Visiting Civil War sites

[Gray_Lensman]

As a related place to visit. Check out the new Lincoln Library/Museum complex in Springfield, IL. I went there last year and thoroughly enjoyed it. There's also a nice holographic presentation concerning Lincoln also (which might be in visitors center)
 
PS Leave time to visit Lincoln Tomb if you haven't already seen it.
 
http://www.lincolnlibraryandmuseum.com/index.htm

[jkBluesman]

ORIGINAL: Gil R.

So, having visited Gettysburg on Monday, I got to drop by Manassas today. Since my nephew was in tow I couldn't do 2nd Manassas, so it was purely a 1st Manassas day (which was fine). I must say, while it's a great place to visit, the park service really could do a better job explaining what happened and where it happened. At the visitors' center there's a 6-minute display that uses lights on a map to show how the battle unfolded, but the narrator leaves out some key points (e.g., the fact that the forces at the Stone Bridge were there as a feint, which is hinted at but not stated outright). And there's no comparable show for 2nd Manassas. Since the map for the site that everyone gets shows terrain but not where the armies were and where they moved, it's hard for anyone who doesn't know much about the battles -- 2nd Manassas especially -- to know what was going on where.

So how did you like Gettysburg? I bet you did not count the monuments.
Will you go to Antietam too?
You are right about Manassas. There is not much more to see than the rebuild Henry House, the "Stonewall" statue and some guns. Second Manassas is kind of confusing. It could have helped if they had at least described better the site of Jackson's stand and the ground over which Longstreet attacked.

[Gil R.]

I only had about 1.5-2 hours at Gettysburg because of external pressures (i.e., family), so I didn't have time to do it right. But simply seeing the terrain (especially Little Round Top and the Devil's Den), and seeing both the starting and ending points of Pickett's Charge was tremendous, as was getting a sense of the distances involved. There were far too many monuments to read, but I was used to that from Antietam (which Eric and I explored last year).

I was at Chancellorsville yesterday, which was a bit disappointing. Other than getting a sense of the distances involved, there wasn't all that much to see. Even the site where Stonewall was wounded is a bit underwhelming, though at least it does have monuments put up by some who had served in the ANV. I wish I had instead gone to Fredericksburg (same exit off Interstate 95), or had had enough time to hit The Wilderness and Spotsylvania as well. Next year, maybe I'll do that.

[jkBluesman]

Yeah, you need time at Gettysburg, that is for sure. And the distance struck me there too (one of my favourite pictures I got from the battlefield is showing me pointing from the stonewall towards the forrest on seminary ridge).
As for Chancellorsville, I got a picture (in Wert's Longstreet bio) from 1884, showing veterans around a stone that marks Jackson's wounding, but no real monument yet. Longstreet and Rosecrans were there (they had been roomates at West Point).

[Gil R.]

The monument is a few yards from the stone, and marks where people used to think that Stonewall was hit; the stone, which has a small Confederate flag stuck on top, is believed to be the actual place.

[Yogi the Great]

Out of curiosity Gil - Did you ever get to Chattanooga?  If so, what did you get to see?

[d714]

I'm amazed no one mentioned Kennesaw Mountain battlefield outside of Atlanta and on the way back up to Chattanooga. Really, Atlanta is just one big civil war battlefiled.

But Kennessaw - it's been years since I went but they still have trees with bullet damage, minnies embeded inside tree trunks, well preserved opposing civil war trenches mere yards from each other, a decent museam. Really an amazing place. You should go there before the Atlanta suburbs take it over.

[Gil R.]

I got to Kennesaw Mountain on Friday, with our very own jchastain, beta-tester par excellence, who lives in the area. You're right, it's an excellent site to visit. And I hate to say it, but it's fun to visit a battlefield with someone who knows FOF, since then a good deal of the conversation can be about comparisons between terrain and tactics in the actual battle and in detailed battles. At some points on the battlefield it was hard not to look around an see hexes. (I'm especially thinking of the path the Union brigade took to get to the Dead Angle: emerge from a forest hex, go across two open hexes in range of enemy artillery up on the hill, climb the hill hex, and face entrenched enemy soldiers.) I definitely recommend the site.

