Saving History Saturday: American Battlefield Trust Establishes Lighthizer Legacy Fund
Last week, the American Battlefield Trust announced the retirement of its longtime and respected CEO and President O. James Lighthizer. Shortly thereafter, the organization made a second major announcement – the establishment of the Lighthizer Legacy Fund, created to forever preserve his legacy of preservation.
According to the Trust, the fund, “will focus on three big goals: 1. The significant preservation of the Gaines’ Mill and Cold Harbor battlefields; 2. Blazing the Revolutionary War Liberty Trail in South Carolina; and 3. The significant preservation of the key battlefields of the 1862 Maryland Campaign – Antietam, South Mountain, Harpers Ferry and Shepherdstown.”
The current preservation campaigns to inaugurate the Lighthizer Legacy Fund total over 330 acres. The battlefields include 278 acres at Shepherdstown, 48 acres at White Oak Road, 9 acres at Brown’s Ferry, and 3 acres at Bentonville, which equates to just under $65,000.
“When it comes to historic land preservation, no other effort, nor any other preservation organization, even comes close to the scale of what we have accomplished under the leadership of Jim Lighthizer. We hope you’ll join us in honoring Jim’s decades of dedication by continuing to build on his extraordinary legacy,” states the organization.
For more information and how to support this important campaign, please click here.
I am very happy to see that ABT is making Gaines’s Mill and Cold Harbor a preservation priority. Between those two battles, it is the the most important and bloodiest ground in the US not yet protected. The NPS owns only a small piece of both battlefields. This endangered property includes the entire right flank of the US line at GM and the site of Barlow’s breakthrough at CH (the same property and owned by one family for the most part). It is still pristine and ripe for development. Thank you Mr. Lighthizer and ABT!!
I second this. They already have done great work by saving a large portion of the Glendale field and adding more to GM is vital.