Virginia’s Southern History

We are visiting in Virginia, one of the southern states where the economy developed from colonial times into agriculture using slave labour. Produce might be tobacco, cotton or general farming, or a mixture.

Several historic buildings remain in Virginia as testimony to the institution of slavery. Chatham Manor is one such, close at hand in Fredericksburg. We paid a visit. Built in 1771 for a William Fitzhugh, who was both a farmer and statesman, the estate employed some 100 slaves at peak.

Here it is today, and directly underneath as it originally was. You can see the marks on the modern building where the proticos used to be.

Little is known of the day to day running of the estate but in 1805 the slaves rose up against their overseer and whipped him. Several slaves were killed and some sold off as a result. The slave cabins did not survive, but the brick-built laundry still stands where the slaves employed within also slept on the premises.

By the time of the Civil War in 1861 the estate had changed hands several times and was now owned by the Lacy family. The Manor had a problem: it was beautifully located, overlooking the wide Rappahannock river, and that river became the front line.

In April 1862 the house was requisitioned by the northern army and the Lacys were expelled. In November 1862 the northern commander General Burnside set up headquarters in Chatham. He planned a major assault on Fredericksburg with 120,000 troops. But first he had to bridge the river, which he intended to do using pontoons, a section of which has been preserved in Chatham gardens.

On December 11^th 1862, dozens of guns, ranged along the Chatham heights, pounded Fredericksburg on the other side of the river. This remaining gun in Chatham garden points directly to the town, an easy target. The river is invisible down the slope in front.

Directly after the bombardment the army engineers set about creating three crossing points by lashing together the pontoons. The opposing fire was murderous and only one pontoon bridge was effective. However, the town of Fredericksburg was eventually taken at great cost and Burnside’s soldiers pressed on to challenge the southern forces’ defensive line just beyond the town.  

Now Burnside had a problem. Robert E. Lee, commanding the south,was perhaps the best general on either side, and he had prepared a perfect defence. His men waited in a sunken road behind this actual stone wall..

Behind, up the slope, were Lee’s cannon. Burnside’s forces charged seven times and each time were repulsed. Such were their losses that they retreated back across the river, which then became the dividing line for the next three years.The white cottage in the photo above was there in the thick of battle and bullet holes remain in the walls visible through the windows (door locked).

This was Civil War’s biggest battle, involving nearly 200,000 men. It was savagely fought, creating some 20,000 casualties. However, there were some incredible acts of compassion like the southern trooper Richard Kirkland who repeatedly ran into no-man’s land to give water to the wounded of both sides. Firing stopped when they realised his mission and a bronze statue was struck after the war to commemorate his bravery.

Many of the northern wounded were brought back to Chatham Manor, which was used as a hospital. It became so cold during that winter that the military staff ripped off the wooden wall cladding to burn for heat. The refurbished interior shows how much wood would have been available!

Slaves obtained their freedom in areas occupied by the north. Chatham’s slaves all made off using any transport they could find, as this example shows.

And what of General Burnside, having lost such an important battle? He was replaced soon after, but his name lives on in the word for side whiskers: Burnside became sideburns. You can see why from his photo.

America’s Love Affairs

For the vast majority of Americans, shooting and gun ownership is a hobby like football or stamp collecting. Europeans might say that you can’t kill or injure anyone with stamps, but then it’s the American heritage to own and carry firearms. Son-in-law Scott supports responsible gun use and suggested we all went to the firing range to see for ourselves how enjoyable shooting real guns can be. We take him up on the offer. At the range, there is a wide variety of weapons for hire, or purchase, as well as ammunition.

Safety rules are paramount, and here are Claire and Jane are all ready to go with the necessary ear defenders and waiting for shooting instruction.

Jane is firing at the target of a male head and shoulders outline. The targets can be made more distant or closer on a pulley.

Notice that the villain is neutralised by dead-eye Jane’s accurate volleys.

We’re mostly using .22 guns. This is the smallest diameter ammunition, so the gun doesn’t jerk much when fired. This is more accurate for beginners and occasional users. I was persuaded to fire a .45 revolver, much favoured by the gunslingers of the Wild West. A .45 slug has great stopping power but also a violent kick when fired. In untrained hands (i.e. mine) I would consider a .45 pistol as much a danger to the user as to the target. 

In fact, a tiny piece of blowback caught me in the eye so I was seeing double for a while: I had become yet another American firearm statistic….

However, we all agreed that the shooting range was great fun, having set aside for the moment the complex arguments of the Great Firearms Debate.

In parallel with gun culture, America’s other romance is with the motor car. Scott is well represented here with a big pickup truck, a sports car and a mini. Also- and this is the unusual one- a Polaris Slingshot. It looks like a batmobile. Here’s a photo of Scott arriving at Colonial Beach.

The Stars and Stripes flag is a Scott’s embellishment and flaps about as you drive. Driver and passenger wear crash hats. It’s a hairy ride, as I can testify to, but a more sedate run around the block was offered to Jane from Scott & Claire’s house. Jane’s being strapped in: it’s now too late to change your mind!

