Webb urges full funding to preserve battlefields

Sen. Jim Webb, D-Virginia, wants to keep the federal money coming to save the nation’s Civil War battlefields.

To that end, Webb sent a letter this week to the Senate Appropriations Committee requesting that the Civil War Battlefield Preservation Program be funded at $9 million — the level the U.S. House supported in its fiscal year 2010 appropriations bill.

“As America prepares for the 150th anniversary commemoration of the Civil War, beginning in 2011, it is more important than ever that we preserve these memorials of that tragic and nation-defining conflict,” he wrote in the letter.

The Civil War BPP is a matching grants program that has been used to preserve more than 15,300 acres in 14 states in the past decade, including land in Culpeper County’s Brandy Station — the site of the largest ever cavalry battle in North America — and Cedar Mountain.

The program, however, has exhausted its entire FY-09 appropriation, according to Webb. With the new fiscal year about to begin, he said, there are already 15 applications requesting $4.6 through the program.

“It is estimated that 30 acres of prime battlefield land are lost every day,” Webb said. “Once protected, these sites offer a myriad of benefits, including open space, tourist attractions and outdoor classrooms.”

An advocate for battlefield preservation, the senator, a decorated Vietnam War vet, traveled to Winchester last month to announce the acquisition of the Third Battle of Winchester battlefield.

Through the Civil War Battlefield Preservation Program, $1.23 million was awarded to help fund the purchase of 209 acres of rolling farmland in Winchester — the other $3.35 million came from nonprofits and state and local government funds.