The National Park Service runs the American Battlefield Protection Program (ABPP). ABPP helps preserve significant battlefields and sites of armed conflict on American soil. Military conflicts drove many important sociopolitical changes in American history. By preserving battlefields, we help current and future generations understand this connection. Saving every conflict site is impractical, but programs like ABPP can help preserve the most important sites.

The ABPP encourages the following to apply for their grant programs:

• Nonprofits
• Groups
• Academic institutions
• Local, regional, state and tribal governments

They use four grant programs to empower preservation partners nationwide:

Crossroads of the American Revolution Association

The Crossroads of the American Revolution Association is a not-for-profit organization created in 2002 in order to increase awareness of the American Revolution in New Jersey. The organization promotes:

• Open space
• Historical preservation
• Enhancement of economic development in New Jersey

Since 2006, this association has managed the related National Heritage Area.

Where is the National Heritage Area?

Between late 1776 and 1778, significant conflicts spanned 14 New Jersey counties. The federal government recognized this by dedicating a new National Heritage Area (NHA) in 2002, the Crossroads of the American Revolution National Heritage Area. This represents several firsts in the National Heritage Program:

• New Jersey’s first NHA.
• The nation’s first NHA dedicated to the Revolutionary War.

It covers activities involving George Washington’s Continental Army in:

• The Delaware and Hudson Valleys in New Jersey.
• The central portion of the state between those valleys.

Revolutionary stories

This NHA promotes a greater understanding of the state’s Revolutionary-era historical sites and landscapes. Here, the conflict was not only a revolution but a civil war that divided families and neighbors. Many residents who chose neutrality or loyalty to the Crown faced difficult outcomes. Crossroads NHA takes a cross-section of the conflict to tell the stories of:

• Ordinary people’s experiences during the American Revolution.
• Key campaigns, including the “Ten Crucial Days” of American victories.
• Our connections to neighbors during the war.

Surveying the Route through New Jersey

In 2006, military historian Robert A Selig, Ph.D., completed an extensive Revolutionary War study. His in-depth and detailed work follows the military marches of both French Army and Continental Army troops. Adding to his previous work in New York and Connecticut, it focuses on paths through New Jersey.

The Washington-Rochambeau Route in the State of New Jersey, 1781-1783: An Historical and Architectural Survey is catalogued as three volumes under series MULT GB 225. Our collection contains the final survey and related background surveys.

National recognition of the Route

During the Yorktown campaign, allied forces used a network of roads and waterways. They sheltered in rural campsites and small taverns across the East Coast. These pathways are now collectively known as the Washington-Rochambeau Revolutionary Route. While development has reshaped the landscape, the public can still visit historic sites that tell the Washington-Rochambeau story.

Congress dedicated this route across the eastern seaboard as a National Historic Trail in 2009. The New Jersey portion of the trail is also part of the Crossroads of the American Revolution National Heritage Area.