While you are marching Lee’s Retreat, also follow the march of Civil Rights

For those of use tracing the Appomattox Campaign “on the road” these are familiar stops: But at several places along that same route, we see trail-blazes and markers of another sort: I’ve mentioned the Civil Rights in Education Heritage Trail a few times before.  That marker series highlights sites across southern Virginia which have significance

April 4, 1865: “I have no communication from General Lee since Sunday” as the Confederate high command splinters

On April 4, 1865, General Robert E. Lee lead the retreating forces from Richmond and Petersburg into Amelia Court House. There, Confederates found empty box cars along the Richmond & Danville Railroad.  A staff mistake of the highest order had deprived the hard-pressed Confederates of supplies.  Lee was forced to appeal to the local populace

Camping Along the James

My aide and I spend this last weekend in the field.  After an early Saturday morning stop at Brandy Station, to assist the start of a battlefield tour, we worked our way through the back roads, and history, of Madison, Albemarle, and Nelson Counties in central Virginia.  That evening we camped out at James River