Click HERE for a campaign flier about why your support is needed.

Click HERE for a video (2.5 min.) about PETE's history to mark its centennial birthday.

Click HERE to donate via debit/credit/PayPal.

Make checks out to:  Petersburg Battlefields Foundation (put "PETE Centennial" in the memo).

Mail checks to:  318 East Washington Street, Petersburg, VA  23803

CAMPAIGN GOAL:  At Least $20,000

DONOR GIFT LEVELS: 

  • $50 – PETE Centennial bookmark
  • $100 – PETE Centennial indoor/outdoor magnet
  • $250 – PETE Centennial ornament
  • $500 – PETE Centennial bookmark & indoor/outdoor magnet
  • $1000 – PETE Centennial bookmark, indoor/outdoor magnet, ornament & recognition in PETE social media (if donor desires and pending approval from NPS Communications Office)

If you want your donation to remain anonymous and/or do NOT want a donor gift, please let us know when you make your donation (email PBF at info@petebattlefields.org if need be).

THANK YOU for your support!

PETERSBURG NATIONAL BATTLEFIELD (PETE)

Centennial Fundraising Campaign

 Whether you visited PETE recently or awhile ago, enjoy the trails or exercise there regularly, have family ties to the battlefield, or value local history, PLEASE DONATE and help celebrate PETE’s centennial and support the Park!

Click HERE for a Myth Busters video (10 min.) about about kepi restoration in general at the National Park Service museum conservation lab.

KEPI PRESERVATION PROJECT:  Preservation of Lt. Horace Evans’ kepi is a special project in this campaign, and the first $6,500 raised will be used to preserve this artifact from a Petersburg-area Civil War battle.  This kepi (a cap that soldiers wore) is part of a larger collection of items donated by a descendant of Lt. Horace Evans.  He enlisted at age 19 in August 1863, was promoted in 1864, and mustered out of the Union Army in 1865.  He passed away in 1932 at age 87.   

          Evans served during the Petersburg Campaign in the 199th Pennsylvania Infantry as the regiment’s adjutant, a key position that arranged paperwork and orders, managed regimental records, and assisted in forming troops for battle, among other tasks. Lt. Evans was in the thick of the fighting at the Battle of Fort Gregg on April 2, 1865. The Fort Gregg battlefield is within Petersburg National Battlefield.   

          The Evans collection represents the only objects related to a soldier who fought at the Battle of Fort Gregg in the Petersburg National Battlefield collection at this time.  This kepi is dark blue wool with a leather visor and a heart badge on the top.  The visor is not attached to the kepi, and the lining is torn and deteriorating.  

          This kepi requires hands-on conservation treatment by a conservator. This treatment will include the cleaning the kepi, resecuring the chin strap, aligning fractured fabric and stabilizing with an overlay or underlay where feasible, filling small areas of loss when appropriate with conservation grade materials, reattaching the leather visor to the wool fabric, and a new custom archival mount for storage and display to better support both kepi and visor and to prevent abrasion of interior lining. A report documenting the treatment along with photographs will be generated and turned over to the park upon completion.