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The wrong side! I was on the wrong side at the Vienna Metro.
Racing to the other side of the station, I found a knot of people,
but no bus yet—I hadn’t missed it! The bus was late.
It had engine trouble on the way, but the clever driver fixed
it. So west we went on Route 66 to Winchester, Virginia for
my first Civil War campaign with Ed Bearss.
Before long we were at General “Stonewall” Jackson’s
1861 winter headquarters, a lovely Victorian-era home loaned
to the Confederates by a local dentist. There were many items
used by Stonewall, such as a large desk, and many other items
original to the time. The small museum store was jam-packed
with Civil War buff-stuff.
From there, we traveled the back roads to Martinsburg, stopping
at Unger’s Store. General Jackson’s troops also
stopped here to rest and re-shoe their horses, re-shoeing being
necessary once a month in the winter. Next, we went to Berkeley
Springs, where Ed described the gathering of the Union’s
13th Indiana Regiment. In Romney, we had a nice country buffet
at Kady’s Kitchen, then we walked to Fort Mill Ridge and
on to a nearby cemetery, where Ed noted the iron crosses marking
Confederate soldiers buried there.
The next stop was Philippi, a small town in the Tygart River
Valley. It has a wonderful, long covered bridge linking it to
Route 250. Here, in the first land battle of the Civil War,
Union General Morris marched his troops all night in order to
surprise Confederate General Porterfield's men before dawn.
The Confederates fled to the hills, a retreat later called the
“Phillipi Races” by Union newspapers. Before leaving,
we visited the Victorian train station, now a visitor center.
Ed told us about Jim Hanger, a young Confederate soldier who
was the first amputee of the war. He created a wooden leg for
himself that so impressed doctors that they convinced him to
manufacture them for future amputees of the war. The company
is still called Hanger Orthopedics.
It was late, and Ed’s “troops” stopped for
the night at the Elkins Motor Lodge in Elkins, WV. We had a
tasty dinner and buffet breakfast at the attached 1863 tavern.
But reveille on Sunday came early for us, and the first stop
was at Beverly, where many years earlier, troops on both sides
made their way to Rich Mountain. We walked the grounds of Camp
Garnett, where General Garnett was defeated by Union General
Rosecrans in July 1861. During the subsequent valley retreat,
General Garnett would be the first general killed in the war.
Ed related that General Lee grew his famous beard during the
very cold and wet winter of 1861. While encamped in these mountains,
Lee developed a very complex plan to defeat the Union Army at
Cheat Mountain. General Rust was the lynchpin for a five-pronged
attack. Unfortunately, he never acted and they were defeated
badly by Union General Reynolds. Finally, in January 1862, General
Lee won the Battle of Allegheny Mountain and thus kept control
of the Staunton-Parkersburg Turnpike.
After a bracing walk on Cheat Summit, the bus driver retraced
the way down a narrow, unpaved road in Highland County. We had
another wonderful buffet lunch at the Highland Inn in Monterey,
Virginia. Our final stop was in McDowell, another lovely valley
town, to discuss Stonewall’s victory over General Schenck,
and how these actions kept the valley in Confederate control
until the close of the war.
Our own valley campaign was drawing to a close, and the troops
in the bus were tired after two days of hard marching with Ed
Bearss. But not Ed. He was still going strong all the way home,
juggling questions and sharing more Civil War anecdotes. Ed
made the early days of the Civil War, and the people who lived
them, come alive. And to think I almost missed it!
Thank you, Marilyn, for your review! This was Marilyn’s
first Civil War tour, and she tells us she is hooked—say
“hello” when you see her at the Gettysburg Battlefield
101 trip next month!
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