Roger and I had a nice drive down to Manassas which was about an hour and a half away. We first visited the Museum which was small but had an interesting collection of artifacts about the history of the town and nice staff that gave us a brief introduction to the history of the town including its role in the civil war.
From the museum we headed off to the Manassas (known as the 1st Bull Run by the Union) battlefield. This has an impressive museum with one of the best audio visuals of the battle that we have seen. The shop here was great as well. The focus of the visitor centre/Museum was on Stonewall Jackson.
The best part of the visit was a demonstration of using the Musket. The park ranger/reenactor talked us through the use of the Musket from firing to use of the bayonet as a shock weapon (they really did not like it up them). It was a great talk and again done by someone that was truly interested in the period and the weapons of the time. I had a great chat with him after the talk about the civil war and what it meant to him. I am finding out that the reenactors had relatives that took part in the war or who had family affected by the war in some way.
The Manassas Battle ground is well laid out and very open. They have a number of guns and limbers in their original positions as well as the reconstructed buildings.
There were two battles at Manassas. The first battle was the first major battle of the war in 1861 where Jackson and his brigade made their name “”Stonewall”. The battle was fought by two inexperienced armies and could have gone either way except for the leadership of Jackson who turned the tide of the battle. The battle also showed that the war was not going to be a short affair.
The second battle was a year later and was another confederate victory and also a much bigger battle where James Longstreet (perhaps my favourite General of the war) saves the day with the biggest attack of the war, 25,000 men. While not the most interesting battle of the war in was another significant victory that added to the legend of General Robert E Lee and the southern fighting spirit.
Despite these two Confederate victories, Manassas Junction was in Union hands for most of the war. It was a very important Junction like Harper’s Ferry.
We then travelled down to Fredericksburg. While not as impressive as the other battle fields as most of the area is in the town its was interesting to see the defensive position the Lee took and the road an wall that they built.
We also found the coolest shop that had lots of authentic ACW gear. We brought Kepi’s.
We did not have time to visit the Chancellorsville, which was a shame but we were a bit civil warred out and needed to get the car back.
On the way back to Arlington we hit (or it hit us) a thunder and lightning storm. There was even warnings coming across the radio. We were a bit worried for a time but as we drove further north we left it behind. The lighting was the biggest I have seen.
Very big day tomorrow........ The Gettysburg tour.
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