F@#$ Tredegar Iron Works, Yellow Tavern, Cold Harbor and Grant's James River headquarters

So I left off with us failing to find the North Anna Battlefield.  We did find Patrick Henry's house.

"Slavery built that"

Not part of the Overland Campaign so that can F@#$ right off.  Doswell is also a particularly uninteresting part of Virginia too.  Farmhouses, a post office and a coin laundry.  Maybe I feel that way because I saw everything 4 times.

I digress.  South on Highway 1, the Jefferson Davis Expressway till we find an I-95 on ramp.  Onto I-95 to Ashland.

Mistake #4:  Thinking that an information center would be easy to find.  Ok willing to bet that every Virginia town has a historical visitors center, so perhaps the sheer volume of them stopped the tourism boards from placing them in convenient places.  This probably cost us another half hour.

So between the late start, the scenic route, HMDB.com shenanigans and Ashland, we are probably 2 hours behind were we should be.

We are thoroughly disoriented and need to reset, so onto Richmond.

Mistake #5:  Also more of a choice.  Diversion at Tredegar.

The Tredegar Ironworks was the South's biggest foundry, and one of the reasons why the capitol was moved from Montgomery, Alabama to Richmond.  It looks wicked cool and we succumbed to temptation.

 

The museum was really good too.  Gettysburg is better, but come on, it's Gettysburg.  This one gave 3 different view points, North perspective, South perspective and Slaves perspective.  We didn't dally, but I did catch the end of the causes of the war video playing, and since we took a tangent on the trip, my blog will take one too.

The tail end said something along the lines that although the majority of soldiers on both sides primary motivation wasn't slavery, it is hard to imagine this war occurring without that 'Peculiar Insitution'

Thank you nameless actor/historian/narrator.

The most frustrating thing about my research, and I use that term loosely (If you can call reading Shelby Foote and Bruce Catton's anthologies research, than I have done research aplenty.) is the Lost Cause revisionist history.

The war was about slavery.  

Because preserving the Union was about slavery.  The South seceded because an Abolitionist President was elected.  Lincoln, at the time  was about as moderate of an abolitionist as you can get, but still an abolitionist.  Lincoln did not favor emancipation.  Lincoln favored stopping the expansion of slavery.  For slavery to work as an economic system, new slave territories needed to be opened, and blocking slave state expansion guaranteed that slavery dies on the vine.

States Rights was about slavery.  The supremacy of the state government over the federal government is so abstract that no average person really gives a rats ass.  But give a law maker that wedge, and they will use it.  And what was the issue the South used States Rights for?  Survey Says "SLAVERY!  Number one answer."

The war was about economics, but that too is directly related to slavery.  A strong case can be made that, as a region, the South resented the Northern States Ascendency. But their answer to that problem?  MOAR SLAVERY!  Shelby Foote lists Southern designs on Cuba and Mexico for Slavery expansion.

Or as Sean put it, if one side is fighting to free the slaves, and the other side opposes them and does not free the slaves, then the war is about slavery.

/end tangent.

So Tredegar was cool, but we saw too little of it.  Just got enough to make sure that if I ever go back to Richmond, I know I need to spend several hours there.

Mistake #6:  Yellow Tavern

Again, more of a choice.  Yellow Tavern was the culmination of Sheridan's first raid, and the big event is that J.E.B. Stuart was killed.

Sheridan convinced Grant that he could beat the hell out of Stuart if he would just let him.   So off on a raid he went.

A raid implies a darting fast thrust.  This did not happen this raid.

See Sheridan and Grant both had some good insight.  The goal was not Richmond.  Richmond is an important city, both politically as the CSA's capital and because of industry.  But capturing Richmond doesn't end the war.  Defeating the Army of Northern Virginia does.

