American Battlefield Trust

The American Battlefield Trust traces its roots to the Association for the Preservation of Civil War Sites, founded in 1987, and the Civil War Preservation Trust, which merged with the APCWS in 1999. The organizations combined operations in 2011 and took the current name in 2018, expanding the program’s scope to Revolutionary War and War of 1812 battlefields alongside the Civil War core. The Trust has preserved more than 57,000 acres of battlefield land across more than twenty states through direct acquisition, conveyance to the National Park Service, and conservation easements.

The Trust’s role in the Prince William Digital Gateway fight was definitive. In January 2023, the Trust and nine Gainesville residents filed suit in the Prince William County Circuit Court against the Board of County Supervisors’ December 2022 rezoning of the 2,100-acre Pageland Lane tract, arguing that the tract’s property-line adjacency to Manassas National Battlefield Park required a level of procedural scrutiny the county’s public-notice record had not provided. The Circuit Court ruled against the Trust’s case on the merits, but the companion case the Oak Valley Homeowners Association filed on narrower public-notice grounds prevailed. The Virginia Court of Appeals affirmed the Oak Valley ruling on March 31, 2025, voiding the rezoning. Prince William County withdrew from its appeal to the Supreme Court of Virginia in April 2026. The Trust’s legal presence, institutional standing, and federally recognized preservation interest were the foundation on which the plaintiffs’ case rested.