But all’s well. Jane is smiling and raising celebratory arms. She has survived.

A Local Lad’s Roots

We managed to fit in a few leisure activities around the wedding. The first was a visit to George Washington’s birthplace, located a few miles from Colonial Beach. This was his parents’ tobacco plantation on a picturesque inlet off the Potomac river called Popes Creek.

It was of course worked by slaves as the year of his birth was 1732, over 100 years before the Civil War and the abolition of slavery. River access was important because the tobacco was exported by ship to Europe packed in barrels such as these.

The next photo is of the reconstructed house where George came into the world. It was built in 1931 by the Wakefield National Memorial Association- the estate was originally called Wakefield.

The house is suitably furnished from that era, but only a very few items have any direct association with George or his family. This room is an example.

This is where we start to run into difficulty. The contents of the house isn’t connected with the Washingtons, also the guide told us that, actually, the reconstructed house is much grander than the original would have been. Again, it wasn’t  built in the right place. “But”, the guide said, “it’s really to represent the value we place on Washington’s birthplace. What he was worth to the nation.” In any event, the Washingtons moved when George was three so he would have retained little memory of any past of the property.

We had an enjoyable walk on wooded and shoreline tracks through the estate. I wasn’t quick enough with the camera to catch the eastern rat snake that crossed our path, but did snap this amazing fungus about a foot across. Despite the historical manipulation, it was a most pleasant place to visit.

Saturday 26th August: The Wedding

Steven is Jane’s grandson and is marrying Lauren today at the New Life Church of which they are both members. Weddings photos are of most interest to family members, so general Blog readers’ indulgence is requested for this entry. Presentation is everything, so here is Adam and Jane nearly ready to leave for the church. Mustn’t forget the hat, Jane!

Steven and Lauren are now man and wife. They are standing on a raised area like a stage, so we all get a good view of the ceremony.

Claire, Jane’s daughter is with her husband Scott and their son Mathew and daughter Katy. The bits on the floor are rose petals that have started to become scattered.

There has to be a close-up of the bride. Lauren is with Jane, now with hat. It should be noted that part of Lauren’s bouquet was a beaded flower posy made by Jane.

Jane is modest about her beading skills but I’ll take this opportunity to showcase the posy as it is really a work of art and much admired.

Ceremony over, we head outside to the church lawn for the reception. It’s open-air with tables as can be seen.

Our grandchildren have a wide age-spread. Steven, the groom, is 27 and Ginny has just turned 2. She’s here with son Ralph and his wife Kelly. Ginny’s been so good in the church and continues to be delightful.

Ginny is very photogenic (it’s the best age) so it was impossible not to take cute photos of her the whole time they stayed with us. Her she is playing peek-a-boo under a cane sunchair.

We all felt that the day had gone perfectly, and Steven and Lauren left at dusk to the guests best wishes for a happy and successful future.

USA Autumn 2017: Start: Wednesday 23rd August

It’s a longer delay than usual in starting the blog due to the Steven and Lauren’s wedding and other family arrangements. But here we are at last, on page one.

We met with Adam at Heathrow and flew together to Washington DC. The flight arrived on time at 3.10 pm but, with a congested immigration process and a 100 mile drive, it was 9.00 pm before we reached our destination, a holiday home at Colonial Beach. Here’s a photo.

We decided to rent a holiday villa rather than stay in a hotel as Adam was with us; also Ralph, Kelly and Ginny would be joining us for a couple of days to attend the wedding. It’s on the waterfront and that’s our own pier. Looking towards the pier from the house gave us a lovely view, especially in the soft twilight.

Colonial Beach is in the state of Virginia and the far shore is in Maryland. However, the Maryland state boundary runs along the shoreline of the Virginia coast at this point- so our pier is, in fact, in Maryland. If the south had become a separate country following the American civil war then our pier would be in a different country, maybe even with its own customs and immigration officials! “Sorry, sir, crossborder food is not allowed so you can’t bring your sandwiches onto the pier.”

There are some nice strips of sand although it’s actually on the Potomac River estuary, which is about 10 miles wide at this point. That means we don’t get much tide or rough seas here. The water is warm and shallow, although a bit murky. Jane is scanning for murky characters on the beach.

The murky water doesn’t seem to affect the fishing birds, the most spectacular of which is the osprey. There are literally scores of them here, as many, it would seem, as in the whole of the UK where they are rare and vigorously protected. The osprey is on the post and the bird flying top left hand corner is a turkey vulture, also quite common in the USA.

Colonial Beach consists of hundreds of houses all built in the same style as ours: the colonial style, hence the name, and clearly enforced by the planners as nothing conflicts with the general appearance. Well, not quite. There are some touches of individuality- use restricted to the hours of darkness.

Boats are much in evidence, and most inlets contain a marina. The owner of this boat must like the place so much that he’s made it into a floating office, complete with outboard motor for chugging around the harbour.

Just to prove we are here together, we’ll finish with a photo of Jane & me on our pier. And then we’re going to a wedding.

