Corporate History
APCWS and The Civil War Trust collaborated often in
the past to save threatened battlefields. Shown here
is one such collaborative project, Malvern Hill near
Richmond, Virginia.
The two leading Civil War battlefield preservation organizations, the Association for the Preservation of Civil War Sites (APCWS) and The Civil War Trust, merged on November 12, 1999 to form the Civil War Preservation Trust. The merger, which was propelled by a unanimous vote of both boards, was effected in order to streamline and strengthen efforts to protect America's most endangered parcels of Civil War history.
The Civil War Preservation Trust boasts a combined membership of 73,000 dedicated individuals who have already helped save thousands of acres. The staffs and Boards of Trustees of both groups became united to battle the ever increasing peril for Civil War sites, according to Carrington Williams, former Chairman of the organization.
The President of the Civil War Preservation Trust is O. James Lighthizer, a former Maryland county executive and Secretary of Transportation who pioneered the concept of using ISTEA highway funds to protect thousands of acres of Maryland Civil War sites.
The CWPT has already saved over 20,000 acres of endangered
battlefield land in 19 states.