Today, the National Park Service announced the award of 33 grants totaling $1,360,000 to assist in the preservation and protection of America’s significant battlefield lands. This year’s grants provide funding at endangered battlefields including one in Mableton granting $45,000 for a cultural resource inventory for the Johnston’s River Line Battlefield Park to be developed as a tool for guiding preservation of the unique “Shoupade” fortification system designed by Confederate Brigadier General Francis Ashbury Shoup. The Shoupades were characterized by Federal Major General William Tecumseh Sherman as “…one of the strongest pieces of field fortifications I ever saw,” but were never built at any other site.
