Trip Preparation

It is Wednesday, July 27th - two days before my road trip through the Eastern Theatre of the Civil War. I'm in Jacksonville, FL right now on a family vacation. With Martha and the kids at the beach (I played golf this morning instead), I have a little time to devote to the upcoming adventure.

At this point, I am about 80% ready for the trip. After securing a grant, I was able to convince Ryan Wadley to join me on the trip. I helped Ryan on a grad school Civil War project last year, so I knew he was interested in the history I am going to be seeing and figured I could twist his arm to split the driving with me since the grant covers our lodging and gas (special thanks to Savannah and Harper for their permission).

I locked in hotel rooms a few months ago in order to a) finalize the trip dates and b) get the lower rates. I had thoughts of just snagging hotel rooms as we went, but was afraid I would get off schedule or end up spending more than I should in a pinch.

I also decided to tweak the original trip plan a bit to cut out Montgomery, AL entirely. The more I looked at what Civil War stuff I was going to get at the Confederacy's original capital, the less I was inclined to veer that far south. I also think the grant is going to cover most but not all of the 9-night trip (gas prices have gone up substantially since the grant submission - the IRS rate for mileage is 4 cents higher than it was in February), so another hotel room and 200-300 miles seems unnecessary.

Right now, the trip itinerary looks like this:

Friday - leave in the morning for Lynchburg, VA
Saturday - visit Appomattox Court House, then drive to Frederick, MD
Sunday - visit Gettysburg
Monday - visit Antietam, then Harper's Ferry, then drive to Manassas, VA
Tuesday - visit Bull Run, then Fredericksburg
Wednesday - visit Chancellorsville, then The Wilderness, then drive to Richmond, VA
Thursday - visit The Museum of the Confederacy
Friday - visit Petersburg, then drive to Charleston, SC
Saturday - visit Fort Sumter, then H.L. Hunley
Sunday - drive home

It is a busy itinerary, but hopefully there will be room for some spur-of-the-moment stops along the way (and maybe a few evening rounds of golf after the parks have closed).

I am reading Jeff Shaara's Civil War Battlefields book on my Nook right now in preparation of our visits. It looks to be very helpful in terms of identifying what to see once we are there. On the drive home from Jacksonville, I am going to compile checklists for the various stops. I just finished James McPherson's Antietam and hope to get through at least one more Civil War book before Friday. Steve Bartlett gave me several books before his move to Nashville that look to be helpful. I expect to get some reading done in the car or on the trip as well.

The plan for documenting the trip is to write about it on this blog and film it on my iPhone as we go along in order to put together an iMovie. My Flip camera died last week, so the phone will have to be recorder. The quality will suffer a bit, but it will be easier to keep up with.

I am getting awfully excited at this point about the next week and a half. It is taking all the cool I can muster to contain history geek in me that wants to come out and annoy my wife, kids and innocent bystanders nearby. Just two more days...

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