Bull Run

If this entry is a bit on the crabby side, it is because the Braves are getting drilled by the Nats again tonight. It might be time to think about getting Lowe out of the rotation.

So today was a step back from the frantic site-seeing pace of the last three days. I figured out last night that my plan to see Fredericksburg today and Chancellorsville tomorrow made no sense because they are right next to one another (I knew they were close, but didn't think they were that close) and on the way to Richmond (tomorrow's stop). I figured all this out at 12:30 am last night.

So we slept in today, visited Bull Run for a few hours, played an unexpected round of golf, ate at Cracker Barrel, visited the Salvation Army store across the street from our hotel and are now chilling in the room. It was a very low-key day, but tomorrow will be busy as we're going to cram Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, The Wilderness, Spotsylvania, and the Jackson Shrine into a single day.

Bull Run is a nice battlefield - better than Antietam in terms of the museum and staff. The 150-year anniversary was last week (so hot that over 50 people were hospitalized and one horse died according to the Cracker Barrel cashier). We checked out the museum and then walked around the site. There is no love for the 2nd Battle of Bull Run at all here. It is all about Stonewall Jackson and the first encounter of the war. The battle site is very walkable (the 2nd Bull Run stuff requires a car as that battle spread the two armies out beyond the setting of the first one).

The surprise of the park? How about a 3-D show in the Henry House? It wasn't quite Avator, but it was close. No, it wasn't. It gave us a headache but a free souvenir. The battle itself is easy to picture as you walk the trails which is cool (Antietam had me turned around several times, to the point that I thought I was racing down a hill like Burnside did only to find out he was the other side...).

We also got to see a musket fired using the 9 steps a Civil War soldier used to fire his rifle once. I got video of it that should be useful in class.

The rest of the day was non-Civil War related, though I did find a few books on it in the Salvation Army store.

Five stops tomorrow before we pitch our Holiday Inn tents in Richmond tomorrow.

CC