Gone are the days when the beating of drums and the bleating of bugles called infantrymen to battle. But back in the Civil War, the marching of thousands of feet heading into battle could not have been accomplished without drummers beating out the rhythmic cadence. Sadly, many of the fields those young boys in blue & gray fought, bled and died on have faded away. In an effort to preserve those historic sites, the U.S. Mint in 1995 issued a special Civil War Battlefields Commemorative Half-Dollar. Released on the 130th anniversary of the end of the Civil War, the coin featured a drummer in long coat on the obverse. On the reverse, a solitary cannon overlooks a quiet battlefield below an inscription that reads, “Enriching our future by preserving the past.” All the funds raised from the sale of this extraordinary coin was used for preservation. Only 330,099 Proof coins were struck for this release, and all of our coins have been certified, graded and encapsulated by the Numismatic Guaranty Corporation of America (NGC) or the Professional Coin Grading Service (PCGS) to be in Proof State 69 (PR69) condition.