Battlefield cleanups this weekend

Volunteers will be armed with items such as stone mason tools and boots instead of muskets and cannons when they gather at the nation's Civil War sites Saturday to help clean and restore battlefields, cemeteries and shrines. • Details

Preservation group changes name, logo

Just in time for the sesquicentennial of its namesake, America's largest battlefield preservation organization has a new name -- the Civil War Trust -- and a new graphical identity.Until now, the group -- which has deep roots in Fredericksburg, Va. -- had been called the Civil War Preservation Trust. Its new moniker is shorter and simpler, as is the new logo that the Washington-based nonprofit rolled out. • Article

CWPT makes deal for battlefield land

The nation's leading Civil War land preservation group will formally announce plans to buy 84 acres of land now owned by General Motors. There's one catch: The deal is contingent upon members helping raise part of the $2 million needed by Nov. 29, the 146th anniversary of the Battle of Spring Hill (Tenn). • Article

A report on CWPT meeting in Ky.

We asked Charlie Crawford, head of the preservation group Georgia Battlefields Association, his impressions of the recent meeting of the Civil War Preservation Trust in Lexington, Ky.

"Lexington is a historic city: the cemetery alone is a Civil War tour, with Henry Clay, John Hunt Morgan, John C. Breckinridge, Gordon Granger, and most of Mary Todd Lincoln's family buried there.

"Kentucky has done a good job of preserving and adding to the Perryville battlefield. Madison County has made great efforts to preserve the Richmond Battlefield. Two examples where a state/commonwealth and a local government have stepped up in the absence of federal preservation.

"[President] Jim Lighthizer's speech focused on having CWPT save 50,000 acres by the end of the Sesquicentennial in 2015. CWPT has saved 29,000 acres in 20 years, so 21,000 more in five years is ambitious; but goals should be set high.

"CWPT got a four-star rating from Charity Navigator. Revenue is up 20% in 2010 compared to 2009, which is notable in a down economy.

"Georgia Battlefields Association was well-represented. We had at least eight members at the conference, including three of the six members of the board of trustees."

-- Charlie Crawford, GBA

Fort Stevens, Wilderness on endangered list

The Civil War Preservation Trust will announce Thursday morning that Washington's beleaguered Fort Stevens, where Abraham Lincoln came under enemy gunfire in 1864, has again been placed on the trust's annual list of most endangered Civil War battlefields. • Article

Volunteers needed April 10 for Park Day

The Civil War Preservation Trust is leading preservation and clean-up efforts this weekend at dozens of historic sites. • Article