The Ultimate Civil Wargasm Part V

Jerry and myself inspecting the entrance to the Crater mine

       Before I begin this blog, I would like to correct a mistake I made in the last one. I mentioned that Brigadier General Samuel Garland was buried in Hollywood Cemetery. In fact, we visited the grave of General Garland in Lynchburg as you will see in this part of the story. The general buried in Richmond is Brigadier General William Edwin Starke who was killed at Antietam two days after General Garland died. 

       We arrived in Petersburg with plenty of time to visit the national battlefield there. The place is neat and one of the few major battlegrounds that I had yet to visit. I have several books on the Battle of the Crater and had been looking forward to this trip for years. Confederate Brigadier General Edward Porter Alexander visited Elliott's Salient and reported to General Lee that he believed the Federal's were mining there to explode the position and break through Confederate lines. A visiting British engineer laughed at Alexander and informed him there had never been a mine dug that far in history and that it was impossible. Alexander informed the British guest that these were Pennsylvania miners and they could accomplish such a feat, and they did. 

The Crater (for scale, that is me standing on the other side)

        Colonel Pleasants, who engineered the mine requested 12,000 pounds of powder, but General Meade only allowed the use of 8,000 pounds. Out of just over 300 South Carolina troops stationed in the small fort, 278 were killed when the explosion occurred. The Federal's charged the crater, yet the walls were almost 30 feet high and there was nowhere to go. Confederate soldiers converged on the scene and gathered around the top of the crater. It was like shooting fish in a barrel. One Confederate referred to it as a turkey shoot. The Battle of the Crater was a giant failure. The only results were 3,798 Union casualties and 1,491 Confederate. On our trip, I wanted to go down into the mine, but after visiting Shy's Hill last summer and getting eaten alive by chiggers, I decided it just wasn't worth it. Maybe I'll go back some day in the winter. 

       We left the battlefield and visited Blandford Cemetery to get three more generals. One problem, we forgot about General Cullen Andrews Battle of Alabama. I'm ashamed to admit that today. How does one forget a general from his own home state. (It had been a long trip is my excuse and I'm sticking with it.) To be honest, upon arrival, I thought this is gonna be easy. Blandford is a small church built in 1735 and is very deceiving. It looks like an extremely small cemetery until you pass the church. You can look across the field for almost a mile and there seem to be thousands of graves. It appears to be three times bigger than Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond. I said, "We're gonna be here a while." 

Mel in Blandford Cemetery with our Museum of the Confederacy stickers all over her back. It's a good thing she is a good sport.

       Melanie quickly located Brigadier General David Addison Weisiger which made me feel much better. We then located the grave of Major General William Mahone, the hero of the Battle of the Crater. The Confederacy could have fallen much earlier had it not been for the quick work of Mahone and his division.

       The next morning, we left Petersburg and headed toward Appomattox. We arrived and toured the new Museum of the Confederacy there and headed on over to Appomattox National Park. We got out of the car and started up the hill toward the courthouse. Melanie immediately passed us all. (According to her, she can only walk up hill if she walks at a very fast pace.) As she sped by me, Jerry said, "Look at that. Looks just like a Missouri saddle horse headed up the road."

       "Shut up," Melanie replied, "you like to ride it."

       It was the first time I saw Mel get the best of the Ole Man.

       Appomattox is a very sad place. To think of what all those brave boys went through for four long weary years and then be forced to march in and surrender is tormenting to us Southerners. Poor Jerry got choked up at Appomattox thinking of what occurred there. Jerry and I normally cut up all the time and this was one of those times when neither of us found any humor in the moment. 

The McLean House at Appomattox

       We left the sadness at Appomattox and headed to Lynchburg where we got the graves of Jubal Early, James Dearing, Robert Rodes, and of course Brigadier General Samuel Garland. We then headed home. It was the ultimate Civil Wargasm. Jerry still says he thinks about that trip daily and can't wait for the next one. I tell him I can't promise it will be that good next time. I have asked my wife several times and am asking her again just now. "What are the odds of me finding someone as interested and loves the Confederacy and its soldiers as much as I do in my own home town?" That is how I feel about my best "Civil War buddy" Jerry Smith. I truly hope you enjoyed the trip ole buddy.

The Ultimate Civil Wargasm Part IV

The Monument to the Confederate Dead

       While in Hollywood Cemetery, we stopped by the monument to the Confederate dead. All those stones reminded me of my rock climbing days and I began to climb the monument. I got about fifteen feet off the ground when I thought about the caretakers. I was afraid they would toss us from the cemetery before we finished the job at hand, so I came back down. 

