A House Divided Sen. Kaine visits Fredericksburg battlefield to see land to be preserved through a federal grant

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), who was instrumental in getting a bipartisan bill through Congress in 2014 to reauthorize and expand the American Battlefield Protection Program, on Friday visited one of the battlefields that has benefited from his efforts.

Kaine met with officials from the National Park Service and Civil War Trust at the Fredericksburg battlefield and was shown the 25-acre site that will be purchased using a recently received matching grant of $1.2 million from the ABPP.

Later in the day, Kaine said in an email: “Standing on Prospect Hill today, I saw a battlefield where American lives were sacrificed as part of the conflict that defined our national principles of liberty. I saw a site that could have been host to a housing subdivision that was instead preserved for future generations of visitors. …Historic battlefields are important for their intrinsic value as well as for the role they play in open space preservation and the local economics communities like Fredericksburg.”

The National Park Service, through the ABPP, awarded about $2.7 million in grants to battlefields in Virginia last month. Those receiving the grants included Appomattox Court House, Sailor’s Creek, Gaines Mill, Brandy Station, Kernstown, Opequon, Glendale and Deep Bottom. Fredericksburg received the largest grant.