Grants Awarded by the American Battlefield Protection Program

The National Park Service recently announced the awarding of several grants through its American Battlefield Protection Program. Of the thirteen grants awarded for projects relating to Civil War battlefields, three are for trans-Mississippi sites. The descriptions of these three grants from the American Battlefield Protection Program’s website are:

$82,000 awarded to the Arkansas State Parks, Department of Parks and Tourism:

“The Battle of Prairie Grove (1862) was the last time two armies of equal strength fought for control over northwest Arkansas. With archeological investigation and GIS mapping, this project will delineate the locations and extent of major battlefield features within Prairie Grove Battlefield State Park.”

$41,000 awarded to Northwestern State University of Louisiana:

“During the Red River Campaign of 1864, a fierce engagement occurred between Adm. David Dixon Porter’s fleet, the Confederate land batteries, and several hundred sharpshooters on Deloach’s Bluff Battlefield. This project will identify the location of subsurface resources and the extent of the historic battlefield through a cultural resource survey, GIS/GPS fieldwork, remote sensing, and minimal archeology testing.”

$47,000 awarded to the Wood Lake Battlefield Preservation Association (Minnesota):

“Wood Lake was the final battle of the U. S. Dakota War of 1862. Preoccupied with the Civil War, the U. S. Government violated treaties with Minnesota’s Dakota Indians, leading to hardships for these tribes. Building on the work of a previous ABPP grant, a comprehensive preservation plan will be developed for the Wood Lake Battlefield.”

Also available on the same website are several recent reports titled Update to the Civil War Sites Advisory Commission Report on the Nation’s Civil War Battlefields. These include reports about Civil War battlefields in Colorado, Idaho, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, and Texas; they are well illustrated and include a number of present-day photographs plus maps showing the extent of the battlefields.