Gray & Pape, Inc., has extensive experience in the landscape ethnography of military sites and battlefields, an approach that synthesizes historical research, informant interviews, archaeological data, and landscape history observations. By developing management plans for several types of Civil War sites, including battlefields, earthworks, and encampments, Gray & Pape has gained a great deal of experience in coordinating research efforts with the needs and constraints of facility design, public interpretation, and resource preservation. Through careful documentation of the landscape and its cultural and natural resources, Gray & Pape has tailored planning and program decisions to a wide range of Civil War resources.

Gray & Pape has developed preservation plans for several Civil War battlefields, including Byram's Ford, the largest land battle of the Civil War west of the Mississippi. Our Preservation Plan and Archaeological Reconnaissance for Big Blue (Byram's Ford) Battlefield, Jackson County, Missouri, recounts the key engagement in the defense of Kansas City and Westport, and provides planning guidelines for both the engagement site and the surviving Civil War sites in the greater metropolitan area. A Preservation Plan for the Mill Springs Battlefield, Kentucky, was recognized as a national model by Edwin C. Bearss, former Chief Historian, National Park Service.

The Battles for the Bridge: A Civil War Resources Preservation Plan, encompasses a suite of battles occurring in and around the community of Munfordville, Kentucky. The American Battlefield Protection Program called that plan "an excellent study in community consensus planning." The recently completed Preservation Plan for the Civil War Battlefields of Newtonia, Missouri, which established preservation priorities for separate 1862 and 1864 engagements, was called the "best history of the battlefields I have ever seen" by the President and Historian of the Newtonia Battlefield Protection Association.

In addition to preservation plans, other research projects have led to the detailed reconstruction of more than a dozen different Civil War engagements, including The Battle of Camp Wildcat in Kentucky, and various engagements in Virginia, including The Battle of Malvern Hill, The 1st and 2nd Battles of Deep Bottom, the Battle of Malone's Crossing, The Battle of Glendale, The Battle of Totopotomoy, The Battle of Hawes' Shop, The Battle of Pole Green Church, The Battle of Reams Station, The Battle of Bethesda Church, The Siege of Petersburg, and Stuart's Ride Around McClellan. Gray & Pape also researched and prepared the first comprehensive National Register of Historic Places nomination for the entire Petersburg National Battlefield, at Petersburg, Virginia.