May 19-20
OK. The headline told you where I am.
Back in Virginia to collect more Stonewall Jackson lore. I don’t know why it has taken me so long since my last run down here.
I’ve finally stood on the hill where Jackson earned his nickname. What’s more, I got there pretty much by accident.
It all began a couple of weeks ago with a wave of nostalgia for the Interstate Highway System. I hadn’t traveled much of it this year. It had also been a long time since I had enjoyed hush puppies or pulled pork, so the Carolinas became the destination.
Joanna and her son Christopher are away for a few days to visit her brother and sister-in-law. So I decided to head south for a week.
Instead of traveling and returning by the same route, I-95, a wide loop seemed more interesting. U.S. Highway 15 runs from Painted Post, N.Y., to somewhere in South Carolina. I had only driven short stretches of it here and there, so most of it would be new to me.
I don’t have all the route worked out yet, and that’s part of the fun.
The trip started with four Interstate Highways: I-80, 287, 78, and 81. I picked up U.S. 15 across the Susquehanna River from Harrisburg, Pa., and went south.
I stopped at a rest area to look at the map and, damn, the highway runs right through Gettysburg. When was I there last? It could be more than 40 years ago.
My parents and my sister Cindy were there at the time, and somehow we had arranged to meet at Devil’s Den.
Anyhow, Gettysburg was a must stop.
I got to Gettysburg National Military Park in the middle of a sweltering afternoon, shortly after a rain shower. Steam was rising from the pavement of the parking lots at the Visitor Center.
I got lost right away, to get that out of the way. I had a map of the park, but no sense at all of direction.
Wandering around outside was not getting me anywhere, so it was back to the Visitor Center, where a ranger gave me detailed directions. You go out the back of the building, down a ramp, turn right at the sidewalk and, when you come to the fork in the path, take it. To the right.
That took me past the house that the Union commander, General Meade, used as his headquarters and then to Cemetery Ridge, where the center of the Union lines stood.
There is a monument every 50 feet commemorating a regiment, brigade, corps, officer, or event. They have been put up by states, the federal government, and private organizations. One of the most elaborate is the Pennsylvania monument.
You can look out across a broad meadow cut by a highway called the Emmetsburg Road. Somewhere beyond that road the Confederates were formed up.
This is where the most intense fighting took place, when General Pickett led a disastrous charge against the Union center on the third day of the battle.
More than 10,000 men died in the three days of fighting. Another 40,000 were wounded, captured, or missing.
I walked around for at least an hour, and when I got back to the car, even my jacket was wet with sweat. I hung it on the back of the front passenger seat to dry and turned on the air conditioner.
I drove to a spot near the south end of the park.
I had been traveling all day through lush green country dotted by occasional towns. The route is like that almost from the start in North Jersey.
South of Gettysburg, though, the ground gets rocky.
In some places there seem to be more boulders than grass, until you come to a pile of rocks filled with crevices, tiny caves, and passages. The locals named it Devil’s Den.
The Union Army was there first, but somehow the Rebels managed to capture it. The Yankees retreated up the steep slopes of a hill called Little Round Top.
I was looking for one thing at Devil’s Den, the Sharpshooter’s Wall. And I couldn’t find it. I must have climbed that hill three times with no luck.
It was hot. My shirt was soaking wet. I had left my walking cane in the car. I was disappointed.
I drove slowly up the hill and suddenly had proof that my search hadn’t been as thorough as I thought.
The Sharpshooter’s Wall is in a three-sided pen formed by huge boulders. The side to the road is open, so that’s how I could see it. There is a gap in the rocks facing Round Top where the Rebels put up a short wall of flat stones to give cover to a sniper.
A photographer named Gardner photographed the body of a dead Confederate soldier at the wall a few days after the battle. Gardner called the photo “Home of a Rebel Sharpshooter.”
The man is lying on his back with his rifle nearby.
When I met Cindy at Devil’s Den, she may still have been in high school. I took her to the wall and asked her to stand where the body is in the photo. Then I showed her the photo, which is reproduced on a sign nearby.
She couldn’t decide whether to be creeped out or pissed off.
I made a circuit to come back to the parking lot at Devil’s Den and walked up the road to the wall. There I learned something new.
There was a second photo of the dead Rebel. He was lying on the hillside, where Gardner had found and originally photographed him. Gardner and some helpers moved the body and posed it by the wall.
So don’t despair. Fake news is not unique to our time.
I couldn’t get a room in Gettysburg. The first place I tried was taken over by a weigh-loss convention.
The perfect place, though, was downtown, right across the street from a pub advertising craft beer. I wouldn’t be touching the car. I wouldn’t have to behave.
It was booked up. And so, I was told, was just about every place in town because it was reunion weekend at Gettysburg College.
I continued south on U.S. 15. Part of it is the Emmetsburg Road, that runs through Pickett’s charge. It also passes General Pickett’s Buffet, which a sign will inform you, is right behind the Gettysburg Battle Theater.
