Home Sweet Home

We got home last night and I was wiped out. Ten days, nine nights, over 2000 miles...quite a trip.

The results:

*Miles Driven: 2189

* Battlefields seen (11) - Appomattox, Gettysburg, Antietam, Harpers Ferry, Manassas, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, The Wilderness, Spotsylvania, Petersburg, Fort Sumter.


*Museums (13) - 8 battlefields (nothing for Harpers Ferry, The Wilderness or Spotsylvania), VMI, Lee's Chapel, John Brown Museum, Museum of the Confederacy, H.L. Hunley.

*Baseball games (2) - Braves/Nationals and Flying Squirrels/Fisher Cats

*Rounds of golf (2) - Warrior's Path & The General's Ridge

*Hotels (5) - Lynchburg VA, Frederick MD, Manassas VA, Richmond VA, Charleston SC



Lessons Learned:

*Every Virginia town thinks it is "Historic."

*New York monuments are always the biggest.

*Rick Ankiel will turn on an inside fastball if he's looking for it.

*So will Dan Uggla.

*If people recommend the Hangover Hashbrowns, you should order them.

*Everything in the Gettysburg gift shop is cheaper at any other battlefield.

*Always ask about an educator's discount.

*The rewards of being a Priority Club member change from Holiday Inn to Holiday Inn.

*Great battlefields: Gettysburg, Fort Sumter

*Good battlefield: Antietam, Manassas, Fredericksburg, Petersburg

*Okay battlefield: Chancellorsville

*Nothing: Harpers Ferry, The Wilderness, Spotsylvania

Civil War Trip Tidbits:

Abner Doubleday (who did NOT invent baseball) fired the first shot for the Union out of Fort Sumter. He also took over for John Reynolds after he was shot at Gettysburg.

John Burns was a War of 1812 vet who demanded to fight at Gettysburg for the Union. And he did.

Pickett's Charge took the Confederates 26 minutes, but it only took me 17.

There are nine steps to firing a rifled musket. I have video proof of it.

Marye's Heights = Marie, not Mary (and Heth is Heath).

Pontoon bridges - I know how they were built now.

Prostitutes were not named after "Fightin' Joe" Hooker, but there were a lot of whores around his camp.

Global warming is a theory. So is evolution.

The largest surrender of an American army in the Civil War? Harpers Ferry.

During the 5 hour morning fighting of May 3 at Chancellorsville, there was a causality every second.

Meade wasn't actually replaced after Gettysburg; it just seemed that way because Grant went with that army.

A "salient" is a fancy military name for bulge.

The "Bloody Angle" at Spotsylvania featured 20+ hours of hand-to-hand fighting in the rain. Geez.

Jackson's "foot cavalry" averaged over a half marathon/day for 48 days during the Valley Campaign.

During Civil War times, infants & toddlers wore dresses until they were five for toiletry reasons. You could tell the difference from the part of the hair (boys on the side; girls down the center).



Thanks for reading the blog. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

CC

Charleston

This is the last post from the road as we pack up and head towards home today. It has been a great trip that I'll recap in a final post. For now, let's talk Charleston.

We started the day with a tour of the H.L. Hunley, a Confederate submarine that successfully sunk a Union ship, then never resurfaced. Frankly, I can't recommend checking this out. I get why it is what it is, but for $12 you see a submerged submarine that is covered by obstructions making it very difficult to see. You also get a talky tour that feels like it goes on and on to justify your $12. For example, at one point our guide gave us here opinions on global warming and evolution...on our tour of a submarine. Ryan and I caught eyes and ditched the tour early.

We zipped over to grab tickets to Fort Sumter and then had a nice lunch at a nearby deli. Sumter has a decent museum before you board a ferry boat (with a concession stand - nice touch) to see the actual fort. You get some Charleston history on the trip as well, so this felt like the thing to do as a tourist (the aquarium is next door, so there is a solid day in Charleston right there). The fort does not really resemble what it looked like in 1861, but is still very cool to tour. I was surprised how much attention the Confederate defense of the fort post-1861 got compared to why everyone wants to actually see it.

We drove around The Battery (very cool) and saw the sights of Charleston from the Volvo as storm clouds were covering the city. After a nap and workout, we hit Folly Beach for dinner and a stroll down the Atlantic Coast before heading back to the hotel.

