Fredericksburg VA Area II

TUE July 27

TIME WARP back to the late 1700s and early 1800s and I went to James Madison’s Montpelier. Our fourth President is presented as the drafter of the Virginia plan that provided the convention with the starting place for the Constitution. Montpelier was sold to the DuPont family who extensively remodeled it and later turn the house over to the National Trust and in 2003 the Trust started demolition of the non-historic remodeling and restoring the home to how it was when James and Dolley lived there, very interesting.

After Montpelier it was back to 1864 and another, but longer visit to The Wilderness where I took a Ranger led tour to hear about the battle and how each side fared. The Ranger said this was where tactics against fixed positions in the Civil War started to change and where Grant introduced war against support elements of plantation and farm products supporting the southern effort and metal forges, etc.

WED July 28

Today was first the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House followed by the Battle of Fredericksburg.

Spotsylvania is the battle after Chancellorsville and was another bloody battle that was not a win for either side and after fighting to exhaustion the armies left and moved south after suffering 30,000 causalities. A monument I saw to the 15th Regiment of the New Jersey Volunteers stated they entered the fight with 429 men of whom 116 were KIA, 159 WIA and 38 were missing. Spotsylvania is marked as the longest hand-to-hand battle of the war.

Fredericksburg is the last battle where Union forces were not unified under a single commander, Grant took overall command as general-in-chief three months later, and Burnside was the Union commander of over 118,000 at Fredericksburg against Lee’s 60,000. And Lincoln very much wanted a victory because he planned to issue the Emancipation Proclamation in two weeks on January 1, 1863 and Lincoln very much needed to PR benefit of a war-time victory, now, and he didn’t get it. Burnside issued vague orders and did not control his troops and even with a 2 to 1 advantage he didn’t press and after two days withdrew from the fight.

More than 15,000 men were killed and 85,000 wounded in these four battles.
Did You Know? [I know that Marla knows, she told me.] During the war, the North generally named a battle after the closest river, stream or creek and the South tended to name battles after towns or railroad junctions. Hence the Confederate name Manassas after Manassas Junction and the Union name Bull Run for the stream Bull Run are the same battle.

Fredericksburg VA Area I

Left the beautiful Shenandoah Valley and traveled first west to New Market VA where the Corps of Cadets from VMI all fell-out to engage the Union army, something VMI is very proud of as the only military school to do this.

Then I headed east to the Fredericksburg area to see four important Civil War battlefields. Along the way I saw one of those yellow highway signs with a deer silhouette warning of possible deer crossing; well this deer crossing sign had a sub-sign stating that it applied for the next 0.42 miles. They must be some wildlife managers in this area to have it down to the hundredth of a mile.

I stopped briefly at the Wilderness National Military Park and after talking with a Ranger, at his suggestion, I moved on to Chancellorsville National Military Park where they had a Visitors Center and video and museum to mold all the Parks and battles together and I took a walking tour with a Ranger. Chancellorsville is where General “Stonewall” Jackson was shot by his own men, lost his arm because of the wound and later died.

Not far from the Chancellorsville battlefield is the Ellwood house, Ellwood is very close to where a year later the Wilderness battle would be fought. After Jackson was shot during Chancellorsville he was evacuated to a field hospital near Ellwood and that is where his arm was amputated. Jackson’s arm was buried in the family cemetery of Ellwood.

I don’t know about you but I was getting confused by dates of what I had seen so I made a list to put things back in place for me:
4/12-13/1861 Fort Sumter
9/17/1862 Antietam
4/27 -5/5/1863 Chancellorsville
7/1-3/1863 Gettysburg
MAR 1864 Grant takes command of all Union armies
5/5-6/1864 Battle of The Wilderness [this was the first Grant/Lee battle]
5/8-21/1864 Spotsylvania Court House
Petersburg
4/9/1865 Appomattox Court House

I am staying at a big KOA campground that seemed to be in the exact location for all the moving around the area I want to do so I made a reservation and was told I was lucky to get in because this is the week of the Boy Scout National Jamboree and they were pretty full. When I checked in and was talking I found out that lots of scouts, some entire troops are coming here to save the $3,000.00 per scout it would cost to go camp at the Jamboree, they can’t participate in all of the activities and events but the save $3K a head.

