NASHVILLE, TN (WGNS) - The Tennessee Wars Commission, the Tennessee Historical Commission division responsible for preserving the state’s significant military history, has announced the Civil War Sites Preservation Fund grant recipients for Fiscal Year 2025. Here in Rutherford County the American Battlefield Trust, receives $199,273.82 for the acquisition of the +/- 5.09-acre Henderson IV Tract at the Stones River Battlefield.

This land lies just outside the current boundary of Stones River National Battlefield, in the patchwork of undeveloped or lightly developed land between Old Nashville Highway and the Stones River, not far from the McFadden Farm side of the park. Think of it as one of the small but strategically important parcels that fill in the gaps between existing protected land and the river corridor. It’s part of the same cluster of Henderson tracts the Trust has been stitching together over the past decade to reconnect fragmented pieces of the battlefield landscape.

To best describe the land’s location: the Henderson IV Tract is not the old GE plant site. It is much closer to the Stones River itself, in the band of remaining open land between Old Nashville Highway and the river/Greenway corridor, near the McFadden Farm side of Stones River National Battlefield.

This fund is provided by legislation to the Tennessee Historical Commission, who approves and awards Civil War Sites Preservation Fund grants. The Tennessee Wars Commission administers the application and grant processes. The Civil War Sites Preservation Fund, begun in 2013, is a key source for matching funds for the acquisition and preservation of properties associated with the 38 most significant Civil War sites in Tennessee. Additionally, grants can assist in funding the acquisition and protection of Underground Railroad sites eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places, or eligible for designation as a National Historic Landmark. “Since its debut in 2013, over $22 million in funding from this program has helped save approximately eleven hundred acres of threatened Tennessee battlefield lands,” said Tennessee Historical Commission Interim Executive Director, Miranda Montgomery. Grant funds totaling $2,602,273.82 were awarded to six applicants during the 2025 fiscal year, saving approximately 22.387 acres of battlefield land.