Nearly 240 years after the “shot heard ‘round the world” signaled the beginning of the journey toward American independence, historians and preservationists gathered in Princeton, N.J. on November 11, 2014, to launch the first-ever national initiative to protect and interpret the battlefields of the Revolutionary War. The effort, titled ‘Campaign 1776,’ is a project of the Civil War Trust, the nation’s most successful battlefield preservation advocate. Campaign 1776 employs the same proven strategy of harnessing public-private partnerships to permanently protect hallowed ground that has made the Civil War Trust one of the country’s top charitable land conservation organizations.

Although primarily focused on preservation of the battlefields of the Revolutionary War (1775–1783), Campaign 1776 targets battlegrounds associated with the War of 1812 (1812–1814) — the conflicts that established and confirmed American independence from Great Britain. In its 2007 report on the status of these battlefields, the National Park Service found that of the 243 significant engagements of those conflicts, only 100 retained historic integrity. Those sites that have endured through more than two centuries are now facing pressure from residential and other development.

Campaign 1776 follows in the spirit of the modern battlefield preservation movement that began in 1987, when a group of historians concerned with the destruction of suburban Virginia battlefields formed the Association for the Preservation of Civil War Sites, today the Civil War Trust. Donors are invited to support individual projects, presented with historical context and illustrated on maps, where the availability of federal or state matching grants and major donor or foundation gifts can multiply each contributed dollar several times over. The Trust works only with willing sellers, paying fair market value for land that will be protected in perpetuity through fee simple purchases and/or conservation easements. The Trust also has a reputation for working cooperatively with developers to seek out well-planned projects that allow for community growth and vitality while respecting irreplaceable historic resources.

For more information, please visit www.campaign1776.org .