Via Byway, My Way.

Took a brisk early morning stroll today along Richmond’s “Canal Walk,” which concluded with a tour of the Richmond Civil War Battlefield Park Visitor Center. Watching the short film and viewing the exhibits about the dates, events and locations of the Civil War was fascinating and surprised me. It has been such a long time since my high school history lessons that I had forgotten just how important this war was in shaping the America we know today.

For example, I did not realize that the 4-year war claimed almost 1 million casualties, both military and civilian. Recounting key figures included Stonewall Jackson, Robert E Lee, and Jefferson Davis on the Confederate (Grey) side. On the Federalists, or Blue Union side were Ulysses S. Grant and Abraham Lincoln. Reading about military strategy and the mistakes that were made which resulted in thousands of losses in key battle sites was really quite mind boggling. In the end, it was the brute force and strength of the Union army that eventually took over the capital of the Confederate states, which was here in Richmond. I always ponder about historical events and what life would be like now if the results were different. At any rate, these visits to historical sites makes me long to spend more time here to delve more in-depth into our nation’s history, but alas, it will have to wait for another time.

I’m heading off to Baltimore today and then on to my final destination at my brother’s home in Colonia, NJ. I’m not out of the woods yet, it’s still a good 400 mile drive to go and I’m wondering how much money I’ll spend forking over to the infamous toll roads of New Jersey. Have a great holiday weekend all, and in my next entry I’m hopeful that I’ll be able to say that I not only made it all the way to New Jersey in my great 1988 Honda Accord, but that I was also actually able to sell it!!

Finally, for you history buffs that want a quick retelling of the Civil War, that grand old site Wikipedia was a good overview here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_War

This entry was posted on Friday, December 23rd, 2005 at 11:38 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.