Kaine to travel to Virginia Civil War site to promote bill protecting US battlefields

FREDERICKSBURG, Va. — U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine is traveling to Slaughter Pen battlefield in Fredericksburg to promote a bipartisan bill to reauthorize the American Battlefield Protection Program.

The Virginia Democrat is scheduled to promote the proposed amendment Friday with representatives of the Civil War Trust and the Central Virginia Battlefields Trust. Kaine is co-sponsoring the bill with Sen. Thad Cochran, a Mississippi Republican.

Kaine says since the program was initiated in 2002, more than 17,500 acres of high-priority Civil War battle sites have been preserved. The trust estimates that there are still more than 50,000 acres of unprotected battlefields in Virginia that meet the program’s criteria.

The Kaine-Cochran legislation would extend the protection program through 2018. Besides Civil War battlefields, the act also adds Revolutionary War and War of 1812 sites.

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