A Milestone Preservation Victory at the Petersburg Breakthrough

Last year, the American Battlefield Trust embarked on one of the largest preservation projects in our nearly 40-year history. More than 400 acres at Pamplin Historical Park and the National Museum of the Civil War Soldier have been enjoyed and appreciated by heritage tourists and countless school students for decades... but were not fully protected for future generations. Until now.  

The window of opportunity was brief, with just a few months to raise the private funds to complete the massive transaction. But once again, the Trust’s extraordinary members rose to the occasion. 417 acres at the Petersburg Breakthrough are now saved forever, creating an 857-acre swath of protected land associated with one of the Civil War’s most significant battlefields, just in time for the 161st anniversary of the Breakthrough.

This Victory was made possible through the largest-ever matching grant from the federal American Battlefield Protection Program (ABPP), dedicating more than $10 million to protect this critical land. America’s most successful heritage land conservation program, the ABPP has helped the Trust save more than 36,000 acres of land in 20 states. 

But that’s not the only milestone this victory represents.  

Last summer, we celebrated our 60,000th acre saved. Now, less than a year later, the Breakthrough brings our total tally of hallowed ground to more than 61,000 acres and pushes the amount saved across the Commonwealth of Virginia past 31,000. Such success in the Old Dominion is the result of more than its concentration of battlefields; the support of state government agencies — like the Virginia Department of Historic Resources, which will hold the conservation easement on the Breakthrough site — and officials are also necessary.   

The Breakthrough 

Following a nine-month siege, the Union Army of the Potomac launched a massive assault on the Southern defenses southwest of Petersburg, Virginia, on April 2, 1865, an attack remembered by history as “The Breakthrough” for piercing those lines clearing the road to the Confederate capital at Richmond. Within weeks, the Civil War was over.  

Fighting at The Breakthrough was intense — sometimes hand-to-hand — and climactic, resulting in perhaps the greatest concentration of Medals of Honor ever awarded. Researchers at the Congressional Medal of Honor Society believe that 31 Medal citation actions occurred across the now-combined site.  

Through a series of transactions over the course 30 years, the Trust has acquired 439 acres associated with the Union advance and has been gradually restoring the land to its wartime appearance by removing modern buildings and other intrusions. Meanwhile, the contiguous Pamplin campus occupies a significant section of the Confederate line and includes two miles of pristine earthworks. 

The Pamplin campus was assembled in phases through purchases made by businessman and philanthropist Dr. Robert B. Pamplin, Jr., beginning in the early 1990s when the Association for the Preservation of Civil War Sites, a predecessor of the American Battlefield Trust, alerted him to the development threat to land once owned by his family. Pamplin went on to acquire adjacent parcels, including the Banks House, Ulysses S. Grant’s headquarters on April 2–3, 1865.  

The 25,000-square-foot National Museum of the Civil War Soldier opened on Memorial Day 1999, and the park was named a National Historic Landmark in 2006. The museum will continue to welcome history seekers, managed by the newly formed Petersburg Battlefields Foundation, its perpetual operation endowed by the proceeds of the land’s sale to the Trust. 

The American Battlefield Trust is dedicated to preserving America’s hallowed battlegrounds and educating the public about what happened there and why it matters today. The nonprofit, nonpartisan organization has protected more than 61,000 acres associated with the Revolutionary War, War of 1812 and Civil War across 160 sites in 25 states. Learn more at www.battlefields.org.