Congress has made available $7.3 million for the acquisition of 24 threatened historic sites identified by the Civil War Trust and the Association for the Preservation of Civil War Sites.
The money is part of $8 million allocated under the Land and Water Conservation Fund, and is the first federal money set aside for preservation of land not owned by the federal government. Funds will be distributed over the next two years on a two-to-one matching basis--each federal dollar must be matched by two dollars from a private source or from state and local government.
The properties chosen for the program comprise 7,000 acres and are all on the list of endangered sites on the Civil War Sites Advisory Commission Report of 1993. In addition, there are willing sellers for each property, and there is the likelihood of raising enough money over the next two years to provide the necessary matching funds.
The remaining $700,000 for historic preservation in the fund will be allotted to other sites as they are identified by the CWT, APCWS and the National Park Service's American Battlefield Protection Program. Nominations must be endangered sites with willing sellers and the potential to generate matching funds. Nomination letters can be sent to Civil War Trust--Site Nomination, 2101 Wilson Blvd., suite 1120, Arlington, Va., 22201.
Lincoln Speech on Display:
A personal copy of President Lincoln's first inaugural address, including handwritten changes to the text in the margin, is among items on display at the Library of Congress through May in its American Treasures exhibit.
The speech, delivered March 4, 1861, was Lincoln's effort to hold together a badly divided country that had been further polarized by his election in November 1860. It was the product of nearly a year of effort by Lincoln and a score of advisers, who began working on the text after his nomination in May 1860. The South was already feeling alienated over the slavery issue, and the election of the Illinois Republican--who had become associated in Southern minds with abolition--resulted in threats of secession by slave states and against the life of the president-elect.
Lincoln was inaugurated only after leaving his processional train from Springfield, Ill. in order to pass through Baltimore on an unmarked train because of a suspected kidnap plot.
******Most at times, if not all of my news is taken from the homepage of Camp Chase Gazette, and full credit is given to them.