Sheridan went out to pick a fight.  His troopers 'raided' at the walk not a trot or gallop.  His goal was to get the Reb cavalry into a place where they had to fight.  Yellow Tavern is on the outskirts of Richmond, and Stuart had to respect the threat.  Even if the Federals can't hold Richmond, a raid can still really mess things up.  So Stuart made a stand at Yellow Tavern and died there.  After defeating the Confederate cavalry, Sheridan returned to Union lines.  He didn't even try for Richmond, knowing he couldn't hold it.

Mistake #6:  Various wrong turns.  Ok this was to be expected.  But it really seemed to happen a lot on the way from Yellow Tavern to Cold Harbor.  We ended up skipping lunch.  We were both hungry, but its like 2:00 already, we meet Liz in 4 hours.  So fatigue and road map eyes really starts to set in.  I am looking for places to turn around lots.

Mistake #7:  Actually NOT A MISTAKE AT ALL, but I got a theme here, ya dig?  Battlefield at Cold Harbor.

The visitors center is actually really really cool.  The best on the battlefield trail for Grant's campaign.    They have an LED map, that lights up with Union and Confederate troop movements and shows the clashes with accompanying narration.

A quick recount of the battle.  Grant has once again moved southeast to Richmond.  He has some early success, takes encouragement and orders some more frontal assaults.  A frontal assault against a dug in position has the same results here as it did everywhere else on the campaign.  Grant lost 4,000 men in a matter of hours on June 3 1864, and around 10,000-15,000 for the entire engagement.  Lee lost 2500-5000 total.

Sean and I did the walking tour and neglected the auto tour.  Burning daylight after all.  

  Civil War trip.  No such thing as too many canons.

 

 More of the bridge over earth works.

 

and some more ditches.  These are the most impressive so far, they actually look like fortifications and not storm water drainage.

Mistake #8:  Eyes bigger than our stomachs.

Next stop, Grant's crossing sight.  MOAR wrong turns ensue

 

So that's the route now. 

We get to about here.   That's another 20 miles on back roads, and we have to double back anyways because there ain't no bridge.

Murph, wisely cuts this short.  We'll just cross the James, we don't have to go to the exact point for the sign.

It is however disappointing, because this is the moment of the Overland Campaign.  Grant has fooled Lee.  Lee doesn't have a clue where he is.  He thinks either Grant has withdrawn or he's making another short swing around to the southeast.  Cold Harbor is only 10 miles from Richmond after all.

More importantly, Grant sees the whole board.  The key to Richmond is the Army of Northern Virginia.  The vulnerability of the Army of Northern Virginia is supplies, and the supplies rely on the railroads.  If Grant can capture Petersburg, a junction of 5 railroads, Lee can't hold Richmond.

Mistake #9:  Also not a mistake.  We make it to Grant's HQ in Hopewell.  On the above map just north of the W in Hopewell is where he made his headquarters.

                                                 This is the actual cabin Grant had built to stay in.  It was moved to  Philly then moved back here for a restoration project.

                                                                                          Me and a Civil War Pose

Mistake #10:  Too many F@#$ing campaigns in Virginia.

Next Stop Fort Harrison

 

Fort Harrison is kind of on the way to Richmond so really kind of a minor one.  But it had only a passing relation to Grant's Overland Campaign.  The Overland Campaign was just one of 4 thrusts Grant planned.  He wanted simultaneous campaigns in the Shenandoah, against Atlanta, and up the James river here.  Unfortunately the James River campaign was commanded by General Butler, as incompetent Union commander as you can find.  Fort Harrison was one of the many places he was stymied.

So only 10 mistakes not 12 like I said.  These all added up to probably 3 or 4 hours lost time.  Time that we could have spent on the first part of Petersburg.  So a week removed, no longer a big deal.  The story is probably worth more than the experience of doing it without a hitch.  But I do have vivid memories that last Sunday was way too much windshield time and not nearly enough getting out and walking around time.

So we met Liz Chesterman in a closed K-Mart parking lot so we could all go to dinner together.  She took us to Hickory Notch in Oilville, or 20 miles west of Richmond.  Hickory Notch was DELICIOUS.  All's well that ends well, a good meal and a trip up I-95 back to F-Burg.