A Quick Ride Through Virginia

Off to Virginia

Jan. 13, 2012

I'm going to be away this weekend, on a car trip to Virginia. I have a craving for hush puppies and Brunswick stew.

I'm taking Joanna to the Stonewall Jackson Shrine, Yorktown, and Ralph's barbecue.

Hello from Fredericksburg

Jan. 14

We left Montclair just about 8 a.m. and checked into the Quality Inn next to I-95 at Fredericksburg around 2 in the afternoon. As many times as I have stopped at motels along this stretch, I have never been in the old part of the city, and so we went there.

This is where Hugh Mercer’s apothecary shop is. I had heard about it years ago from someone who had visited, but I thought it was in Savannah.

Hugh was a doctor and druggist who was born in Scotland, backed the party of Bonnie Prince Charlie, and fled to America. He met Washington during the French and Indian Wars. There’s a story that he was ambushed by Indians on the frontier and made his way back to safety by surviving for 10 days on two dried clams and a rattlesnake. He became a brigadier general in the Continental Army and was killed after he was captured but refused to surrender at the Battle of Princeton.

His grandson was the Confederate general, Hugh Mercer. He was the one who moved to Savannah, was mentioned in “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil,” and was the great-grandfather of the songwriter Johnny Mercer.

A young man in breeches and hose at the shop told us about herbs and other preparations for purging humors and just general purging. A lady in long dress and bonnet showed us live leeches, which she held in her hand. We could go up and get a close look. I had never seen a leech before, and these were extra large imported specimens. They are fed on blood gathered from a nearby slaughterhouse.

The lady also explained other methods of bleeding (especially therapeutic in spring, when the blood is still sluggish after its winter thickening). She also demonstrated very vaguely the method of amputation that prevailed in the late 18th century.

No painkillers. They were expensive and the patient was going to pass out halfway through the operation anyway.

My photos of Hugh Mercer’s leeches didn’t come out very well. They are just blobs behind glass. You can’t see their little teeth or anything.

Like a lot of old cities—downtown Manhattan, Paterson, etc.—the streets are all one way in the wrong direction, so of course, I got lost coming back to the motel. Some lessons are a long time learning. I took cards from hotels in Thailand so I could find my way back.

This is America. I don’t need no stinkin cards. So we stopped at a Sheetz gas station where I bought some Guinness and an amber ale ominously called Fat Tire, and got directions, which I almost failed to follow. There was one intersection where I had to get off the mark fast and cross two, three, maybe twenty-five lanes of traffic to get onto the wrong entrance to I-95 south. But at least I knew my place in the world. The next exit was only four miles down the road. The beer made it safely back to the Quality Inn.

I discovered later that, had I been in the right turn lane at that intersection, I would have been at the motel parking lot about a couple of hundred yards later.

It was still daylight when we got to the Stonewall Jackson Shrine, so I could read some of the signs this time. Instead of an oversize orange moon hanging over the trees like last February, when I was trespassing in the dark, this time the sky was literally blue and gray. There is a Blue-Gray Parkway in Fredericksburg. Any place that tries to attract Civil War tourists has at least one Blue-Gray Something. So I guess this was a tourist sky.

We got there just as the park ranger was closing the building.

If this gets into the hands of the wrong people and my true name is connected with it, there will be hexes put out by the faithful to keep me from ever entering Virginia again. A least openly and under my own name.

Understand, please, that one of the reasons I like to visit the place is that I find the whole notion of a shrine to Stonewall Jackson to be innately hilarious. It is operated by the National Park Service to commemorate someone who died in the act of levying war against the United States. That is one of the two forms of treason recognized in the Constitution.  Giving aid and comfort to enemies in time of war is the other.

Jackson’s death is portrayed as a tragedy. Yeah, for the slaveholders. To anyone on the Union side, or to anyone opposed to human bondage, it was a stroke of good luck. Remember, there was a war on. The Union soldiers were actually trying to kill this guy and anybody who worked for him. That’s why they were shooting guns.

The union soldiers missed him. Stonewall Jackson was hit by friendly fire in May of 1863 during the Battle of Chancellorsville, not far from Fredericksburg. He got his nickname a couple of years before that, when somebody remarked that Jackson had stood up against a Union assault “like a stone wall.”

No, Jackson didn’t. His soldiers did.

