Spring Hill Battlefield Purchased from GM Primarily with Federal Grant

The National Park Service is picking up 95% of the price tag to preserve a big chunk of the Spring Hill Battlefield. The announcement was made Friday morning.

In June a national preservation group reached a deal with General Motors to buy the 84-acres, considered core battlefield property, for a discounted price of $2 million.

Civil War Preservation Trust spokesperson Mary Koik says her organization is accustomed to working with farmers and small businesses, not giant corporations.

“This was certainly a little bit of a different partner to sit across the table from, but really we’re so pleased that GM really took the view that they wanted to give us the chance to raise the money and see this preserved forever.”

Until this week, it wasn’t known where the money would come from. But now the National Park Service has announced a grant of $1.9 million, meaning preservationists have a far less daunting task ahead, raising the remaining $100,000.

Grant guidelines require 50% of the purchase price to come from local sources. But the National Park Services is counting GM’s discount price on the property as part of the matching money.

The hope is to close on the land north of Ripavilla Plantation before the 146th anniversary of the Spring Hill battle in November.

The Civil War Preservation Trust has previously purchased more than 100 acres of the Spring Hill battlefield. See a map here.

From the CWPT: On November 29, 1864, on ground just north of Rippavilla, Gen. William B. Bate’s Confederate division encountered elements of Gen. John M. Schofield’s Union army, as it attempted to slip northward along the Columbia Pike and escape to Franklin. Fighting occurred across the property as the two sides cautiously maneuvered in the autumn twilight. But Bate’s advance toward the pike was halted; and, although Confederate troops were encamped across the property just a few yards away, the Federals pulled off perhaps the greatest escape of the entire war — some 20,000 of them slipping past in the night and setting the stage for the bloody and decisive Battle of Franklin.