I took these photos last week in the midst of the Confederate statue removal process in the old Confederate Capital of Richmond. It was a unique time to visit because some of the statues had already been removed, one of JEB Stuart was in the process of being removed and the two central ones to Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis still stood, although both have been slated for removal.
In taking these photos I wanted to capture the spirit of the protests which ultimately have led to the conversation over the removal of these statues, so I have included some close-up shots of the graffiti. Some of the graffiti is targeted towards police brutality while some supports the Black Lives Matter movement.
I am of the opinion that these statues cannot continue to stand in these central places in our nation’s cities. While there are aspects of all of these men which I admire and respect, the cause for which they fought was ultimately the continuation of slavery in perpetuity. There are places for these statues as I believe all art tells a story, but the story currently being told isn’t a complete one and needs to be adjusted with our current understanding of history. These statues coming down isn’t erasing history, it is history.
Hello everyone, well another week has rolled by us and it has not been a bad one here on the homefront in Washington D.C. One of my friends got engaged this week, another announced a pregnancy and still another welcomed a new grandchild into the world so those were some real positive boosts. I’ve been getting some good walks in around the neighborhood despite mid-summer temperatures and high humidity levels and have been enjoying the podcast Civil War Talk Radio as I walk. It’s been great to hear some expert historians discuss some very specific issues of the war. I’ve been trying to keep myself hydrated which as silly as it sounds has been really helping me feel better. I’m usually really good at hydrating, but seem to have let it slip amidst all of the chaos of late. I’ve also been trying to keep a little further from the news and have been picking my guitar more and reading some less heavy material. I’ve started rereading Steinbeck’s Travels With Charley, one of my favorite American travel books of all time, as I start to gear up to get back to writing my own book. I had charged ahead with it when I first got home, but realized I needed to focus more and plan it out a little better to keep the story moving and make it more readable and interesting. That’s tough because every day I was out on the road was a new adventure and had an impact on the journey, but the book can’t be a thousand pages long, so I will need to map it out a little better. I hope to start putting pen to paper a little later this week.
Also this week I decided to pick up a violin seriously for the first time in 30 years. When I was in Junior High School, I used to play violin and I was actually fairly decent at reading music. Unfortunately, I was not very interested in it because I didn’t know any of the songs my teacher wanted me to play. While she said I played them well, how could I know? I have always likened it to cooking a recipe for something you’ve never eaten before, you may think it tastes just fine, but if you don’t know how it’s supposed to taste, you’d never know. Anyways, in the intervening years, I’ve seen the violin played in very different styles of music in my travels around the country and around the world (although in these styles it’s often referred to as a “fiddle”, it’s the exact same instrument). I’ve seen lots of live bands playing traditional Irish music or country, mountain and folk music and I really enjoy it. About 2 years ago when I was in Nashville I went ahead and bought one thinking I’d give it a shot on the road – it’s a relatively small instrument and I found a place for it in my van. I had romantic images in my head of sitting in the back of my van at night and playing beautiful music before bed. Sadly, I realized that the violin actually takes some space to play with the bow going up and down and my van was too tight to really make it happen. And so it just sat there. I found the space for a guitar instead which takes more room to carry but less room to play. This week I pulled out that violin though and took it for a spin. I was pleasantly surprised that with a little refresher from a book and the internet I could remember how to read music and with some sheet music of songs I actually know I could actually play them that first night (not well, but recognizable). I was impressed and really enjoyed it. Sadly, when I pulled it out last night the bridge fell off and I spent an hour trying to restring it and it was generally a big frustrating mess. But I hope to get it fixed and continue playing with it. This was another big plus this week.