And, just today I got to Chickamauga, which is a great place to visit: excellent museum, various points of interest well-labeled, etc. I didn't previously have a full grasp of how that battle unfolded, but after seeing the place it all makes sense. And Lookout Mountain was great for the view, though I didn't have time to walk the trails.

Sadly, my driving trip has just a few more hours to go, so no Civil War sites for a while now. But I'll be moving to St. Louis in a month, and have a hunch I'll explore the western theater a bit more.

EDIT: By the way, after having seen artillery emplacements atop Kennesaw Mountain one day and then Lookout Mountain the next, I've got us rethinking the rule in FOF that mountain hexes are out of play. For the expansion pack, we might change this. (Regarding these artillery pieces atop the two mountains, does anyone know how they were used? Both mountains are so steep that they could not have been aimed down the slope -- instead, they seem to have been shooting straight. Was the idea that the shell would simply drop on an unseen target at the base of the mountain?)

[przy06]

ORIGINAL: Gil R
EDIT: By the way, after having seen artillery emplacements atop Kennesaw Mountain one day and then Lookout Mountain the next, I've got us rethinking the rule in FOF that mountain hexes are out of play. For the expansion pack, we might change this. (Regarding these artillery pieces atop the two mountains, does anyone know how they were used? Both mountains are so steep that they could not have been aimed down the slope -- instead, they seem to have been shooting straight. Was the idea that the shell would simply drop on an unseen target at the base of the mountain?)

Expansion pack? Is this for sure, or just speculation? Sounds great! Can we hear some more? Or is it still too early to talk about specifics?

[Gray_Lensman]

ORIGINAL: Gil R.

<snip>

EDIT: By the way, after having seen artillery emplacements atop Kennesaw Mountain one day and then Lookout Mountain the next, I've got us rethinking the rule in FOF that mountain hexes are out of play. For the expansion pack, we might change this. (Regarding these artillery pieces atop the two mountains, does anyone know how they were used? Both mountains are so steep that they could not have been aimed down the slope -- instead, they seem to have been shooting straight. Was the idea that the shell would simply drop on an unseen target at the base of the mountain?)

Not necessarily unseen as the following excerpt from "Fateful Lightning" shows

[Drex]

Polk probably never felt a thing.

[Gil R.]

ORIGINAL: przy06
Expansion pack? Is this for sure, or just speculation? Sounds great! Can we hear some more? Or is it still too early to talk about specifics?

We're planning one, though it wouldn't be out for half a year or more. Nothing is written in stone yet, but we're pretty sure we'll be: making changes to generals, both in terms of giving them additional ratings to make them more multi-faceted and changing some of the rules for how they're used, promoted, demoted, etc.; buffing up detailed battle further, at least by adding new terrain types and new special abilities for units; adding 50 or so new Legendary Units. We also have ideas for one or two major new features, but more on that later (when we're sure).

[Gil R.]

Gray_Lensman,
The account of Polk's death is interesting, but seems to describe firing at a mountain slope instead of down from it. I'm still curious how exactly mountain batteries could function when the target was hundreds of feet below them and not visible. Seems they would have been lobbing shells and hoping to get lucky (even if spotters were helping them to target).

LMUBill,
Today in driving from the Knoxville area (where I spent the night) back to Ohio I passed the exit for LMU on I-75, so now I know where you're located. I came very close to pulling off the road at Exit 29 when I saw the sign for the Colonel Sanders birthplace and KFC Cafe (as I think it's called). Did I miss anything of interest?

[LMUBill]

IIRC the guns on Lookout Mountain (and Missionary Ridge) were used to shell the trapped Union forces in Chattanooga.

If you ever get to visit Cumberland Gap you'll see the same setup with large guns on top of high mountains. In the case of CG they were used to shell enemy forces approaching the gap. the terrain helped because there were only three roads approavhing the actual gap. (The roads from the Tennessee/Virginia side converged just below the gap.) There are stories of some of the guns empalced there being thrown over the mountain by one army only to be dragged back up the mountain and used by the other army after the gap changed hands.

[LMUBill]

ORIGINAL: Gil R.

