Packing up the car after a couple days settling in, took a while, but we were
then "off" again.
We wanted to add some stop at Richmond into our Civil War agenda and found the perfect one: The Richmond Battlefield Civil War visitor's center and The American Civil War Museum. Two spots next door to one another in downtown Richmond.
These were placed in a historic iron works. This was a critical
place that much of the iron needed in the Confederate war effort was made. Inside, it has been redone as a modern, amazing museum site.
The most powerful exhibit was one that put artifacts and recorded voices from both the military front and the home front in Richmond. We have been hearing many of the military stories, which were moving and powerful. But the home front voices were filled with stories we hadn't heard. Near the end of the war, there was a "bread riot" in Richmond, where women rioted for food and had to be threatened with troops to calm down. There was also quite a "Rosie the Riveter" kind of women moving into traditionally male occupied roles while the men were in the war effort. 85% of eligible males in the South were in the war, so there was a lot of work what now went either to women or to enslaved Africans or sometimes children.
We also heard in the next-door Civil War museum , much more of the African-American perspective on the War. Fort Monroe, where former slaves were termed "contraband of War" was just the first place that enslaved Africans went to seek freedom from military sources. Many of the Union batteries had large groups of "contrabands" that followed them. Some ended up joining up and serving in the military, others got jobs as servants or helping with laundry or cooking. There was somewhere around 200,000 blacks troops in the army and 10,000 in the Navy.
Although earlier Patti had commented that we are not doing anything "in-depth" in the this trip, actually because we are visiting so many different places and especially sites of the Civil War, we are getting to borrow on knowledge and experience between sites and so the experience is becoming very in-depth, almost dizzyingly so at times.
Leaving the Civil War, it was time for an afternoon at Thomas Jefferson's home,
Monticello. We began thinking about Jefferson while at Colonial
Williamsburg, but the afternoon had him on the forefront. He designed and built this home and it was quite a reflection about him and is
interests.
We were pleased to be able to go on a special "Behind the scenes" tour, going into areas the public generally doesn’t get to see including bedrooms on the second and third floors, the "dome room" , and into his wine cellar. These areas we were able to take photos of, while you can't take them inside the public rooms downstairs.
The entire place was filled with
inventions and cleverly designed things, such as a glass pair of doors, which
open and closed when you move only one of them. We saw his library and
were told his wonderful quote "I cannot live without books.' He said
his after having his first library burn up, selling his second library tot he
Library of Congress, so he then bought a full third library.
We also had a fascinating garden tour and learned about how Jefferson , the
scientist, was also very interested in studying plants. his vegetable garden
was 1000 feet long and 30 feet wide. Throughout the garden, plants were
marked with traditional little wooden labels saying their name, but many
also had an additional "TJ" on the top indicating that Jefferson had
grown this very type of plant. others were marked with a L & C for
plants that were brought back to him by Lewis and Clark on their exhibition.
Evening took up to the Skyline drive within the Shenandoah National Park. This
lovely park was created in 1935 in order to give those urban east coast people
a taste of western wilderness parks. We were so pleased in driving along
these Blue Ridge Mountains, to see many deer, including does with twins fauns.
The clouds hung low and then it began to rain, so we quickly settled into our campsite for the night and went to bed at 8:00. A good night sleeps with the temp finally falling into the 60's. Yah!
We wanted to add some stop at Richmond into our Civil War agenda and found the perfect one: The Richmond Battlefield Civil War visitor's center and The American Civil War Museum. Two spots next door to one another in downtown Richmond.
The most powerful exhibit was one that put artifacts and recorded voices from both the military front and the home front in Richmond. We have been hearing many of the military stories, which were moving and powerful. But the home front voices were filled with stories we hadn't heard. Near the end of the war, there was a "bread riot" in Richmond, where women rioted for food and had to be threatened with troops to calm down. There was also quite a "Rosie the Riveter" kind of women moving into traditionally male occupied roles while the men were in the war effort. 85% of eligible males in the South were in the war, so there was a lot of work what now went either to women or to enslaved Africans or sometimes children.
We also heard in the next-door Civil War museum , much more of the African-American perspective on the War. Fort Monroe, where former slaves were termed "contraband of War" was just the first place that enslaved Africans went to seek freedom from military sources. Many of the Union batteries had large groups of "contrabands" that followed them. Some ended up joining up and serving in the military, others got jobs as servants or helping with laundry or cooking. There was somewhere around 200,000 blacks troops in the army and 10,000 in the Navy.
Although earlier Patti had commented that we are not doing anything "in-depth" in the this trip, actually because we are visiting so many different places and especially sites of the Civil War, we are getting to borrow on knowledge and experience between sites and so the experience is becoming very in-depth, almost dizzyingly so at times.
We were pleased to be able to go on a special "Behind the scenes" tour, going into areas the public generally doesn’t get to see including bedrooms on the second and third floors, the "dome room" , and into his wine cellar. These areas we were able to take photos of, while you can't take them inside the public rooms downstairs.
The clouds hung low and then it began to rain, so we quickly settled into our campsite for the night and went to bed at 8:00. A good night sleeps with the temp finally falling into the 60's. Yah!
No comments:
Post a Comment