Richmonding for a Day

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?

Grant and his Generals

How many of the generals in this painting can you name, without using references?*

The painting hangs in the National Portrait Gallery. The photo does not do the work justice. But the location, hanging over one of the stairways, allows visitors perspective from several good angles. Artist Ole Peter Hansen Balling put motion in this painting, implying if not imparting progress towards the end of a long, bloody war.

When I view the painting, an observation offered by a former commander comes to mind. “Battles, campaigns, and wars,” he would say, “are not won by a single man, even he be a commander. Rather they are won by a team unified by a leader.”

* According to the interpretation offered with the painting, the generals are, from left to right: Thomas C. Devin, George A. Custer, Hugh J. Kilpatrick, William H. Emory, Philip H. Sheridan, James B. McPherson, George Crook, Wesley Merritt, George H. Thomas, Gouverneur K. Warren, George G. Meade, John G. Parke, William T. Sherman, John A. Logan, Ulysses S. Grant, Ambrose E. Burnside, Joseph Hooker, Winfield Scott Hancock, John A. Rawlins, Edward O.C. Ord, Francis Preston Blair, Alfred H. Terry, Henry W. Slocum, Jefferson C. Davis, Oliver O. Howard, John M. Schofield, Joseph A. Mower.

Antietam was a Napoleonic fight? Do tell!

We subscribe to National Geographic Traveler, as I still cling to that dream of a vacation to Nepal. I figure someday all those travel tip columns will come in handy. Seriously, I find the magazine one of the better of the travel mags, and enjoy living vicariously through the articles.

The June/July edition caught my eye after dinner this evening, with a cover headline “Ghosts of the Civil War: Venturing into the Past.” Turning to page 68, I find yet another article on the Civil War by Tony Horwitz. (I’m still working through the irony of Confederates in the Attic written while he lived in the land of the Unionists in the Confederate attic….) Now granted, Horwitz is not a historian, per-say, but he has put out enough print material over the last ten to fifteen years to wear the historian’s robe. Deserving or not.

Horwitz provides this introduction for the battle of Antietam:

The battle at Antietam is easy for the non-Civil War buff to appreciate. Unlike the more famous Gettysburg, which spanned three days, and miles of terrain, Antietam was a Napoleonic clash that lasted 12 hours. Gettysburg was fought in July, when sweaty hordes now flock to the battlefield; Antietam occurred in mid-September….

To paraphrase the late George Carlin, that passage is full of things that tick me off.

First question: if the battle is “easy for the non-Civil War buff to appreciate” then why did Horwitz have to secure the services of top notch guide Stephen Recker? I know Stephen through Facebook and mutual friends. He’s very knowledgeable on the battle. If Horwitz walked away with a sound appreciation of the battle, then it speaks volumes for Stephen’s skill and ability. But let’s face it, Antietam is a complex battle that even the best historians have difficulty interpreting. Generations of historians clung to the “three phases” in order to conveniently step around the complexity. But with a sweep of the hand, Horwitz says this battle is now easy to appreciate simply because it was a brief and geographically limited fight. Go figure! I dare say one can spend a lifetime trying to “appreciate” the West Woods in isolation, much less gain a firm handle on the entire battle of Antietam.

“Napoleonic clash”? What the heck? Paddy Griffith is rolling in his grave. Napoleonic tactics featured well integrated combined arms forces moving rapidly across the battlefield (or at least that’s what folks like Nosworthy and Rothenberg would have us believe). Not a lot of combined arms work at Antietam. Cavalry activity (not during the campaign, but during those 12 hours Horwitz mentions) conform closely to that old jib referencing the lack of dead cavalrymen.  While the Artillery played an important role in the battle, I’d be hard pressed to call it a “Napoleonic” employment. And even if we lay those aside, September 17, 1862 lacked those grand, sweeping, fast movements characteristic of “Bony.” So where was this Napoleonic clash?

Twelve hours? That’s all we get of Antietam? Nay! This is one of the great stumbling blocks of those who attempt to lay some sporting analogy across military history. The battle is but part of a broader, more important, grand-scale activity called… a campaign. You want to appreciate a battle, then you need to study what brought the forces to the battlefield. You need to study the marches, logistics, and sparring that occurred in the lead to the battle… and in the aftermath. The Maryland Campaign (as is probably more accurate) featured more than just 12 hours of fighting. Orders rolled around cigars, South Mountain, School House Ridge, Shepherdstown, … all rather important marks in the campaign that occurred outside that 12 hours.

Lastly, I’m at a loss to explain why visitors would opt for a “sweaty Gettysburg” over a “temperate Antietam.” I’m sure it has nothing to do with the highway infrastructure, 150 years worth of writings, and a Ted Turner movie. You know, all that ancillary stuff…. Also unexplained – why hot, humid Vicksburg does not attract a wave of “sweaty” visitors every July to rival Disneyland.

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