I wonder: Maybe he was fragged by a Confederate who was tired of being a stone in Jackson’s wall. Who knows?

Anyway, they hauled him two days later to the Chandler plantation at Guinea Station, Va. A year before, he had used the plantation as his base of operations, so the family knew him. They put him in the plantation office, where he lingered a few days and died.

A year or so after Jackson died, the Union captured Fredericksburg, Chandler’s slaves fled, and the enterprise tanked in a free economy. 

The derelict property was bought by a railroad in 1909. A track runs right past the shrine site now. All the buildings were torn down except for the office. The company donated the land to the park service in the ’30s.

It’s all funny, ironic, and weird. I get a wonderful sense of irreverence from being there. To add to it all, when we talked to the ranger on site, we learned he is from Cherry Hill, N.J. That’s damned near perfect: a Yankee tending the Confederate shrine.

Thanks to Joanna, who read his name tag, I learned that the ranger has the improbably appropriate name of Longfellow.

Today’s photo is ”Joanna Meets Stonewall Jackson.” That’s the shrine behind her, the well next to her, and she is pointing to the plot where the Chandler house used to stand, as long as they had slaves to keep it.

I had a red ale and an amber ale with a steak for dinner. There are actual bars in Fredericksburg, which is a novelty for Virginia, I’m told. On a former trip down the Shenandoah Valley and the Blue Ridge, all I found was one brew pub way in the south below Blacksburg and a German restaurant with taps near Staunton. Most of the people I have heard on the street and in the bars of Fredericksburg have very unVirginia accents. I think the Yankees never left.

I’m drinking Fat Tire now. I’m back in the Bible Belt being naughty. Hot damn.

Love to all

Larry

Jan. 14

That’s naughty?

Harry.

Jan. 14

What? Drinking to excess in Virginia? You bet.

[Editor’s note: Harry failed to make his main point, which is that he was making fun of a Confederate hero in Virginia.]

Beatrice

Jan. 15

Absolutely fascinating. Alan thinks so too – I forwarded it to him.

Peter

Jan. 15

When I saw that this communique was from Fredericksburg, I said to myself, "This won't be as amusing as Thailand." But, happily I was mistaken. Very interesting. Thanks.

Like Grant took Richmond (well, not exactly)

Jan. 16

Nothing like 12 hours’ sleep. Good morning.

I’m at the Holiday Inn Express in Ashland, Va., a little north of Richmond. One of my children’s relatives (on their mother’s side) was near here too almost a century and a half ago, but he was going the other way, and with an army.

We left Fredericksburg around 9 and drove through the winter countryside. There are little towns, huge fields that may be the legacy of Tidewater plantations, and also pine woods. One minute, you’re in the middle of a harvested plain, and the next you’re going through a passage of trees. At the end there’s a huge drawbridge, and that’s always spectacular if you behave and don’t fall off.

We reached Yorktown just before noon. We got out and walked around the monument for a few minutes. Let me tell you: it was cold. What’s more, my blood recently has been thinned by my experience in tropic climes. My false gout decided to pseudo act up, too, so I was gimping about this obelisk, reading the inspirational words: “One Country, One Constitution, One Destiny,” and complaining to my inner child, “Damn, this is south Virginia. Why is it so cold?”

We toured more of Yorktown by car. A sign in front of a clapboard house on a side street mentioned that the building was there during the siege, when the British tore down many structures, including all the outbuildings on this property, to build their earthworks. It was surprising that this building survived, the sign said.

Most of the buildings are brick, and they and the yards are kept in what is believed to be an eighteenth century style. What adds an extra touch of interest to me is that most of them are private homes, and not museums or public properties.

We went down to the riverside to brave the polar wind. We saw the usual expected stuff: the wind chopping up the water, the soaring drawbridge, people crossing the river on the ice floes. That’s also where I met George Washington and Admiral de Grasse.

I said, “Hi, gents, how are you doing?” patted them on the shoulder, gave them a little advice, that sort of thing. If you don’t believe me, here’s a photograph.

It was maybe 5 or 10 degrees warmer in Murfreesboro, N.C., a couple of hours later. The historical district is a few blocks of very southern-looking homes and yards. If it was in Georgia, you’d say this is what Faulkner wrote about.