Saturday 1st July: The Battle of the Somme

We moved from Brittany to Picardy last Tuesday/Wednesday. The weather on Tuesday was appalling for most of the journey with torrential rain after 11:00 am. Wednesday was fine for travelling, apart from a motorway services being closed for fuel when we were running low. We reached the next one- just- showing empty.

Our campsite is in a small village near the town of Peronne, and is directly on the 1916 World War One front line. This morning 101 years ago, at 7:30 am, the Allies (that is, the French, and the British and Commonwealth troops) launched the biggest counter-attack of the war in an effort to overrun the German trenches and thereby break the stalemate that had existed since late 1914 between the two opposing armies.

The first day could not be described as a success. The British alone suffered 57,000 casualties, 20,000 of them fatalities, for very small territorial gains. The Germans had dug in well and were an efficient fighting force. The problem was that defence was mechanised and modern with machine guns, barbed wire, spotter planes, snipers, but attack was not. Our masses of unprotected soldiers swept towards the enemy lines to be mown down. 85% casualties within the first hour were reported by some units.

The Somme offensive lasted until mid-November 1916 when it was called off. Nowhere along the front did the Allies advance more than 8 miles.These tiny movements could in no way justify the staggering human losses, mainly military but some civilians as well.

Let’s run through an example of a typical British sector along the 18 mile front, say at La Boiselle, that morning of July 1^st. Soldiers of the Tyneside Scottish and Irish battalions of the 34^th British Division would be waiting in the trenches for the signal to go over the top at 7:30. This is probably today's best preserved example of a 1916 trench. The second photo is a WW1 real-time trench.

But here, at La Boiselle, there is a mine due to blow just before the assault begins. Teams of Welsh miners have spent weeks tunneling under the German lines and then packing the tunnels with nearly 30 tonnes of high explosive. At 7:28 precisely the charge goes off and creates the largest deliberately made crater ever made up to that time. It is said that the blast could be heard in London. Other mines were also detonated, but this was the biggest and is also the best preserved. The photo does it justice when you see the motorhome  for comparison in the background, top left.

7:30. The whistles. The infantry goes over the top and advances toward the enemy lines a few hundred yards away. The photo below is the ground they would have proceeded over, but not looking anything like this as the British guns have fired 1½ million shells along the front during the previous week to destroy the German defences: their trenches, dugouts, barbed wire, field guns etc. Now the big mines have finished the job. They hope.

The General Staff have told the officers in the field to order the men to walk, as all resistance will have been wiped out. Some damage has been done, of course, but the German line is essentially in good order and the troops largely unscathed. But the military planners should have known that anyway from previous experience.

So our soldiers are decimated by enemy machine gun fire. Our 34^th Division here lost 4,292 men on the first day with 4 divisional commanders killed. Territorial gains: minimal. Result: photo below. There are 410 British military cemeteries like this on the Somme alone.

In time, dignified monuments were erected, the greatest of which is at Thiepval, not far from La Boiselle and also a scene of great losses in the Somme campaign. It was designed by the foremost British architect of the time, Sir Edward Lutyens, and completed in 1932. It contains the names of over 72,000 soldiers whose remains were never found.

It’s majestic size can be better appreciated from the following photo of the inside walls that contain the fallen soldiers’ names where the tiny person in the blue coat gives an idea of the building's scale. 

The after-effects of the war were felt in all the combatant countries, not only from numbers killed but by the wounded and the mentally damaged. Post traumatic stress wasn’t recognised then.

The injustices of the peace settlement also sowed the seeds of discontent in Germany that directly led to the Second World War.

Having seen many battle sites, cemeteries and museums here on the Somme that is just part of one war, in turn one of many wars, does pose the question as to how far mankind has really progressed along the road of civilisation.  

Saturday 24th June : Quimper

Quimper is the oldest Breton city and ancient capital of the Duchy of Cornouaille. It sits on the junction of two rivers and has a good size medieval quarter centered on the cathedral. This is one of those picturesque streets.

It seems to be the focus for activities. Here’s a jazz band stomping up the street, an odd assortment of players, some even wearing back-packs, but making a great rhythm. We later noticed tents where a pop music festival was in progress, and in July there is a week-long jamboree of Breton music, costumes, theatre and dance.

The cathedral is the largest in Brittany, a 13^th-15^th century Gothic building with spires that were added as late as 1856 but have weathered in perfectly. I didn’t take a photo from the front elevation as a children’s roundabout had been stuck right by the entrance. Can’t win them all- swings and roundabouts as they say!

The interior is, as expected, as magnificent as the outside. Lovely old stained glass. Problem is, unless churches are your hobby, they can look a bit samey. But this one has a deliberate mistake to look for….

Spotted it? ... it’s not straight: look at the roof line. To later add the nave, at the far end, the builders had to avoid the edge of the un-channelled river, so built it at a slight angle to the main church.

The river is now fully channelled and embankmented, and looking colourful with the flower baskets on the bridge; in fact, all the central bridges have flower baskets.

A smaller river joins the large one in the centre, also an attractive setting for flowers and old buildings.

The city had many delightful squares, like the one in the photo below, and gave us a pleasant, undemanding day out.