building.

I have self-toured many ACW/AWI battlefields, some of them several times. As a high school teacher there was never spare cash for a guide. The strongest effects were from Shiloh and Sharpsburg, perhaps because of the carnage.

In the UK I again, for the same reason, self-toured as many important sites as my wife could stand. The Scottish sites were nice where growth had not infringed and some had amenities like the US. Many of the English sites were built up, as one would expect. One that was not, in 1985, was Marston Moor where I arrived at about the same time of day as the battle. There was a little overgrown monument to a upper class casualty and nothing else. I walked to what seemed to be White Syke Close and down Goring's charge area.
As I looked out at Cromwell's Plump The same feelings as Shiloh and Sharpsburg came over me. One should see the ground if at all possible. It is moving.

Hmm. Bosworth (old location) Auldearn, Waterloo, Chippewa, Lundy's Lane, Bull Run, Antietam, Gettysburg and pretty much all the Shenandoah Valley sites. I used to commute through the Ox Hill battlefield, but there's nothing left but a Phil Kearny memorial and suburban DC housing.

I was actually stationed for three years in Bad Kissingen (formerly Kissingen) ran in PT formations over a Bridge the Prussians took in 1866 and when on ammo guard I could still see crop shadows of Bavarian entrenchments at sunrise and sunset. One of my officers used to complain that his duties kept him from visiting battlefields, but apart from Kissingen itself, he was actually commuting down Task Force Baum's route from 1945.

Does Seoul count as a battlefield? Or Pusan?