The privately owned 16-acre tract on Burnt Hickory Road is thick with pines and young hardwoods, but little else of interest other than its role as a staging ground for a Civil War battle 147 years ago.

The land's history has its next-door neighbor, Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park, working to scrounge up $2.7 million to buy land. That's the asking price sought by the Cherokee County tract's private owners, who have put the land up for sale.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported Sunday that the site was crossed by Union troops in 1864 as they launched a key skirmish in the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain during General William T. Sherman's march to the sea.

Tags: Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park, Civil War battlefield, land tract, sale