Saving History Saturday: American Battlefield Trust Announces Capital Campaign
The American Battlefield Trust (ABT) recently announced a capital campaign. Our Enduring Legacy: The Campaign to Preserve, Educate, and Inspire was launched to build the resources ABT deems necessary to meet the current challenges of preservation as well as be prepared for future opportunities.
Some of the current challenges that ABT is looking to address are to create an emergency fund to be able to act quickly to confront immediate threats, such as trying to prevent the loss of land at key battlefields to development at places such as Manassas. They are also currently working on a large-scale restoration and interpretation project at the Princeton Battlefield.
Long term, ABT is looking to expand their Battlefield Readiness Fund, which enables them to quickly act to compete against deep-pocketed developers to save endangered battlefields. Other initiatives Our Enduring Legacy would fund include battlefield interpretation, such as creating trails and installing interpretive signage, and education efforts such as field trips for students, and videos and apps to help not only those who visit battlefields get the most out of their experience, but also for those who might only be able to virtually visit.
ABT’s Enduring Legacy campaign has a goal of 125 million dollars, 80% of which has already been raised, before July 4, 2026.
You can find out more about this effort by clicking here.
The National Park Service is being gutted by the current administration, but this is the ‘unprecedented threat’ surrounding battlefield preservation that
the American Battlefield Trust wants us to focus on. I can’t imagine anything more shortsighted.