Yesterday the aide-de-camp and I took up roads south and traversed around Richmond. In recent years (after my relocation here to Northern Virginia), I’ve visited sections of the Seven Days Battlefields. But, as I realized yesterday, I’ve not traversed the whole in one tour since my teen years.
One of the themes I’ve picked on of late is how our understanding of an event is formed, for better or worse, by the content at first exposure. That might be markers at Shiloh… or in this case the visitor center at Richmond.
I remember a day in 1982 when the family piled out of that old red Ford. This was our entry-way, our portal, into Richmond and the story of the Seven Days Battles. After the obligatory orientation film (the NPS kept those under fifteen minutes back then… imagine you have fifteen minutes to cover the entire story of wartime Richmond?), we stepped out to the back. From there, we viewed “Richmond,” taking note of the interpretive signs with key points of interest to the Civil War tourist.
On that summer day, the words in the many books I’d read on the Peninsula Campaign were indelibly merged with personal views of the battlefields. The landscape with rich greens replaced the black-and-white photos from the history books. Folds in the ground improved upon non-topographical maps. All of which improved my understanding.
But that experience also imprinted some subjective leans. Although my father often slowed down to read the historical markers, in places heavy traffic prevented full reading. Battle sites with confusing or congested roads were recalled as “confusing” battles which needed more study. Or in the case of Seven Pines, a battlefield not worth much study as the field is paved over. At least that was my formative assessment back then. Of course now days my assessment is a bit more mature. But remains tainted by that first experience, only seeing the site from the back of a car on a hot July day.
Yesterday, the ADC and I “walked” as much of those battlefields as we could. He and I walked trails, explored earthworks (out of the way earthworks mind you!), pulled off at waysides, and strolled on the sidewalks of residential streets where once were open fields and open battles. Yes, we did “walk” Seven Pines. Walked it as best one can.
Of course, he’s in typical pre-teen boy mode. He wants to know where soldiers were, framing the questions with “good guys” and “bad guys.” At that age, events must be black-and-white, good-or-bad, right-or-wrong. The shades of gray come with maturity of understanding. Or at least that’s how I understand it.
Still I wonder how his understanding will evolve over the years that follow. His portal to Richmond is, indelibly so, the new visitor center at the old Tredegar factory complex. Different starting points for journeys across the same ground. How much will our understanding differ?