One home is a two-story brick structure with a porch and second-floor gallery supported by white columns. There’s a place called the Gingerbread House next to it that is covered with carved Victorian frippery.

The tin shop and the blacksmith shop were closed, but we were able to trespass on the property.

It's a short run from Murfreesboro to Weldon, N.C., and Ralph's BBQ. When it's possible, I time my trips on this section of I-95 so it's dinner time when I reach Weldon.

Ralph’s may have been Joanna’s first encounter with Southern cooking. When you sit down, they put a basket of hush puppies on your table. We ordered an array of stuff, and they had everything we wanted but the black-eyed peas.

Joanna had eaten collards before, at the Ethiopian restaurant in Montclair. Maybe some other times. So I knew she liked them. The southern-style green beans (that is, slightly sweetened and cooked to death), Brunswick stew, and pulled pork barbecue were all firsts for her. We had a little fried chicken too, and she hadn’t eaten any of that for a long time, she said.

I have encountered Brunswick stew only in North Carolina, but I read somewhere that it may have originated in Virginia, where the original meat was rabbit and squirrel. They are stringy game, so stewing is the best way to eat them. I know this first-hand. When I was 10 or 11 years old, I used to sit at my mother’s kitchen table in my PJs skinning rabbits and squirrels, some of which I had shot with a .410. That’s absolutely true, not made up in the least. And some people think rednecks only come from the South.

The broth of Brunswick stew contains yellow corn and lima beans, and the meat used at Ralph’s is pork. You can find recipes online. I have never made it, and have preferred to leave that to professionals. Properly done, it is such a soothing comfort food that it can bring a tear to the eye. Like the food critic eating ratatouille, the title dish of the cartoon.

The chicken was Joanna’s hands-down favorite, but she took a bit of the stew and more of the pork. Ralph’s hush puppies, as always, were like dessert.

We got past Richmond with little difficulty, unlike Kate and Matt’s cousin, Ulysses Grant, who met quite a bit of resistance. We drove straight through, up I-95 rather than use the by-pass highway. I wanted to show Joanna a Richmond landmark.

The Philip Morris has a large facility—maybe the headquarters or a research center—that sits right at the side of Interstate 95. Right up against the highway, behind a fence, is a rectangular obelisk several stories high with the proportions of a cigarette carton. It is decorated with the company’s labels—Marlboro, Merit (my old brand), Virginia Slims, Benson & Hedges, etc.

I forgot to mention, that in visiting Fredericksburg, we went into the Pennsylvania Dutch (Don’t ask. I have no idea why that’s in Fredericksburg, Va.) Candy Company, where we found something that I thought had been perfectly swept away by the winds of political correctness: candy cigarettes. Actually, I think they were packaged for people like me—old folks who remembered them and thought they had disappeared. One pack was labeled Victory to look like Viceroy; another said “Kings” and had a crown to resemble L&M or Winston or something that had a crown on the pack. Others clearly packaged for the collector trade had names like “Doctor’s Choice” and “Machismo,” which had an illustration suspiciously reminiscent of the Marlboro cowboy.

But after the foray through Richmond, I knew it was time to pull over. I found an exit with a choice of inns, and here I am. I was so beat when I got here, that I conked out at 7:30 and didn’t stir for about 12 hours. [Editor’s note: Harry’s state of collapse explains the date of this entry. He seems to have taken an anti-inflammatory medication and gone directly to bed, and did not do any writing until the following morning.]

It’s Monday now. I expect to be home this afternoon. We may find some curious place to stop and explore on the way. My ankle is nearly normal, so I’m game for that.

Back

Jan. 16

Back home. This town is not as famous as Yorktown, but there is a stone here, with a marker that says it was formerly the doorstep of a building from colonial times that Lafayette used as his headquarters. He may have stepped on or over this very stone. This, too, is true, or at least, the sign says so.

By the way, the monument at Yorktown lists the besieging force as 5,000 enlisted in the Continental army, 7,000 French "troops of the line," and 3,500 American militia. The French outnumbered the Continental regular soldiers. I had known before that the river was blocked by the French fleet.

To show our gratitude, we should all go out and buy something French to help them with the euro. 

Harry 

Beatrice

Jan. 16

YES!!!

Karl

Jan. 16

Righto!  I'll pick up a baguette in the morning—or maybe a French maid.