Battlefield trust launches campaign to preserve historic Gettysburg battle site

The American Battlefield Trust is launching a $3 million campaign to restore and preserve a major portion of the battleground in Gettysburg.

The trust is seeking to raise $375,000 in donations by Nov. 20, when it officially acquires the property, according to a news release issued by the trust. That money will go towards removing modern structures and restoring the battleground to its historic state.

The 15-acre property, located along Route 30 in Cumberland Township just outside of Gettysburg, was the site of the former Gettysburg Country Club, which closed in 2008.

In the press release, the American Battlefield Trust said that the location was the site of intense fighting during the first day of the battle of Gettysburg, on July 1, 1863.

“This is one of the most historically significant properties on the Gettysburg Battlefield,” said Andrew Dalton,executive director of the Adams County Historical Society, in the press release.

That history included the site of what is thought to be the first bloodshed on the battlefield, the release said, during a skirmish that occurred on the banks of Willoughby's Run on the land of the country club. At that site, Union cavalry slowed the first advance of the Confederate Army, before fighting moved to the east.

A field hospital was erected at the site, and at least 23 soldiers were buried on the land that became the country club, the release states.

When the country club declared bankruptcy in 2008, an initial sheriff's sale had sold the site to a housing developer, the release states. Preservationists worked to attempt to save the site, and in March of 2011, the National Park Service acquired 95 acres of the country club's golf course.

The 15 acres that remained after the sale, from a property fronting Route 30, was not included in that acquisition, as the land had been subdivided. Development plans for a large-scale apartment complex on that land were denied by the local board of supervisors, and the trust was able to negotiate the purchase of the property, the release said.

The American Battlefield Trust said over the last two decades it has protected over 1,240 acres of land in the Gettysburg Battlefield.

This article originally appeared on Hanover Evening Sun: Battlefield trust launches campaign to preserve historic Gettysburg site