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Better signage for battlefields
New, more engaging signs enhance visitor experience to battlefield park
Date published: 10/14/2005
By ELIZABETH PEZZULLO An 1863 picture of dead Confederate soldiers slumped in a ditch beside Fredericksburg's Sunken Road is one of the most enduring images of the Civil War. But for the past 50 years or so, visitors to Fredericksburg & Spotsylvania National Military Park saw the picture perched near the Fredericksburg Battlefield Visitor Center parking lot, 100 yards from the place where it was taken. Now, that's all changed. Four years ago, the National Park Service began freshening up its woefully outdated "wayside exhibits." The new signs "provide an added dimension for visitors to envision the historic themes," park Superintendent Russ Smith said. "They're a great enhancement." About 80 percent of all visitors take self-guided tours, so the signs are sometimes the only information they receive about the battlefields' history. About 40 new signs with rewritten text, original artwork and poignant excerpts from soldiers' letters and diaries have already been installed throughout the park. "For most visitors, this is what they get when they go out on the field," said John Hennessy, the park's chief historian. "These exhibits are what distinguishes these fields from a million others across the country." An even more critical detail is making sure the signs are site-specific, Hennessy said. Today, with Sunken Road closed to traffic, the new signs create a gut-wrenching experience for the visitor. Tourists can stand in front of the iconic photograph, glance to their left and stare at the very spot where a young soldier, his back arched and face covered in blood, released his last breath. "One of the great things we can do is put the visitor within feet of the original location," Hennessy said. "That's very powerful." When the project is complete in about three years, 110 new signs will have been installed, he said. Costing about $2,500 each, the angled signs are much smaller than their predecessors. They feature Fiberglas panels that make the artwork and text easy to change if updates are needed. The new signs are being placed in areas that had a crucial impact during the war, and around cemeteries and other structures. "We need to be able to put things back that are now gone and recall the events that are now forgotten," Hennessy said. The exhibits' text was written by Hennessy and Park Historian Donald C. Pfanz.
Date published: 10/14/2005
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