More than $7 million in grants is being put to work to preserve and protect historic battlefields in the country, while more than $250,000 is heading to Antietam National Battlefield for two restoration projects thanks to President Trump, an anonymous donor, and three foundations.

U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke on Wednesday announced the funding. He said President Trump's first quarter salary would be donated toward the restoration of two projects at Antietam, and that an anonymous donor had contributed $22,000 to bring the total to $100,000. The Civil War Trust, the National Park Foundation, and Save Historic Antietam Foundation have also pledged funds that bring the total gift to $263,545. The donation will restore the historic Newcomer House on the Antietam battlefield, and will underwrite the replacement of 5,000 linear feet of deteriorated rail fencing along the Hagerstown Turnpike, where some of the most intense fighting of the Civil War battle occurred.

The president's donation, however, was criticized as a "publicity stunt" by Greg Zimmerman, deputy director of the Center for Western Priorities.

“Honoring military sacrifice and conserving battlefields are things that all Americans can get behind. But this publicity stunt must be taken in context: President Trump and Secretary Zinke are proposing a crippling $1.6 billion budget cut to our national parks, battlefields, and other public lands," he said. "Their proposed budget slashes battlefield protection programs alone by more than $2 million. The president’s salary donation is a drop in the bucket, coming nowhere close to the funding gap his administration is trying to inflict on America’s parks.”

Additionally, Mr. Zimmerman pointed out that the president's budget proposal, if adopted by Congress, would cut 1,242 full-time equivalent National Park Service staff (6.4 percent), causing reductions in staffing and services at 90 percent of national parks.

The $7.2 million in grants are expected to preserve nearly 1,200 acres of battlefield land as part of the American Battlefield Land Acquisition Grants program. The grant projects are located at 19 battlefields threatened with damage or destruction by urban and suburban development in Arkansas, Maryland, Mississippi, New York, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia.

“These lands were once the scenes of our nation’s bloodiest conflicts,” Secretary Zinke said. “Working with the state and local communities, historians, and advocates, we must preserve these battlefields for future generations of Americans to remember and understand the impact of sacrifices of those who fought on these hallowed grounds. This grant program, along with President Trump's donation, will help ensure just that.”

The grants are funded from the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which uses revenue from federal oil and gas leases on the Outer Continental Shelf to purchase land, water, and wetlands for the benefit of all Americans. Since its establishment in 1964, the Land and Water Conservation Fund has conserved land in every state and supported tens of thousands of state and local projects. The fund does not use taxpayer dollars; the primary source of income derives from fees paid by oil and gas companies drilling offshore in waters owned by the American people.

The grants are administered by the National Park Service’s American Battlefield Protection Program, one of more than a dozen programs administered by the NPS that provide states and local communities technical assistance, recognition, and funding to help preserve their own history and create close-to-home recreation opportunities. Consideration for the American Battlefield Land Acquisition Grants is given to battlefields listed in the National Park Service’s Civil War Sites Advisory Commission’s 1993 Report on the Nation’s Civil War Battlefields and ABPP’s 2007 Report to Congress on the Historic Preservation of Revolutionary War and War of 1812 Sites in the United States.

Grants are awarded to units of state and local governments for the fee-simple acquisition of land or for the non-federal acquisition of permanent, protective interests in land (easements). Private nonprofit groups may apply in partnership with state or local government sponsors. Those nonprofit partners are listed along with the government sponsors below.