Childs Burden, Mosby Heritage Association President, opened the meeting and welcomed a crowded room by saying, "I look forward to the great task ahead of us to preserve the almost 30,000 acres of Virginia battlefield land for the future viewing and education of our children and grandchildren."

The Mosby Heritage Area Association (MHAA), a Northern Virginia Piedmont preservation and education organization, recently called the first meeting of the Aldie, Middleburg, and Upperville (AMU) Battlefields Preservation Plan Partners to order at Atoka, Virginia.

The meeting took place in the Caleb Rector House, built in 1803 and now owned by MHAA. In addition to MHAA, the Partners are the Land Trust of Virginia, NOVA Parks, the Piedmont Environmental Council, the Unison Preservation Society, and the Aldie Heritage Association, with representatives of Loudoun County, Fauquier County, and the Virginia Department of Historic Resources as advisors.

Henry Plaster, Chair of the MHAA Preservation Committee, followed with introductions around the room and a description of the many tasks ahead.

"Our Plan calls for 13 short-term and 10 long-term actions beginning this year with adding conservation easement protection to the local battlefields, working with Fauquier and Loudoun County in revising their Comprehensive Plans, Facilities Manuals and ordinances, and seeking new research and archeological grants," said Plaster.

The remainder of the meeting was a discussion of which organization would take the leadership of particular actions.

MHAA began work on this project in 2012 using the $41,625 grant money from the National Park Service's American Battlefield Protection Program to produce the recently completed "Aldie, Middleburg and Upperville Civil War Battlefields Preservation Plan" covering the battles during which Confederate General J.E.B. Stuart fought a delaying action in June 1863 to screen the movement of General Robert E. Lee's Army northward from Virginia into Pennsylvania and the July 1 Battle of Gettysburg.

Additional information is available online at: www.nps.gov/history/nps/abpp, www.mosby heritagearea.org under 'About Us', info@mosbyheritagea rea.org or call 540-687-6681. The Preservation Plan can be viewed at http://amubattlefieldspp.wordpress.com/.

This was one of 27 National Park Service grants totaling $1.35 million to preserve and protect significant battle sites from all wars fought on American soil. Funded projects preserve battlefields from the Colonial-Indian Wars through World War II and include site mapping (GPS/GIS data collection), archeological studies, and National Register of Historic Places nominations.