• Photo of cannon at Antietam National Battlefield

    The Civil War

Places

Makeshift hospitals for the wounded, private homes turned into battle headquarters, and more memorials than one can count - a wide variety of structures and sites were either directly affected by the Civil War, or later built in commemoration of it. And not surprisingly, as the caretaker of America's treasures, including battlefields and military parks, hundreds of the sites that still remain are today located within the National Park System.

Showing Results 26- 30 of 71

  • Fort Stevens

    Photo of the officers and men of Company F, 3rd Massachusetts Heavy Artillery in Fort Stevens in 1865

    Fort Stevens is one of many fortifications that surrounded Washington DC during the Civil War and the place where President Abraham Lincoln came under fire from Confederate forces. Read more

  • Homestead National Monument of America

    Freeman School

    Photo of desks and stove inside the Freeman School

    The Freeman School has no known connection with the Civil War, but is part of a larger American story - the yearning of common Americans for a new start and a chance to settle down and build a better future for their children. This desire led to the Free Soil movement which gave rise to the Republican Party and the Homestead Act. Read more

  • George Washington Carver National Monument

    George Washington Carver Birth Site

    George Washington Carver

    Like most of the millions of African Americans freed by the Civil War, George Washington Carver grew up in a simple cabin or quarters. Few such structures survive to this day, and those which do were often unusually well-built or architecturally pretentious. The Carver birthplace is only marked by an outline today. His legacy was much greater than a building. Read more

  • General Grant National Memorial

    Grant's Tomb

    Photo of the 1897 dedication of Grant's Tomb

    Grant's Tomb is a reminder of how different a figure can appear in the light of current events versus the long view of history. In the summer of 1864, the press reviled "Butcher Grant," and his presidency remains notorious for corruption. A decade after his death the largest public fundraising to that point in American history brought in $600,000 for his tomb and a million people attended its dedication in 1897. Read more

  • Hampton National Historic Site

    Hampton

    Period portrait of Charles Ridgely, fourth master of Hampton

    Hampton shows the anomalies of life in a Border State. While Maryland would not secede from the Union, slavery was still part of the local economy and culture. The wealthy Ridgelys were every bit as aristocratic as any cotton planters, but many of their enslaved workforce worked in industry, and nearby Baltimore had a larger free black population than enslaved. Read more