LMUBill,
Today in driving from the Knoxville area (where I spent the night) back to Ohio I passed the exit for LMU on I-75, so now I know where you're located. I came very close to pulling off the road at Exit 29 when I saw the sign for the Colonel Sanders birthplace and KFC Cafe (as I think it's called). Did I miss anything of interest?

LMU is about 40 miles east of I-75. But you were in the next county over when you drove up I-75 in Campbell County. Many people get off at exit 29 in KY and come south on US 25-E (which also goes by LMU) to get to I-81 (and I-40 going to Pigeon Forge/Gatlinburg) without going through Knoxville. If the sign you saw was in TN (I bet it was exit 134) and you had come up that way you would have passed Big Creek Gap in Lafollette, which is where Burnside cme out of the mountains en route to Knoxville. The way he travelled is the modern US 25-W from Jellico to LaFollette. His army went that way, down current US 27 from his supply base (now the town of Burnside, KY) and down US-25/25-E from London through Cumberland Gap. The highway up the valley from Lafollette to the Cumberland Gap area is one of the routes used by Union forces when they surrounded the gap in 1862 and 1863. (The gap changed hands 4 times during the war.)

The Sanders Cafe is where he first made the "original recipe" and sold what is now "Kentucky Fried Chicken" It is not the Colonel's birthplace but the birthplace of KFC. There is a museum there and a KFC next door in case you want to "eat where it all began" It's about 3 miles off the interstate.

Too bad you couldn't stay the night up at Cumberland Falls (just outside of Corbin), since it's a full moon right now the moonbow is visible most of the night.

[Gil R.]

Time to revive the thread that's about my personal ACW excursions...

In two weeks, I'll be visiting family in the D.C. area, and by now I've edited enough of these bios to realize that the Battle of Fredericksburg happened right around then. This made me think that it would be the right time of the year to visit the battlefield (and since my birthday's around then, I could even outvote other family members on this use of our time). So the question is, how interesting is Fredericksburg's battlefield, and is it worth an hour-plus drive each way? I would not also use the time to visit the Wilderness or anything else nearby, since the idea of visiting those particular battlefields in the winter is a poor one. It would be just Fredericksburg, then. Advice?

[fvianello]

I visited the town of fredericksburg some years ago and it was fun.
There are some historical buildings, including a tavern with the original 19th century "B&B rules" posted outside (i remember one...."no more than 7 hosts per room"), and reenactors acting as peasants and innkeepers (not sure if they work in winter too).

I can't remember anything about the battlefield, I was just back from gettysburg and that overcome everything else

[jkBluesman]

I cannot give a firsthand account, but an American friend of mine was very disappointed when he visited the battlefield. There was not much to see he told me when we made our plans to visit Civil War sites, so we did not go there.

[shenandoah]

Fredericksburg battlefield I feel is worth the trip. Most noticible is that the field in which the Union assualted the stone wall at Marye's Heights is now residential. Some of the stone wall that still exists and the road behind it.

Enter Fredericksburg by crossing the Rapp. River like the Union did. Go through town and drive through the residential neighborhood to get to the visitor center at the stone wall. You will follow close to the same route as the union did exept in the comfort of your car. There are signs to guide you.

Park at the visitor center. Get a map, walk around and stand at the stone wall and look beyond and you can imagine ...advancing up the slope the color of blue and steel from the Union forces development of residential housing![:D]

A famous photo of the 2nd Fredericksburg battle by Andrew Russell was in the area there. A house still stands from the battle with many holes. You can also drive the entire length of the defensive live. To where the first Union assualt occured and beyond that, a nice drive through the woods(no houses).

You can also head out west by the turnpike (route 3) and head to Chancellorsville and the Wilderness. Museum and monuments out that way and development. Actually, too much to see in one day. Hopefully, the weather will cooperate. Enjoy.

[Yogi the Great]

ORIGINAL: shenandoah

Fredericksburg battlefield I feel is worth the trip. Most noticible is that the field in which the Union assualted the stone wall at Marye's Heights is now residential. Some of the stone wall that still exists and the road behind it.

I agree that it is worth the time. Actually the entire Northern Virginia area is a Civil War enthusiasts dream. Many years ago when I was at Quantico for 3 months, I spent a few weekends just going to the various battlefields in the area. A somber, inspirational and almost surreal experience to say the least.