The news has, as always seems to be the case recently, been a big minus. Covid cases continue to grow at a rapid rate in the U.S. and people continue to ignore it. Although we have only about 4% of the world’s population, I believe we now have over a quarter of the world’s cases…
The photos below come from a recent visit to the battlefields of the greater Richmond/Petersburg Area. With the exception of the first few from Gaines Mill which was important to the Peninsula Campaign of 1862, most of these battles were part of the 1864 Overland Campaign. This long, brutal and bloody series of battles would eventually lead to the capture of Petersburg and the fall of Richmond which set the stage for the surrender of the Army of the Potomac at Appomattox. Civil War Chronicles will trace the major battles of the Eastern Theater of the war through photos and brief histories
Richmond was not the original capital of the Confederacy, but became the capital after Virginia seceded from the Union in April of 1861. Richmond and neighboring Petersburg were major industrial hubs with rail lines connecting to points near and far and the James River to further move supplies in and out of the area. The rivers surrounding the city made defending it somewhat easier as well. Because of the strategic importance of Richmond, it would be the focus of several major campaigns during the war.
Our visit started at Gaines Mill Farm which saw some of the worst fighting of the Seven Days Battle during the Peninsula Campaign of 1862. This battle was the first in which Robert E. Lee had command of the Army of Northern Virginia following the wounding of Joseph Johnston. Lee’s ability to hold off George McClellan and his Union forces would direct the war away from Richmond and back to Northern Virginia to Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville which we visited several weeks ago…
Hey y’all. How’s everyone doing out there? Another week has come and gone sheltered in place here in Washington D.C. It’s had its ups and downs, like every week has, but I’m feeling a lot more positive this week than I was last week. I’ve gotten out of the house more (though not as much as I need to be), and have gotten back to playing my guitar and avoiding the news as much as possible. As July begins, it continues to heat up here in our Nation’s Capital, and 90+ degree days with high humidity are prevalent in the forecast. I’m getting up earlier to get my walk in before the heat really takes hold of the day and trying to get outside in the evening as well when it cools off again. Meanwhile I’ve been eating a lot of watermelon because really is there anything better than cold watermelon in the middle of a heat wave? I can say that before this summer I only knew how to cut a watermelon into slices. Now I’ve watched some videos on the subject and can cut a whole one into chunks pretty easily (seriously, there are some fascinating methods out there). I’ve also found that making watermelon balls, covering them in vodka and freezing them are quite the treat! In short, despite the heat it’s been a decent week and watermelon is delicious.
Thursday was an interesting day. As a follow-up to our Tuesday trip to Monocacy Battlefield, we wanted to go and visit Fort Stevens, the site of the only Civil War battle fought inside Washington D.C. After the 1864 Battle of Monocacy, Confederate General Jubal Early trained his sights on the Nation’s Capital. Thankfully, the delay at Monocacy had allowed reinforcements to be brought north from Richmond in steamships and the Confederates were turned out. President Lincoln was there that day and it was the only time that a sitting president has come under enemy fire during a war.
Having been rebuilt by the Civilian Conservation Corps during the New Deal and now administered by the National Park Service, Fort Stevens is the only one of our many forts which actually looks like a fort as most have been turned into parks and receded into the landscape. There isn’t much to it, but it’s only 10 minutes from our house so it was an easy place to visit. After wandering around the fort, we headed up Georgia Avenue to Battlefield National Cemetery, where 40 of the Union soldiers who had been killed during the battle are buried. With just an acre of property in the heart of the city, it is one of the smallest National Cemeteries in the country, and is really quite interesting to visit…
The photos below come from a recent visit to Monocacy National Battlefield Park just south of Frederick Maryland - site of the “Battle that Saved Washington”. Civil War Chronicles will trace the major battles of the Eastern Theater of the war through photos and brief histories.
The Battle of Monocacy is a bit of an outlier in that it wasn’t really a major battle of the Eastern Theater of the Civil War, but a minor one with major implications. While Generals Grant and Lee were engaged in the final grappling of the war around Petersburg, south of Richmond, Lee wanted a distraction to pull some of Grant’s army away. He attempted this by sending General Jubal Early to go on the offensive and attack into Union territory, the third Confederate invasion of the North during the war. Early was sent with 15,000 men to threaten Washington D.C. and, if possible, to raid the prison camp at Point Lookout and free the Confederate soldiers being held there. Lee also knew that a presidential election was looming and he hoped that another invasion of the North might bring about the defeat of Lincoln and a favorable end to the long and brutal war.
