The ABPP focuses primarily on land use, cultural resource and site management planning, and public education.
The purpose of the reports are to presents information about Civil War battlefields for use by Congress, federal, state, and local government agencies, landowners, and other interest groups to enable them to act quickly and proactively to preserve and protect nationally significant Civil War battlefields; and to create partnerships among state and local governments, regional entities, and the private sector to preserve, conserve, and enhance nationally significant Civil War battlefields.
Because of limited time and resources, the Commission concentrated on battlefields as the central focus of the Civil War, and of many contemporary historic preservation decisions.
The Commission identified 384 battlefields Archived 2013-07-10 at the Wayback Machine as the principal battles of the war and classified them according to their historic significance.
The study was to accomplish four tasks: identify significant Civil War sites and determine their condition, establish their relative importance, assess short and long term threats to their integrity, and provide alternatives for their preservation and interpretation by Federal, State, and local governments, or by other public or private entities.
Fifteen battle events of major significance were identified and documented and a final report Archived 2013-07-13 at the Wayback Machine detailing each battlefields' landscape integrity, risk, and preservation needs was presented to Congress in 1992.