We are about to meet Ryan's brother in Columbia for brunch and then will be back in the Scenic City.

CC

Charleston (Photos)

The Confederates' submarine that managed to sink a ship and then was never heard from again until they found it in 1995. Kind of a cool story, kind of a lame tour.

No pictures allowed of the real thing, but this is what it was probably like inside. They made it go by cranking it kind of like a group of rowers would. Three different times it sank and killed the people inside.

This is roomier than the real thing.

Where it began and for us where it ends. The last stop.

Sumter from the ferry boat (you can see the other ferry boat there to the right). Very peaceful ride across the Charleston harbor to the fort. I didn't puke, which is a plus.

Clean-shaven and looking sharp. Ready to learn about some Union soldiers getting blasted by Rebels.

Whoa! We have seen a bunch of artillery on the trip, but these things were the biggest by far.

There is a hole in the wall ahead where they could stick the weapon out to fire across the harbor.

Seriously?!?

Petersburg to Charleston (Photos)

Petersburg mortar - welcome to modern warfare

Where they now shoot bowling balls at you.

Holy crap. This ain't Gettysburg anymore.

You can see two types of artillery behind the giant walls that make zig-zags so the enemy couldn't lay down enfilade fire down the line like they did at Antietam.

Fort Steadman - they basically built a fort inside the earthworks.

The Crater itself - disappointing in size but only because the earth has been repairing itself. It was massive when it happened. The guys going in were convinced it was going to be such an explosion to blow them up too as they waited to charge. That, and their commanding officer being drunk in his tent, help explain why they climbed into the hole instead of attacking around it.

The mine opening where they started building the tunnel to create the Crater. It is barricaded because some idiots tried to go in. I would totally have tried to go in if it hadn't been barricaded.

Richmond to Petersburg to Charleston

It is 11:09 pm and we've been in the car for around 8 hours today, but I'm still going to pound out some bloggage about our trip before I crash for the night.

Let's start with yesterday - our full day in Virginia's capital, as well as the Confederacy's capital, of Richmond. We ventured downtown to the Museum of the Confederacy and White House of the Confederacy to start our day. The biggest complaint about these two items is the parking (well, actually I think it is the celebration of the Confederacy, so the second biggest), and it is valid. After driving a few blocks away to secure a meter space, we entered a celebration of all things rebel. Except slavery.

The museum is very good, but, frankly, it was mostly overlap from our previous stops. The Gettysburg museum covers most of the battle history we got in Richmond. I really enjoyed the top & bottom floors that covered Civil War & soldier life. I never knew the Confederates used dolls to smuggle drugs or exactly what a Sherman necktie looked like. It is a very nice museum with enough Confederate battle flags to make you a little uncomfortable.

Next we toured the White House. It has been restored to look as much like the original as possible which looked more impressive than it actually was. Everything was fake - the walls looked marble, but it was really just fancy wallpaper. Everything was like that. I'm not going to lie - I liked it. Why shell out for real marble when the wallpaper looks close enough?

Jefferson Davis is handled with kid gloves here. Apparently I have been wrong to call him a micro-manager; he was a work-a-holic. He is credited with being largely responsible for building up the great Union army he must now defeat. There is little mention of how nobody really liked him. I guess it isn't really the place for it. At one point, a know-it-all in the tour group questioned our guide about how he knew the story he was telling us was true and the guide buried her with multiple reasons. BOOM. I ask my guys to ask those kind of questions, but you really look like a jerk when you ask them.

We grabbed lunch and then visited the graves of several prominent Civil War (Jefferson Davis, Fitzhugh Lee, George Pickett & JEB Stuart) and American (James Monroe & John Tyler) heroes at the Hollywood Cemetery. Very odd to be a tourist in a cemetery, but we weren't the only ones.

We ended the day with some Krispy Kremes and a minor league baseball game with the Richmond Flying Squirrels. It makes me a little sad the Braves moved their AAA team to Gwinnett (where is that?) after so many years in Richmond. The stadium here is a dump, but man do they love their Flying Squirrels. I'd say 1 of 3 people there were decked out in Squirrels gear, including our favorite "Squirrels Gone Wild" shirts on the cute Richmond girls.