Early’s army crossed the Potomac River into Maryland on the 4th of July, 1864 and marched past Sharpsburg, the site of the Battle of Antietam two years earlier. You can’t march 15,000 infantry troops across a state without anyone noticing, and word quickly got to General Lew Wallace who was then the Union commander in Baltimore. Wallace gathered what men he could muster and quickly set off towards the west. Thinking quickly, Wallace decided to head towards Monocacy Junction, just south of Frederick, Maryland. He didn’t know where the Confederates were headed, but this point would allow his troops to defend the Georgetown Pike to Washington, the National Road to Baltimore and the Baltimore and Ohio Rail Line. If he got there first, he could strategically place his men along the Monocacy River and defend all three of those routes which crossed the river at that point. He arrived in time to dig in and establish a line of defense.
Hey y’all, I’m not going to lie, it’s been a tough week for me personally. I think this whole process has brought waves of emotion for us all, and I’m grateful that I have had peaks in the midst of it, but this week was definitely more of a valley. And don’t get me wrong, valleys can be beautiful places, you just don’t see the sun as often when you’re in them.
Last week I wrote about the permanent closure of the tour company I’ve worked for through much of my adult life. It’s a company which was founded three years before I was born and which I guess I expected to be there, in one form or another, indefinitely into the future. The company and I had found a good rhythm, one which worked really well for us both. For me, it allowed me to do something which I enjoy and which I’m good at and which allowed me to travel to beautiful places, hike often and practice my photography. In return, my company got a true professional career guide who could work independently and be gone for months at a time with minimal supervision while still producing high quality tours and satisfied customers. I could make enough money in a few months to pursue my other interests during the rest of the year and I think it’s been a pretty fair and balanced relationship. While there are other companies out there and I know that my experience will land me a job in the future, it won’t have the same shared history for me. Couple that with the uncertainty of the when’s and where’s and it has left me less upbeat about the future than I usually am. And that, for me, is a problem. If you’ve been following this blog long enough, you know that I suffer from depression and anxiety and that travel helps me cope with both. In the past, when things have gotten bad for me, I’ve inevitably been able to look optimistically towards the future and find some point in my mind where things are okay and things are better. And even when I didn’t necessarily think I would be going back to guiding, it was always there as an option and thinking about a fresh season in a new van could always bring me out of a funk. While I know that somewhere out there is a new season with a new company or perhaps a better option which I haven’t even considered before because I haven’t been forced to look for it, it’s taken a few days of mourning to reach that point.
In addition, it’s been a tough few weeks of watching the news and social media with everything which has been happening in the U.S. I find myself, as usual, torn when it comes to so many things. Over the last 20 years, I’ve traveled to all corners of the U.S. and met wonderful people everywhere I went of all shapes, sizes, shades, ages and backgrounds. Americans, generally speaking, are kind, hardworking people struggling to find a path forward and doing the best they can.
The photos below come from a recent visit to Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Battlefield Park, which also includes the Battles of Chancelorsville and The Wilderness. Civil War Chronicles will trace the major battles of the Eastern Theater through photos and brief histories.
It had been almost a year since the horrific battle of Gettysburg, and in the interim President Lincoln had turned command of the Union Army over to General Ulysses S. Grant. Grant would lay out a plan to attack the confederacy on many fronts including Sherman’s march towards Atlanta and an attack on Mobile, and Grant himself would ride with General George Meade’s Army of the Potomac. Their goal was to bring the war back to Virginia and keep the pressure on General Lee and his Army of Northern Virginia. This Overland Campaign would be a war of attrition and would bring the war to new levels of horror but ultimately lead to Lee’s surrender at Appomattox.
