A couple of days ago, I linked (in the News section) to the latest endangered battlefields list from the Civil War Preservation Trust. You might reasonably think that an organization with a name like this would have the sweeping mission of either monitoring or saving all ACW battlefields or at least drawing attention to their plight.

This is quite far from the case. The Trust generally concerns it self with name brands and top drawers. It also has other filters it applies to battlefields to determine their worth. Although it maintains what appears to be a rich website, the Trust's conception of its own mission is not transparent. To get at it, we will have to decode their press releases, their lists - which contain an element of falsehood - and news items about the group.

Let me stress that this is an organization highly rated as an efficient charity and one that does good work. If you contribute to it, your money is well spent, as long as you understand what the Trust's mission is and as long as you understand what they intend to do with monies collected. We'll go into that over the next few days.