We rolled out of bed this morning and visited Petersburg on our way to Charleston. The most underrated and pleasant surprise of the trip: Petersburg. The movie was pretty bad - it reminded me of the WWII movies that Frank Capra did. I kept waiting for the narrator to talk about the Nat-sis trying to scale the earthworks of Fort Steadman. And the museum itself wasn't worth the five minutes it took to get around it. But...

Petersburg was the birth of modern warfare with both sides digging trenches and shooting at one another instead of lining up and charging. The earthworks at Petersburg are remarkable. You really get a feel for what it was like in the "trenches" (they didn't call them that yet). Then you drive a bit further and see the full thing with spikes, mortars, etc. Knowing what we know now about trench warfare in WWI, this was a horrible turn of events in terms of warfare. Yes, war got worse. It could go on FOREVER at this point. How do you win a war when you cannot attack your opponent?

The next stop was The Crater where the Union successfully dug a tunnel underground and blew a hole in the CSA trench, then unsuccessfully capitalized on that explosion by charging into instead of around the new "crater." I am so fascinated by this whole episode I bought a book and knocked out 70 pages on the drive out the park. How did they dig a tunnel while also fighting trench warfare? How did they know where to stop? Why did they charge into the hole? What was Ambrose Burnside doing there? I love The Crater.

We left for Charleston and drove through a typhoon in South Carolina to get here. Ryan and I both played it cool while it was happening, but both later admitted we were a bit worried. It was nasty.

We are on the 14th floor of our Holiday Inn and have a nice view of the river opposite the Charleston Peninsula. We went out to the Charleston Crab Shack and I got a plate of crab legs, so I'm a happy blogger tonight.

Fort Sumter, the Confederate submarine, The Citadel and then hopefully some Charleston site-seeing tomorrow.

CC

Richmond (Photos)

First stop of the day, after looking for parking for 30 minutes, was the Museum of the Confederacy and the White House. No pictures allowed in the White House. The tour is cool - lots of tidbits about things from 150 years ago. It is amazing to think about what we don't have to deal with that they did. Mosquitoes biting you while you sleep?

Got me a big one. And a racist one at that.

Elaine Benes would appreciate this flag.

Sherman Necktie

This did not go over well with the ladies in New Orleans.

Widows were supposed to wear this for a year...if I go, I hope Martha is sad but this is a bit much.

Confederates smuggled drugs in dolls. Awesome.

I'll let you guess what this was used for...

Here is a hint: it might have led to using this.

Wadley's lunch at Legend's Brewery. He suffered a massive heart attack shortly thereafter.

Next stop: Hollywood Cemetery (I took this while driving, so it is a bit crooked)

George Pickett's grave

JEB Stuart's grave - good man, JEB Stuart

John Tyler - lousy president, but overlooked as first VP to take over. No precedent for that until Tyler.

James Monroe - looks like he is in prison.

Jefferson Davis - I was trying to balance on the bottom of the monument and therefore look like I'm leaning on him. Much like the Confederates leaned on his leadership in the 1860s...

Driving down Monument Avenue - Robert E. Lee

And Stonewall Jackson

And this minivan driving with both doors open. I think this is the latest trend in minvaning.

After a nap, it was time for Richmond Flying Squirrels baseball!

Featuring Hillbilly Horseshoes which involved throwing toilet seats onto plungers. That right there is culture.

Typical 80-year old man in a crown and cape selling peanuts at a minor league baseball game. Nothing to see here.

Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, The Wilderness, Spotsylvania, & The Jackson Shrine

Five stops in one day? No problem.

We accidentally slept in (closing the blinds made all the difference), so we started the day a bit behind schedule. Ryan drove which gave me time to get caught up on receipts, notes from the stops, etc. It seems like we should have more time for reading, chilling, etc., but the pace has pretty much wiped us out at night.

First stop was Fredericksburg - very cool. The city as we saw it is Chain Store Central and there is no escaping that the city has overrun the battlefield a bit. You can still get a decent idea of what happened from the Sunken Road and Marye's Heights. The movie here was good as well (Antietam's was awful). You really get a sense of how stupid the repeated charges up Marye's Heights were when you stand up there.

