That's the only way to see a battlefield. Two of my great great grandfathers fought at Chickamauga, and we got very organized to take our two children on an extensive tour of the battlefield. I wrote the park historian (he is a great fellow, turns out he attended the same school in Maryland that one of my gg grandfathers graduated from -- small world!) and he provided a lot of information on the historical markers on the battlefield and an excellent topo map. We started in our ancestors' position before the battle began and basically followed their progress through the scene. Fortunately one was artillery and the other a scout, and both were in the thick of things.
And you're right, the only thing we needed the visitor center for was a Coke and a smile. We did stop to see the film, though, since we were there. It was pleasant, accurate, and not politically correct, the framework was the shades of two soldiers, blue and gray, looking back over the battlefield and trading reminiscences. Kinda neat and related to what really happened - it was the first battlefield park and quite a number of former combatants assisted in the effort. After reading a couple of the historical markers on the ground it became obvious to me that they were NOT written in the usual style - one involving the action of a gg grandfather just "read" like he had written it (he had a very distinctive writing style) so I wrote the historian and asked him if the participants had helped write the markers. He responded that yes, indeed, participants in key actions had been invited to "write their own markers" subject to approval by the committee.
Imagine what a bunch of PC revisionists would do with a bronze marker written by one of the hated Rebels . . . :-(
Chickamauga allows horses, and has not allowed the fields of that time to overgrow. So the very best way of all to see the area is a "battlefield ride" - on a horse who is steady enough to allow you to unroll a map on his/her back. I have been trying to talk my trainer into leading a field trip up there, combine a little history with some riding (if I can just figure out a way to work some JUMPS into the mix, I think I can sell her on the deal.)
free dixie,sw
You left out the bookstore and restrooms (some places are a little too crowded to be watering the trees), but otherwise I'm with you.
I don't often approach the Park Service historians when I'm at a battlefield, but I do hobnob with them a bit at conferences and Roundtable events. They mostly strike me as solid-to-outstanding civil war military historians, as having a deep personal interest in the field, and as straight shooters on the political issues. When you get them out of uniform and away from their duty station (e.g. at a civil war conference), they are often fairly scathing about creeping political correctness in the NPS.
IMO, the real threat in NPS revisionism isn't that they'll bollix up Gettysburg, Antietam, or Shiloh. A Jesse Jackson, Jr. approved display or movie in the Visitors Center isn't the end of the world. The threat is that the NPS will, over time, change its recruitment and promotion practices and replace the military historians with social historians. That would be a loss of a very valuable resource. (For one thing, I'd have a much harder time finding Roundtable speakers.)
One already sees a lot more women staffing the battlefields, most of whom don't seem much interested in tactics, terrain, and the details of the fighting. We've had a few as Roundtable speakers when we want to vary our standard shot-and-shell program. The ladies do a perfectly fine job, but they want to talk about camp life, the homefront, care of the wounded, and how the soldiers celebrated Christmas. They go blank if you ask an order of battle or regimental history question. I'll grant that there's room for a bit (a very little bit) of social history at the battlefields, but I'd hate to see the military historians squeezed out, especially since most colleges give military history the back of the hand.
I recall a fairly hilarious rant on this subject from Richard McMurry, who is entertaining to begin with, to the effect that the reason most academic historians hate military history is pure envy. The military historians study something people are actually interested in. They write books that people actually buy and read, get to go to lively conferences, take interesting tours, and get out of the academic ghetto. He may have been right. Perhaps we have a professional historian who would like to comment.