The National Park Service on Thursday announced the award of about $1.3 million in matching grant funds to four battlefields in two states for land purchases.

In North Carolina, $103,000 went to the state’s Department of Cultural Resources for land purchase at Dunn’s Averasborough Battlefield and $60,000 for a parcel at Bentonville Battlefield. In Virginia, the Department of Cultural Resources will receive $800,000 for land at Clarke County’s Cool Springs Battlefield and $367,000 for property at Chesterfield County’s Ware Bottom Church Battlefield.

The competitive grants were made though the Park Service’s American Battlefield Protection Program.

The Civil War Trust, Virginia and Petersburg officials announced plans Tuesday for the public-private preservation of an 81-acre parcel in Petersburg and the restoration of the South Side Depot, key sites in the 10-month Petersburg Campaign, also known as the Siege of Petersburg, in 1864 and 1865. The Confederate army evacuated the city on April 2 and the city officially surrendered the next day.

The land parcel, known as Cemetery Hill or Blandford Hill, is located between historic Blandford Cemetery and Petersburg National Battlefield. It is associated with the June 18, 1864 federal assault on Petersburg as well as the Battle of the Crater on July 30 and the Confederate attack on Fort Stedman on March 25, 1865.

The South Side Depot was the last railroad link held by the Confederacy when Petersburg fell. Built about 1854, it is a stately, three-story, red brick building with a white cupola on top. Several efforts in the past to recycle it for a visitor center or other uses failed. In 1993, it was badly damaged by a tornado. The city now owns it.

Virginia Secretary of Transportation Sean T. Connaughton on Tuesday announced a $448,000 matching grant to the Trust for the purchase of Cemetery Hill; the City of Petersburg will receive $400,000 in state money for the restoration of the depot. The Trust will add $100,000 to the restoration funds.

The Trust earlier this year announced a fund raising campaign to purchase Cemetery Hill and another parcel on the Petersburg Battlefield.

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  Evidence of a long-term occupation by Union soldiers on the campus of the College of William and Mary has come to light on the campus of the nation’s second-oldest college during a recent excavation by archaeologists, according to the Associated Press.

  Initial evidence of a three-year occupation of the campus was found last year when survey work was done for new utility lines. The college plans to recover these finds for preservation reasons but smaller artifacts such as buttons and plate fragments may be displayed.

Visitors to Prince William County and Manassas can save close to $20 on entrance fees at six sites with the advance purchase of a $15 Civil War Experience Pass, according to Discover Prince William & Manassas officials.

Included in the package are Manassas National Battlefield Park, Manassas Museum, Ben Lomond Historic Site, Bristoe Station Battlefield Heritage Park , Brentsville Courthouse Historic Centre and Rippon Lodge .

The pass is also good for a 10 percent discount at the Manassas Museum gift shop.
The statue of Gen. Thomas J. Jackson stands over Manassas National Battlefield Park at sunrise. (Tracy A. Woodward - THE WASHINGTON POST)

It was created to mark the sesquicentennial of the Battle of Second Manassas on Aug. 28-30, but it will be honored through December 2013, according to organizers. Between Aug. 24 and Sept. 2, special events have been scheduled including an evening of barbecue, bourbon and bonfire at Manassas Station (Aug 26), a luminary tour of Bristoe Station Battlefield (Aug 25-26) and a cavalry and artillery demonstration at Manassas National Battlefield Park (Sept. 1-2).

The pass, which is available now, can be purchased at Manassas Museum, Rippon Lodge, Brentsville Courthouse and Ben Lomond. It is not available online.

A Virginia and a Maryland author are each scheduled to speak this week about their recently published books contributing new information about the Civil War, a sometimes difficult undertaking when there are already more than 75,000 other books on the subject.

Carl Sell of Alexandria, Va. will discuss his book, “Thank God, He Survived Pickett’s Charge” on Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. at the Fairfax Station Railroad Museum. He has researched the military record of his great-grandfather, Confederate Pvt. James Farthing, who was wounded during Pickett’s Charge at Gettysburg on July 3, 1863, and survived only to be wounded again a year later. He was captured nine days before the war ended but was one of the lucky ones who got to go home when it was all over.

On Saturday, Annapolis resident and author R. Rebecca Morris will launch her new book, “A Low Dirty Place: The Parole Camps of Annapolis, Md.: 1862-1865” at the center green of the Annapolis Towne Centre from 2 to 4 p.m. Her subject is the little-known Parole Camps in Annapolis for Confederate prisoners of war who had been paroled by Union officials after they had taken an oath not to again take up arms against Union forces. It was at these camps that they waited to be exchanged for Union prisoners held in the Confederacy.

The event will take place at the site of the third and final Camp Parole which opened in late August 1862. The rain date is Aug. 18.