Help Save the West Woods

34 Acres at Third Winchester

I hope you’re up to speed and aware of our recent preservation victories.  We’ve made four major announcements in the last several weeks – each one about a project that you and I and our preservation family across the country have now completed.  The projects total more than 370 acres across four battlefields – with the debts for each now paid in full and the properties preserved forever! This brings the number of battlefield acres that we’ve preserved here in the Valley to over 7,000 – and we aren’t about to stop there.

Even with all the success that you and I have enjoyed this spring, we still have a lot of work to do.  We have new projects on the horizon and ongoing efforts yet to complete.  These are exciting times for battlefield preservation, and, with your help, we can keep up the pace and keep saving battlefields at a breakneck speed.

To that end, we need to finish the fight for the West Woods at Third Winchester.  You might remember that these 34 acres were some of the most heavily contested in the Valley, the scene of almost constant combat for more than 10 hours. 

Now, after more than five years and with millions of dollars in grants and donations already raised, we are down to the last $140,000.  That’s all.  And that’s because of you!   What was once just a preservation dream is now almost a reality, but, even now, it could slip away from us.  With all the battlefield parcels we are attempting to preserve, $140,000 is no small amount.  Until the West Woods is paid in full, the debt will continue to slow our progress and hamper our ability to tackle more. We punch above our weight every day, taking on projects that many wouldn’t touch, and piling on a workload and debt commitments that would make a lesser team tremble.  But we run the risk, if we aren’t careful, of outmarching our supplies and reinforcements.  Many a victorious army has overextended itself in response to a string of victories.  This will not be our fate.

We’re going to wrap up past projects – even as we’re pushing forward on new ones.  We’re going to come together to finish what we’ve already started, and, at the same time, preserve more battleground from one end of the Valley to the other.  But it’s going to take all of us – individually doing all that we can – pitching in at every turn – to make it happen.

I know I can count on you.  You’ve been a preservation hero – part of a group who has been doing all the heavy lifting to save these battlefields and open them to the public.  Please help us make the final payment on the West Woods tract by contributing toward the last $140,000 needed.   I don’t know if you realize the impact that your contributions make.  Let me assure you: without the support of every single one of our friends, our success would be less certain.  The West Woods is an important part of Third Winchester’s battlefield landscape, a major part of the Third Winchester battlefield park, and hallowed ground that it is critical to save.  We can’t consider any battlefield parcel protected until the deal is paid in full.  There’s just $140,000 to go – then we can claim victory in the West Woods . . .

Will Eichler of Civil War Digital Digest on the West Woods