Shenandoah Hiking

SUN July 25

Drove back up to the Park today to hike a couple of more mountains, proper hikes, first you go UP and then you finish by going DOWN.

I started the late morning by hiking up to Stony Man Mountain summit an easy hike with just a moderate gain in elevation and I was able to maintain my normal hiking pace while enjoying the scenery and sounds. After coming back to the car I drove to another area and ate my lunch before starting up the trail to Hawksbill Mountain, the highest peak in the park. This trail was a lot steeper than I thought it was going to be and it really took it out of me and somewhere along I stressed my right knee because it hurt like the dickens on the downhill return, doesn’t hurt on trail.

The trails I have been on here and in North Carolina are a lot different from the trails I hiked in California and Arizona. These trails have all been part of the Appalachian Trail and the AT is maintained by the Appalachian Trail Conservancy which keeps the trails in excellent shape and that flows over to the other trails. There is also a difference in trees and soil conditions. There is denser tree-cover here with leafy trees and more rain/moisture while in the west there are more open trails, fewer trees and when there are trees mostly evergreen providing less shade and the west is a lot dryer. The trails here as I said are well maintained by a non-governmental Conservancy and the trail-soil has a good mixture of gravel in it to maintain the trail. Trails in the west tend to be very dusty after the spring rains have stopped. Also since the trails I have been on are so well maintained I don’t have to spend as much time looking at where I going to step and can enjoy my surroundings. Oh yes and they makr trails with color blazes, white if for the Appalachian Trail and blue is for a local trail.

And since I find myself mostly hiking along that makes it different, not better or worse, just different. Alone it gives me time to hear the sounds of the wind in the trees or the water in the creek, very relaxing.

Its hay cutting time in this area of the Shenandoah Valley and you can see and hear the tractors and scythes at work and in the morning smell the scent of new-mown hay.

Back in the Shenandoah Valley

7/24

When I was backing to my space at the RV park last night I noticed that one of the torsion bars on my weight distributing hitch had come loose and the bar was just hanging down, definitely not doing what it was designed to do, and resting on one of my trailer safety chains; I hate to think of what could have happened if the bar had fallen on to the highway when I was at highway speeds. The little pin that holds the bar in place had broken out a week or so back and I went to a trailer hitch installation place and they told me not to worry because the weight of the trailer on the bar would keep it in place, that was several hundred miles ago. Well as I drive down the road and hit bumps and highway undulations and the trailer moves up and down I guess the torque weight can come off the bar momentarily and at some point it can come out. I don’t know if it happened on the road or just last night when I was backing into the tightest campsite I’ve had on this trip, all I know is that I feel lucky.

I asked around and a lady told me her husband might know someone so she called out to Buddy, who was in bib-overalls, who looked at the hitch and said he thought Allen could fix it and he called Allen. Buddy told me to go about 4-miles down US-340, past a commercial building on my right, he said it was some kind of mechanical contractor building, and then turn right at the next road that was “Allen’s Rd.”, yep; love exact directions but they got me there. Allen said he had fixed this kind of problem before and would work on it and call me when he was done but first he had to go out and see about two silos and if they could be fixed. Allen seems to be that person that every small-town has that fixes everything. He wouldn’t let me pay him. You can see that I really couldn’t drive into his shop area because this rig operator had gotten jack-knifed and now his tractor wheels were spinning, so I just disconnected the hitch from the Tahoe and walked it over.

I spent the rest of the day back up in Shenandoah National Park hiking and drinking in nature. What I did was one of those dumb hikes that I don’t like but sometimes do because it just works out that way. What I mean is first you go totally downhill for 2.3 miles and then you have to return back uphill for the 2.3 miles when you are not fresh, blah! And to really keep me on my toes before I left the trailhead at the parking lot I saw a rattle-snake, other than bugs, the only other thing I saw on the trail was another snake, a garter snake. The trail was well maintained and it was 83 deg on the mountain and probably a couple of degrees less in the tree and on the trail, it was 101 deg when I got back down to the RV park, pool time.

Oh yes, when I got to the top of the waterfall I was hiking down to what to my wondering I should appear but a group of Korean men and women hikers and one of the men was yelling a Nature and the others thought it was funny; different cultures.

