The National Park Service's American Battlefield Protection Program has awarded the Unison Preservation Society a $10,853 grant to help place the Unison Civil War Battlefield on the National Register of Historic Places and the Virginia Landmarks Register.

The third grant from the Park Service to the nonprofit preservation group, it will help expand the proposed battlefield historic district to include the villages of Upperville and Paris in Fauquier County.

The first ABPP grant, for $19,853 in 2005, funded the history and mapping of the 1862 Battle of Unison done by National Park Service historian David Lowe. That illustrated history was recently published by the preservation society.

The second grant of $34,660 was used to put the core area of the battlefield on the registers, from Loudoun County's village of Philomont through Unison to Route 50 east of Upperville. This latest grant extends the proposed historic district through Upperville to Paris, which would make it the largest historic district in the region, stretching close to 15 miles long.

The proposed state/federal historic district is an honorary designation and places no restrictions whatsoever on landowners or their properties. It does, however, provide tax benefits for restoration of historic properties within the district and some protection from construction projects that might adversely impact the historic district, such as cell phone towers, road widening, etc.

The exact boundaries of the district will be set after public meetings and hearings by Virginia's Department of Historic Resources and the consultants doing the nomination, a team headed by architectural historian Maral Kalbian of Boyce. Kalbian has done numerous area historic districts including Round Hill and the Unison Village Historic District. Her team includes Richmond historian John Salmon and archeologists Ben Ford and Steve Thompson of Charlottesville.

The Unison grant is one of 33 ABPP grants totaling $1.3 million to help protect the nation's historic battlefields, ranging from Colonial-Indian wars to the Civil War.

For further information contact Paul Hodge of the Unison Preservation Society at 540-554-8624 or a.p.hodge@starpower.net.