U.S. Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va. – certainly no stranger to combat himself – is asking the Senate Appropriations Committee for $10 million in federal funding to preserve Civil War battlefield grounds.
Webb, along with Sens. Kay Hagan, D-N.C., Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va.., and Jeff Bingham, D-N.M, is requesting $10 million included in President Obama’s fiscal 2012 budget request for the Civil War Battlefield Preservation Program — a matching grants program that has been used to preserve more than 16,500 acres in 14 states over the past decade.
“With the sesquicentennial commemoration of the Civil War having begun in April, this is an opportune time to recommit our energies to the protection of these hallowed grounds,” wrote the senators. “These lands, when preserved, serve as outdoor classrooms to educate current and future generations of Americans about this defining moment in our nation’s history. In addition, preserved battlefields are economic drivers for communities, bringing in tourism dollars that are extremely important to the economies of these communities.”
Virginia is home to a number of “hallowed grounds,” including Manassas National Battlefield Park, Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park, and the Petersburg National Battlefield.
Webb, along with Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., re-introduced a bill in April to protect an additional 7,200 acres of historic battlefields surrounding Petersburg. The expansion would make the battlefield the largest military park in the United States.