On May 4th, 1864 the Army of the Potomac crossed the Rapidan River and engaged Lee’s army in an area called The Wilderness. Apparently the area today bears little resemblance to what it did at the time when new growth underbrush made movement difficult, artillery less effective and confusion the norm. Fierce fighting took place on the scattered farms in the area which allowed for some open space in which to maneuver, but most of the battle took place in the dense forest. On May 6th, the Union Army had taken the upper hand and Lee’s men were in grave danger of being overrun on the widow Tapp’s farm. In a scene from the movies, Longstreet’s reinforcements arrived at just the right moment and Lee was prepared to lead them into battle himself, but the Confederates wouldn’t allow it and moved him quickly to the rear. After two days of heavy fighting neither side had gained a decisive victory. Unlike his predecessors, Grant didn’t pull back but rather pushed forward, ordering a night march towards the town of Spotsylvania Court House. His plan was to get between Lee and the Confederate Capital at Richmond. Sensing this move, Lee ordered his men to move that night as well.
Hello Everyone,
Another week has come and gone here in Washington D.C. Time has taken on a different quality for me here. I’m very used variety in my life, so when I get a chance to stop and catch my breath, it’s actually kind of nice. Now I’m through the “catching my breath” phase and into a routine phase which I know is how most people’s lives simply are. It has its ups and downs, but more than anything the time just seems to slip away. I hope every week to at least have something to show for that week, but even if there isn’t anything tangible it’s another week of keeping myself safe and sane and another week of helping who I can do the same. Sometimes it’s the little things that can make a difference too. This week I saw my first lightning bugs of the summer and it reminded me of how magical these little critters are. How cool is it that they can just glow like that in the dark? When I used to guide night snorkel tours in the islands, I used to try and show people some phosphorescence in the water, but lightning bugs are way cooler than that. They fly and they glow. In my next life, it wouldn’t be a bad choice. On a completely unrelated note, my mother set a new personal record for rabbits seen on her morning walk this week with 16. Like I said, sometimes it’s the little things.
My week started with a relaxing Thursday. I’m sure I did things, but I can’t remember what they were. There are more of those kinds of days recently too. I did have a nice Zoom chat with some of my friends from college and it felt really good to laugh for a while. Friday was exciting because we tapped our recently brewed homebrew and I have to say it was pretty tasty. We sampled it alongside other beers of the same kind (Kolsch), and ours held up okay. We also brewed a fresh batch on Friday as well, an American Cream Ale this time, so we’ll see how that works out in a couple of weeks. It’s been bubbling away in the fermenter, so that’s a good sign. After all of the beer excitement, we enjoyed some nice weather outside on the patio with some snacks and an exciting game of Skip-Bo, one of our go-to pandemic card games. It wasn’t a bad Friday at all.
Saturday I met up with a friend for a nice walk down in Rock Creek Park, a wonderful National Park unit which splits the city down the middle along the natural valley formed by the creek. It was a beautiful day for a walk, and hence was a little more crowded than I would have liked, but we did okay. My friend brought her dog along and he seemed to enjoy the exercise as well. We sat for a while by the water and chatted away the morning and for a minute, it almost felt like normalcy.
The Battle of Gettysburg which took place from July 1st-3rd, 1863 would be the bloodiest battle of the Civil War. 170,000 men would clash over those three hot days in July and over 50,000 would end up dead, captured, wounded or missing. While both armies were looking for a fight, neither expected it to be in this tiny Pennsylvania town.
After his dramatic victories at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, General Lee decided to once again push north into Union territory. He wanted a decisive victory on Northern soil to try and force President Lincoln to the negotiating table. Lee marched his Army of Northern Virginia north, crossed the Potomac River and moved through Maryland and into Pennsylvania. The Union’s Army of the Potomac, still under the command of General Hooker, pursued. By the end of June, General George Meade had replaced Hooker at the helm…
The photos below come from a recent visit to Gettysburg National Battlefield, the site of the bloodiest and most well known battles of the war. Civil War Chronicles will trace the major battles of the Eastern Theater through photos and brief histories
It’s been a warm week here in D.C. – summer has definitely arrived. I’ve had some nice days to get out and explore the city this week, but also some hot and humid ones and a few epic thunderstorms as well. It’s been a long time since I’ve experienced summer in our nation’s capital, and there are definitely pluses and minuses. I will say that the lack of traffic anywhere at any time makes the heat of summer a little more tolerable. As I’m sure I’ve mentioned before, that lack of traffic definitely makes for cleaner air and clearer skies – something my camera sees even more than I do. That is one of the plusses of the situation. We’ve been enjoying some summer fruit too, which is one of the best things about summer anywhere. We’ve had beautiful cherries, watermelon, strawberries and others and I’m looking forward to peaches very soon.
