One of Many–A Journey to Civil War Battlefields
Seat of the War in America, Bacon & Co. — via Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division.
Fri. June 15, 1984—New York and headed south—In the car at 7a.m. Down Fifth Avenue to 34th Street without a stoplight. One of those new morning—old routine days in Manhattan. Zach and I underway for the south at 8:30 or so. A nice, cool, sunny day. Gettysburg at 12 noon. Hiked the battlefield, bought some books, watched the electric map (in exactly the reverse order that I’ve described) and generally enjoyed the afternoon. After going northwest of town to see Reynold’s statue, we headed down Rte. 15, having a bit to eat in Leesburg then stopping for the night in a genuine fleabag near Warrenton.
Sat. June 16, 1984—Virginia—A reasonable start in the rain for Richmond. We found a nice diner in Culpeper. I ordered “blueberry cakes” and got some pancakes, covered with a gruesome blue smelling paste. I ate around it and did fine. Couldn’t find Kelley’s Ford nor the road leading to Clark Mtn. but we made it to Richmond all right. Some cute little blonde girl screamed “stupid” at me when I was looking at the map and trying to figure out where to go but otherwise, Richmond was a bit run down and quite placid. The downtown looked like an extended Olean with a three and four-story building kind of fading in the sun, the signs turning the weary off-color of long exposure.
The Confederate Museum was great, full of artifacts and little bits of business that everybody had been using the moment they were shot. The presentation was in a chronological sequence and finishing the exhibit you’d pretty well worked your way through the war, There was a distinctly southern bias to the tone, most notable in the plaque describing the battle between the Monitor and the Virginia .
We drove around a bit. The Confederate White House was lost, very much like Thomas Wolfe’s “Old Kentucky Home”, amid the glacial looking new buildings, including the Confederate Museum itself.
We went through some real “poor” white neighborhoods in our efforts to get to Hollywood Cemetery. There was a beautiful, clear blue-eyed girl, tough as a savage, standing looking at us as we hunted up and down the run-down streets for the entrance to the cemetery. The cemetery itself was impressive in a lush, Southern Victorian way. It reminded me of a swimming pool emptied out with heavy rock walls and huge Eucalyptus trees towering over the mass of grave stones and mausoleums. We saw JEB Stuart’s, John Pegram’s, John Tyler’s , James Monroe’s, Jeff Davis’s, Geo. Pickett’s, Fitzhugh Lee’s, and a few other graves—Southall Freeman’s.
Unable to contact Tommy K.. We left Richmond and headed for Charlottesville along Rte 250. Long straight and rolling ride to the White House Motel.
Stay tuned–the trip continues……