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Budget amendment would make millions of dollars available for preserving Virginia Civil War battlefields Date published: 4/16/2008
By RUSTY DENNEN Civil War battlefield preservation efforts here could get a big boost from the state--and private donors. Among Gov. Tim Kaine's amendments to the 2008-2010 budget bill is a $5 million addition to the Civil War Historic Site Preservation Fund. The infusion of cash, supported by House Speaker Bill Howell, R-Stafford County, could be used to purchase important, privately owned land. Private preservation groups such as the Civil War Preservation Trust have to raise $2 for every dollar they receive in state funding for the purchases. The General Assembly will take final action on Kaine's budget plan April 23. The preservation fund addition is one of 41 amendments on the table, totaling about $8.9 million. "This is crucial. It's something we've been working on for three years," said Jim Campi, spokesman for the Washington, D.C.-based Civil War Preservation Trust. About $500,000 from the fund, created in 2006, was used by the national nonprofit preservation group toward its $12 million purchase of the 210-acre Slaughter Pen Farm along Tidewater Trail in Spotsylvania County. About $200,000 was used last year toward the purchase of land at the Glendale battlefield near Richmond. There, as in the Fredericksburg area, Congress sets the battlefield boundaries and some significant land remains in private hands within and outside the boundaries. Preservationists told the Virginia Sesquicentennial of the American Civil War Commission last fall that those parcels must be obtained quickly before they are swallowed by development. The years 2011-2015 will mark the 150th anniversary of the Civil War. "There are some key properties that we still think need to be acquired land associated with Chancellorsville and Spotsylvania, the Wilderness and at Brandy Station in Culpeper," Campi said. Howell, who chairs the sesquicentennial commission, has been a supporter of battlefield preservation and supports the budget amendment. "It's very important It's a good public-private partnership," Howell said yesterday. Without CWPT's efforts and the money from the state fund, "Slaughter Pen would be a shopping center," Howell said. The farm, part of the 1882 Battle of Fredericksburg, earned its name because of the fierce fighting on the property.
Date published: 4/16/2008
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