After leaving Rita in Chesapeake, we drove to Jamestown, the oldest continually inhabited English settlement in the United States. The first inhabitants arrived in 1607 and there have been people there ever since. There is a historic area which is where the fort actually was and where excavations continue to go on, and there is Jamestown Settlement. The latter is nearby and is a recreation of the colony, with volunteers dressed in period costumes, replicas of the initial ships etc. We visited both. It was an interesting day since both were extremely well done.
The next day we drove to Fredericksburg, site of one of the most important battles of the Civil War. The region between Washington, DC. and Richmond, VA was fought over several times because of it's importance to both sides. Spotsylvania(1864), Chancellorsville(1863 )and the Battle of the Wilderness(1864) all took place in the area, in addition to Fredericksburg(1862). Thousands of men died, Stonewall Jackson was killed and became a legend and the beginning of the end took place here as Burnside and Grant battled Lee. We decided to do a driving tour which in this case meant a dozen stops in and around the city. The most meaningful to us was the park area outside the city with only grass, trees and cannon; it was not hard to imagine Union soldiers charging up the hill. The video in the Visitor Center was very well done, as usual, and we decided that this would be the last battle field that we needed to see. So many times it was as one general was quoted "very much like murder". Terrible decisions, impossible odds, complete slaughter. What a horrific war.
After the battle fields, visiting Appomattox the next day was pleasant. Fittingly, the weather had been cloudy and rainy in Fredericksburg but for the visit to the place where the war ended, it was sunny. Again, the Visitor Center had excellent displays and videos, the latter stressing the honor and respect between Grant and Lee and their armies when surrender finally came. We visited the courthouse and the home where the papers were actually signed and looked at the hills and farmlands where the opposing armies had stood. One nation again.
Monticello was our next stop. Thomas Jefferson has always been a man of great interest to me. Such a mind - inventor, visionary, philosopher. A man of contradictions too, most especially in his opposition to slavery as an evil yet a slave holder himself. His original house still stands with its original columns, the inside filled with reproductions, period pieces and a few of his possessions. The paint has been restored to the colors it was when he last lived there. The gardens remain as they were. Happily after his death, the house stayed in his family until the late 1800s when a family from New York purchased it and used it as a summer home for the next 100 years. Then it was purchased and lovingly tended by a local group dedicated to maintaining it as a memorial to Jefferson. We took an informative tour called "slavery at Monticello" whose guide's purpose was, in part, to raise questions in our minds about Jefferson and the contradictions of his life. I learned many things but I was especially glad to know that of his six children with slave Sally Hemings, two ran away and he didn't pursue them, and he freed two of them at his death. The other two had died as children.
Our final Civil War stop was Harper's Ferry. Some say that's where the whole thing started since John Brown attempted a slave insurrection, the thing most feared in the South. His actions and his subsequent capture and hanging brought a focus and emotion to the issue of slavery that hadn't been there before. It set other actions in motion.
Having dealt enough with wars and slavery, we turned our attention today to the beautiful hills and mountains of western Virginia. We drove the Skyline Drive in beautiful weather. The green rolling hills were gorgeous and the Shenandoah river turned and twisted its way along in the valley. We also began driving the Blue Ridge Parkway late in the afternoon before we turned west toward West Virginia. Spring is a great time to be here and we were blessed with blooming wildflowers and rhododendrons along the road. Our spirits were renewed!
Photos: Jamestown sign, Pocahantas statue, replica of a ship that brought supplies to Jamestown, musket shooter at Jamestown Settlement, Chatham - the mansion outside Fredericksburg used by Union troops and where Clara Barton and Walt Whitman nursed troops and wrote, Appomattox sign, Monticello, statue of Jefferson and Jon, sign at Harper's Ferry.
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