Last Friday my stepfather made some wonderful homemade pizzas and we sat in the basement and played some games and listened to some music while we chowed down on a couple of pies. It was another great Forget-About-It Friday, which we are grateful for. This coming week we will tap our homebrew and see how it turned out, and begin our next batch as well – an American Cream Ale. I’m looking forward to having a taste and to keeping the brewing going while I’m home. It’s fun and there’s a (hopefully) fine finished product at the end. After the cream ale, I want to try something a little more complicated now that I’m getting my brewing confidence back up.
The rest of the weekend was pretty quiet. My mom spent Saturday cooking up a storm and we had a wonderful dinner on Saturday night as well. Sunday I spent some time reading my new (to me) book about the Gettysburg Address which I’m really enjoying. I also got some photos edited and published from our trip to Antietam last week, and got some writing done as well. It was a pretty relaxing weekend all around, but it felt good to accomplish a few things along the way.
After being turned back south after the Battle of Antietam, Confederate General Robert E. Lee marched his army back to Virginia. Union General George McClellan was replaced by General Ambrose Burnside to command the Army of the Potomac, and President Lincoln urged Burnside to pursue the Army of Northern Virginia deep into the state and attack the Confederate Capital at Richmond. The major obstacle lying in their way was the Rappahannock River.
Burnside arrived at Stafford Heights overlooking the river and the small town of Fredericksburg in mid-November, 1862. He had sent orders to have pontoons at the ready to provide a means of bringing his army rapidly across the river. Tragically for Burnside and his men, the pontoons didn’t arrive for several weeks. Instead of crossing the river in boats or rafts, he chose to wait for the pontoons. By the time they got there, Confederate troops had dug in on the high ground south of the city called Marye’s Heights and behind a stone wall along a sunken road to the front of this position.
Union engineers worked through the night of December 10th to assemble the pontoon bridge, but their progress was slowed by Mississippi sharpshooters in town. A small group of Union soldiers crossed the river in boats and fought a battle to secure the streets of the town. They finally secured the town in late afternoon on the 11th, but it was winter and the daylight soon gave out. The bridge would be completed and most of the army would cross it on December 12th.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. In this series I’ve chosen one picture per post which brings out strong memories for me and has a story attached to it. This picture is of the Santa Monica Pier in Los Angeles, California, the place I first watched the sun set into the Pacific.
I was as far from home as I’d ever been.
When I went to college, my goal was to work for the National Park Service. My major was Wildlife and Fishery Science with a minor in American History. I spent five years working on two degrees to prepare myself for my career, but in the days of the infancy of the internet I really didn’t know what that career would entail. While there, I worked in the banquet department at a beautiful resort hotel and golf course and made pretty decent money for a college kid. I was, therefore, pretty disappointed when I started looking for a real job only to find that the only Park Service jobs available to me were 3 month temporary positions in parks I’d never heard of making $8 an hour. I couldn’t believe it – after five years of good grades and two degrees from an excellent institution I was only going to make $8 an hour? That was significantly less than I was making in my current job. And in three months I’d have to start all over again?
I decided to think on it for a while and headed to my summer home of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. In my first “real world” lesson, I had to sign to a one-year lease to get a decent place to live, and went back to work at the restaurant I had worked at the previous two summers. Over the next year I worked a lot, drank too much and made some really good friends, some of whom are still my friends today, but didn’t make a lot of progress towards any career goals. I’d like to say it was fun, but looking back it just seemed like it was at the time. There were some great days, but life after college was supposed to be different.
After a year of spinning my wheels I found myself no further ahead than I had been when I arrived. I cut my losses, packed up my bags and headed north. I went back to Pennsylvania for a while, and then headed to Ocean City, Maryland for a few days to see what the work climate was like there. Nothing seemed to be working out, so I finally gave up and heading home to D.C