And to celebrate what a good day I had I went out for a Virginia Ham supper; um, um, good!

Gettysburg National Military Park

FRI July 23

A moving place and I enjoyed seeing places that I had heard of in histories I had studied and movies I had seen.

I started as usual at the Visitors Center talking to a Ranger and setting how I wanted to see the Park. The Ranger said they had guided tours that took over 4-hours and full driving tours that took about 3-hours. I decided to do a shortened driving tour and it still took me a full 2-hours. I visited Little Round Top where the movements of Confederate troops were seen and passed to the Federal commanders. I stopped briefly at The Wheatfield where 4,000 soldiers were either killed or wounded. I also went to Cemetery Ridge that was the center of the Union’s position and where a lot of the Union artillery was positioned.

I was very surprised when I visited the National Cemetery that although they had designated a memorial location to the Gettysburg Address it really wasn’t where Lincoln gave it and there was no public access to the actual location. I was told President Lincoln gave his address somewhere over near a mausoleum that is in the fenced area.

If anyone is going to visit the Gettysburg National Military Park I have a good DVD that I’ll lend you. And do not bring your metal detector, here they have signs posted saying “No Relic Hunting”.

Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge

THU July 22

I wanted to visit Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge after I read an article in National Geographic. The Refuge is about 15,900+ acres on the eastern shore of Delaware and on the Delaware Bay and has been recognized worldwide for its management.

When I got out of the car at the Visitors Center on my way in to talk to the Ranger I was bitten 4 times and the Ranger told me that Green Flies were out and that I should use bug-spray which I put on as soon as I got back to the car.

Off on the 15-mile car tour and at the first stop I got about 10-yards when I finally gave up with swatting the bugs swarming around my face and retreated back to the car for my Bull-Frog insect repellent and tried a second time, nope so I did 99% of the tour in the car. I did get out when I left the swamp area and moved to the sea and salt marsh area.

There are some areas in the Refuge that they describe as cooperative farming meaning farmers get to plant some areas for themselves and they then plant other areas for the migratory birds; an interesting arrangement. Sometime they take these planted out of the rotation to let they rest, they mow these resting areas every two to three years to prevent the growth of woody vegetation.

I was there at a time when there wasn’t any migration going on so the bird population was down to just the locals. I did see Wood Ducks, Snowy Egrets, a Greater Egret, a Blue Heron and a Crane plus many many birds that were too far away for me to identify.

This is really the place for serious birders and they were out with their tripods, big scopes and notebooks.

Biodiversity is the watchword that the Refuge goes by.

On the way out I stopped for a late lunch not far from the Refuge at a place called Sambo’s Tavern in a framing and crabbing village of Leipsic and I watched the tide go out as I enjoyed a grilled tuna-steak sandwich.

Valley Forge

WED

Time to get back to some sights I bypassed on my way to the Statue of Liberty and work my way back so I can catch my plane to Denver in a week +. So I headed in somewhat what would be described in branding-iron parlance as a lazy v, which means I headed west and somewhat south and then east and somewhat south; I went from NJ to Valley Forge PA and then to Lincoln DE.

Valley Forge didn’t do a lot for me and I guess I should have known that over 200+ years things would change. I only know Valley Forge through history and the story of how the Continental Army suffered through the winter. Well today when I visited all I saw were beautifully manicured hills and several recreated huts showing how the army housed themselves during the winter.

But it was good to see this place of history and now what I studied in school and have read about is in a visual context; the last thing I read was Newt Gingrich’s book “To Try Men’s Souls” that Forrest gave me.

I checked in at the Visitors Center and ask for their recommendations and then started with an overview video where I learned that Continental Army went to Valley Forge with 12,000 men and through end of enlistments, desertions and death fell to 6,000 but in the spring and summer grew to 20,000 when they marched out of their winter camp to campaign against the British again. After the overview I did a driving tour that was well laid out. I stopped and spent some time at the house that General & Mrs. Washington used over the winter and watched an archeological dig that was going on behind the house. They believe they may be uncovering the remains of an outbuilding directly behind the house that was used for a meal hall and conference center since the rooms in the house were very small and not able to accommodate the number of officers and others in attendance with Washington.