       We found Brigadier General Joseph Reid Anderson (Virginia), James Jay Archer (Maryland), Robert Chilton (Virginia), John Pegram (Virginia and killed at Hatcher's run), Samuel Garland (Virginia and killed at Fox's Gap), John Rogers Cooke (Virginia), and Major General Henry Heth (Virginia). We then ran into a snag. We couldn't find Brigadier General Philip St. George Cocke (Virginia). He was an early casualty, not from enemy fire, but from depression. The day after Christmas of 1861, he committed suicide. We were forced to spread out and comb the area around where he is marked on the map. It took us awhile and the temperature had really heated up at this point. Jerry finally found the hard to find grave. 

The writing is barely legible on Cocke's stone

       We then went to the graves of Confederate President Jefferson Davis, Major General Fitzhugh Lee (Virginia), Brigadier General Eppa Hunton (Virginia), David Rumph "Neighbor" Jones (South Carolina), Samuel Jones (Virginia), Thomas Muldrop Logan (South Carolina), William "Extra Billy" Smith (Virginia), Henry Wise (Virginia), Reuben Lindsay Walker (Virginia), William Richard Terry (Virginia) and Isaac Munroe St. John (Maryland). We then visited the grave of Major General Jeb Stuart (Virginia), one of the most famous cavalrymen of the war next to Forrest, but I always consider Forrest as leading mounted infantry. At this point, we kept running into cemetery tours and were getting a lot of strange looks in our jackets.

Stacie and I with Jeb and Flora Stuart

       I hope I didn't leave anybody out. That should be 27 generals if anyone wants to go back and count them. We left the cemetery, found a place to eat, and then headed to the Museum of the Confederacy and the White House of the Confederacy where Davis lived throughout the war. 

Stacie and I standing with President Jeff Davis

       Outside the museum we found the drive shaft and anchor of the Confederate ironclad C.S.S. Virginia. We also posed beside the anchor chain of one of the ships she sank, the U.S.S. Cumberland. We then hit the museum and toured the house. The museum was good, not near as nice as I remembered it back in 1996. The upstairs has been re-arranged to glorify the movie "Gettysburg." Another part of the museum is loaded with post war memorabilia that I could of skipped entirely. Jerry found a display that contained Bedford Forrest's field glasses and I thought I would have to pry him away from it. 

       We found one display that contained all of Lee's wartime things in a mock up of his tent. I told Jerry the cot needed a chicken underneath it. We then noticed that the museum staff had done the right thing and placed an egg beneath the cot. Lee had a pet hen during the war that slept beneath his cot and laid him an egg which he ate for breakfast each morning. 

Notice the egg just behind Lee's boots beneath his cot

       There were a lot of neat displays and some disappointing ones. A lot of things were removed for one reason or another. The trousers that Dorsey Pender was wearing at Gettysburg when he was mortally wounded in the thigh were removed. Jeb Stuart's memorabilia was neat, as was John Hunt Morgan's. The outfit that Jeff Davis was captured wearing is on display. If you remember, Davis was accused of wearing a dress by northern papers. This is not true at all and Davis had his photograph taken in the gray suit he was wearing to prove them wrong. Evidently, people didn't sue the newspapers back then when they reported false stories, but they did challenge editors to duels a lot. 

The gray suit Davis was captured wearing

Jeb Stuart's effects

       We left the Museum of the Confederacy and attempted to head to the battlefields of Gaines Mill, Cold Harbor, and Malvern Hill, but ran into another snag. We were using the GPS on Jerry's phone and it began to act as goofy as Melanie. I think Jerry has this effect on people and machines. I began to think we were stuck in Virginia's version of the Bermuda triangle. His phone kept sending us in circles and back to the toll road. We paid a toll to get on the road and then paid a toll to get off the road at least three times. I was growing frustrated. Unfortunately, Jerry thought I was aggravated at him. He would apologize to my wife at the hotel that night, but I was never upset with Jerry. Maybe I should have been, because since the trip, I've come to the conclusion that Jerry gets a percentage of toll money in Richmond. Why else would he keep sending me through the same toll road over and over?

       I finally got frustrated and decided enough was enough. We left Richmond for Petersburg and skipped the battlefields. I've always wanted to visit these three battlefields and thought I would while on this trip. My mom always said that the one thing the good Lord didn't provide me with was patience. We arrived in Petersburg with enough time to tour the battlefield before dark and visit Blandford Cemetery. I will post that blog another day.