We drove around to Prospect Hill where Jackson was attacked by Meade, but couldn't get too much of a sense of what it looked like there. Interesting to learn that Burnside planned that attack as his main assault, but somehow got sidetracked with an unwinnable charge up Marye's Heights instead.

Perhaps the most important thing I learned here was exactly how the pontoon bridge worked. I've taught it for years, but never really understood what it meant to build one. You take a bunch of small boats and line them up parallel to the shore, then lay wood across to make a bridge. Simple enough when you see it.

Next was Chancellorsville - Lee's masterpiece but also Jackson's demise. Another movie - decent enough. You can make the 12-mile flanking movement Jackson made (one in which his men ate as they marched and many discarded valuable supplies just to lighten their loads), but we didn't have time for that. And we were in flip-flops. We somehow failed to notice the Jackson monument right behind the visitor's center, so we had to double-back for that. Jackson was, of course, shot by his own men. I didn't realize the soldiers who did it were being yelled at to stop firing at their own people just before they hit Stonewall.

From Chancellorsville to the Lacy House where we went to see Jackson's buried arm, not the Lacy House. We couldn't really tell that to the FOUR volunteers waiting to greet us as we entered who had clearly been waiting all day for someone to tell about the House. I told them we were in a bit of a time crunch which did not hurry them up in the least. We eventually got out to the arm which was neat. They properly buried the man's arm and it has been taken care of over the last 148 years. How many people have two grave sites people want to visit?

We were hustling at this point to cram everything in and the rain didn't help. We got a little wet as we checked out The Wilderness (where Longstreet was shot after emerging as the hero...tough break for Pete. Also losing the use of his right arm for the rest of his life must have sucked too). The fighting in the woods here freaked me out. Imagine fighting in thick woods, filled with fire and smoke. What would be worse - a wound that required an amputation with no anesthesia or burning to death on the battlefield? I bet there was someone who endured both. And, based on the statistics, I'll bet he had an STD as well.

The rain was coming down hard at this point, but we continued to Spotsylvania (with the Braves on the radio who nearly blew a 6-0 lead and had me a little on edge during the drive). There isn't much to see at Spotsylvania. Grant wanted to fight here all summer, but instead it was two weeks. There is a cool section called The Bloody Angle where there was 20 hours of hand-to-hand combat. Did anyone have a limb amputated, get burned by fire at The Wilderness and by an STD, AND fight at the Bloody Angle? I hope not.

Finally, we got to The Jackson Shrine which is hyped up in Jeff Shaara's battlefield book. It shouldn't be. It is okay - Jackson died here and they still have the bed. And...that is about it. There were two people working this remote destination which led Ryan and I to question why you would pay two NPS workers to sit there. If we have to make cuts after this debt deal, I think I know one place we could save some money.

We ate at a local Italian place on our way to Richmond and then got to our Holiday Inn. I even had time to get a much-needed haircut from a Lebanese woman who told me some sobs stories in the hopes of getting a big tip on my $12 haircut. She got a fair one.

Tomorrow we check out the Museum of the Confederacy, then play the rest of the day by ear.

CC

Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, The Wilderness, Spotsylvania, & The Jackson Shrine (Photos)

Wadley behind the stonewall on the Sunken Road at Marye's Heights

She helped bandage up wounded Confederates at Fredericksburg. I hope someone considers me their friend on my tombstone.

The view from Marye's Heights - the Union was supposed to charge up this hill against entrenched Confederates behind the stonewall and against artillery where I took this picture. Shockingly, it didn't work.

Fredericksburg cemetery - very cool

Genius.

The Bloody Angle at Spotsylvania - no clue why we had to call someone for information about the scene.

Stonewall Jackson memorial.

(Moment of silence)

Original monument for Jackson's wounding - monuments have improved over the years.

Did we make a special trip to see a man's buried arm? Yes we did.

The Wilderness - where men fought in fire. Pete Longstreet was wounded where I was standing (also by his own men, but he survived).

The Bloody Angle - it poured rain on us here. We made a special point to get out of the car to see this and there was NOTHING to see.

The Jackson Shrine - where he caught pneumonia and died

The rain stopped for us to visit the Jackson Shrine. He wasn't buried here like I thought, but is actually buried in Lexington, VA...WHERE WE WERE LAST SATURDAY! How did we miss that? Damn...

The exact bed where Jackson died. Same blanket too.