Bentonville land to be added Trust will buy 313 acres of Civil War battlefield for state By RICHARD STRADLING, Raleigh News & Observer A Civil War preservation group will receive $414,000 from the state to help more than double the size of the Bentonville Battleground Historic Site, state officials will announce today. The Civil War Preservation Trust of Washington, D.C., will use the money to qualify for an even larger federal grant that will allow it to purchase 313 acres. When the trust finishes acquiring the land late this year, it will turn it over to the state, which runs the historic site. Earlier this year, the trust named Bentonville one of the nation's most endangered battlefields, mostly because of development creeping out from the Triangle. Even after the purchase, about 5,400 acres of the battlefield will still be privately owned. Most of the battlefield remains forest or farmland, as it was in March 1865 when nearly 80,000 Union and Confederate soldiers converged in southern Johnston County west of Goldsboro. The trust will buy a scattering of parcels along Harper House Road, just east of the current visitors center. Some of the land contains remnants of earthwork built by soldiers on both sides, including part of a well-defined trench dug by the Army of Tennessee, said Donny Taylor, manager of the site. Taylor said the state will build two roadside parking areas on the land, with signs that explain parts of the three-day battle. More than 4,100 men were killed, wounded or missing when Confederate Gen. Joseph Johnston tried to stop Gen. William Sherman's northward march through the Carolinas. The trust will spend nearly $1.4 million in all. The state share will come from the N.C. Natural Heritage Trust Fund. The federal government will put up $683,000, while the trust will raise the remaining $269,000. The trust doesn't think it will have any trouble coming up with its share, said Jim Campi, the group's director of policy. "I think patriotism has something to do with it," Campi said. "... [P]eople do want to know more about their history after 9/11."