The next place with lodging possibilities was Frederick, Md. Joanna and I had visited the town about five years ago. We saw Francis Scott Key’s grave, the Barbara Frietchie house, and made a photograph of Joanna standing behind a rock fence, which she dubbed “Stonewall Joanna.”
I found a Comfort Inn right next to the Red Horse Steak House.
The steak house was fantastic. They had raw oysters, and I was in need of potassium after all the sweating I had done that afternoon.
They also had escargot. I was surprised. Snails are bar food in Maryland.
So I stayed with things without backbones for dinner.
I had a sauvignon blanc called Oyster with the oysters. According to the coaster that the bartender put in front of me, the winery donates money to oyster preservation for every bottle sold.
Eat’em up. Drink’em up. They’ll make more.
I had two glasses of a California pinot noir with the snails. Then I had lots more glasses.
This is the reason to sit at the bar when you eat alone. I got into conversations with a couple about travel. The man commutes from Frederick to somewhere in or near Washington at some ungodly hour of the morning. And there is still heavy traffic, even before 5 a.m., on the Interstates.
Before that, they had been talking to the bartender about food they planned to make. The lady discussed some of her recipes. One included Grand Marnier or something.
She told the bartender: “I can’t seem to cook without booze.”
After they left, I got to talking with another man who came in for a drink. I have only faint memory of what we talked about. Maybe the president. I’m not sure. I had been at the bar for quite a while by that time.
Saturday morning dawned cool and gray, as Accuweather had promised. And also as promised, there was no rain.
U.S. 15 goes through a town called Orange. I had never heard of it, but the Virginia road map says it is home to the James Madison Museum and his plantation.
That was going to be my next stop, until I passed a directional sign pointing left to Manassas.
Long before you reach the town, the road enters the Manassas National Battlefield Park. I don’t know why the U.S. Park Service calls the battlefield by its Confederate name.
It’s Bull Run to those of us loyal to the Union.
I had recently read a detailed description of the First Battle of Bull Run in a biography of Jackson. It’s one of a few on my Kindle, so I have them close to me always.
My fascination with Jackson started almost 50 years ago, when I learned there was a Stonewall Jackson Shrine.
So far I’ve been there, where he died; to Lexington, Va., where his house is a museum; and to Chancellorsville, where he was shot down.
And of course, anywhere in Virginia, you can expect to find streets, highways, convention centers, and just about everything else named for him.
The Battle of Bull Run was the first large engagement of the American Civil War.
Early on, a brigade or two of the Army of Northern Virginia were driven in disarray from their position by overwhelming forces of the Army of the Potomac.
Jackson had moved his brigade into a well-chosen position behind the original Confederate line. When the Union Army came over the hill to chase the retreating Confederates, they met Jackson. He was able to hold his position long enough to give the broken units time to recover.
One of the generals of the broken brigades was named Bee. He rallied his troops by saying:
“There is Jackson standing like a stone wall. Rally behind the Virginians. Let us determine to die here, and we will conquer. Follow me.”
In a few minutes he would be dead.
The place is called Henry Hill, named for the family who owned the property. It’s right by the Visitor Center. The hilltop is covered with replica cannons and caissons where the two sides put their artillery, maybe 300 yards apart.
There are also monuments, of course, including a life-size bronze equestrian statue of Jackson with Bee’s “stone wall” metaphor on the marble base.
This day it looked like Stonewall was riding with his head in the clouds.
I got to Orange too late for the museum and will do that tomorrow.
I stopped at Eva’s, which does “down-home cooking like Grandma’s.”
Hush puppies, collard greens, corn soup, and mumbo wings. OK, not exactly like my Grandma, who was a crackerjack cook, but Northern. (After all, her grandfather was in the Union Army.)
But if he had served on the other side, maybe in Jackson’s stone wall or something, the menu might have been different at her house.
The roast chicken and roast pork might be the same heart-warming goodness, but the sides would have run more to cornbread and collards.
I’m at a Holiday Inn Express in Orange right now polishing off a bottle of wine because the strongest drink I could get at Eva’s was iced tea.
But good night, y’all, and stay well.
Harry
May 20
I must say you have quite a memory! Good on Gettysburg, not so much on your grandma. Or maybe we had different grandmas?
I enjoy Civil War history and remember that weekend well. It was July 1968, the 105th anniversary of the battle. Creeped me out then and every other time I've been back.
Nanny a crackerjack cook? I must disagree! She existed on marshmallow fudge, candy toys, cheese curls and malted milk balls! Once she found out what you liked, you never got anything else to eat. Baloney (maggot meat) for you, ham for Jamy, and hamburgers for me. Okay, I'll concede her vegetable soup was terrific!
Happy trails and enjoy yourself away down south in Dixie.
Love,
Cindy
May 23
Also animal crackers, hot cocoa, and baked beans with every dinner. Funny, no food at all comes to mind with Grandmom T....did they ever eat?
Happy trails!
Jamy
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