Middle Creek was a nationally significant Civil War battlefield and a tragic example of fratricidal, Kentuckian-against-Kentuckian combat typical of this region. A Union victory, the battle focused national attention on Ohio's James A. Garfield, who two decades later became the twentieth President of the United States. The site is being preserved to honor the memory of the gallant men, both Union and Confederate, who fought and died there, and to support broader interpretation of Middle Creek, other Civil War battles fought in Eastern Kentucky, and the war's social and economic impact on the region as a whole.