Washington DC and Civil War Battlefelds

Seven days in New York

We went to New York to inspect four grandsons and to witness the first communion of the second eldest. We encountered late spring/early summer weather, which is very pleasant in New York, a contrast to the searing heat of high summer and the numbing cold of winter. After a week there, we were to travel to Maryland by train, but a freak crash near Philadelphia closed the line, so we had to switch to Greyhound.

Patrick's Day Parade in New York, New York.........

Frederick, Maryland

In Maryland, where we stayed 16 days, we hired a car in order to visit some tourist attractions. This car turned out to be the oddest car that I have ever hired. It was in perfect running order, and had new tyres, but it also had 180,000 miles and the most rust that I have seen on a car since the 60s. The “check engine” light was also on! But, it was cheap, and did the job. It was also unlikely to seem attractive to thieves or kidnappers.

Not exactly the car we hired, but, next time .....

Day one in Washington DC

Our first trip was into Washington DC, and we brought along our trusty Sat-Nav system. But, our TomTom kept bringing us to the wrong hotel. Suddenly, I realised the reason. When it asked for the street number, it refused to accept the correct number, and insisted on a number between 1700 and 2100. So, it kept bringing us to the wrong place. Eventually, after many long loops, I solved it by going to “Points of Interest” (POIs), and finding the hotel name in the list. It clearly uses the actual co-ordinates for POIs, as it brought us there directly.

Having parked the rusty car at the hotel, the next task was to acquire Smart-Trip cards. So, we went, complete with passports, to the nearest Commuter Store, where a grumpy woman issued the $2 cards with $10 credit on each. She had checked that we were over 60 (“Seniors”) and got us to fill out long forms. These cards are worthwhile if you are a senior, as after traversing the city for three days, we still had $4 credit left on each of the cards!

The Department of Finance otherwise known as The Treasury

The White House with lawns, fountains and spectators

We decided the first afternoon to just get a feel for the overall layout, so we walked to where we had a view of the Capitol building, and then walked miles to the White House, via the Washington monument. The Capitol is covered in scaffolding, which was very disappointing. But, leaky roofs need to be repaired, even if they're on top of the American legislature building. Huge crowds throng around the White House, and the railings make it difficult to get a decent photograph. A stepladder or an orange box would be very useful here. We then walked all the way to the huge Lincoln monument. The crowds made it difficult to see the structure. From the front of the monument you can see the Washington pillar as well as its reflection in the lake. The Vietnam memorial wall is only a short distance from the Lincoln, and is a very impressive sight, with 57,000 names engraved on a black marble reflective wall. They appear to be in no particular order, which makes it difficult to find a particular name. They are actually ordered based on the date of death. It's so sad that so many young people died in an unnecessary war.

After this, we ate in a very bad restaurant in a place called Foggy Bottom, on the edge of Georgetown.

The statue of Abraham Lincoln inside the giant memorial structure

The Washington Monument seen from the Lincoln Memorial

The Vietnam Wall with 57,000 names arranged by date of death

Day two in Washington DC

Next morning, it was the turn of the legendary national cemetery, so we took the metro three stops to Arlington. The cemetery was opened as a result of the Civil War casualties, and covers some 250 hectares. There is a wide drive leading to it, covered in tour buses, unloading organised groups wearing identical t-shirts. These come in a range of gaudy colours with printed messages on the front or the back or both. One group had the initials “LH” on their backs, which appeared as “Licking High” on their chests. Presumably, Licking is the name of a place! The huge cemetery had hordes of people all over it. The biggest concentration of people was around the Kennedy grave and eternal flame. There is only one other president buried in Arlington, William Howard Taft. The other highlights here are the Iwo Jima memorial, the womens' military monument and the unknown soldier construction. The latter has a ceremonial changing of the guard every hour on the hour.

We missed this ceremony, but we were lucky enough to witness an actual military funeral, including colour party, detachment of soldiers, gun-carriage, and riderless horse with reversed stirrups. There are around 30 funerals here every day, so it's not a rare sight. Another notable feature of the cemetery is the range and quality of trees throughout the area.

General view of part of the huge Arlington cemetery

The graves of John F. and Jacqueline Kennedy and the eternal flame

The monument to women soldiers at Arlington

We came upon the National Gallery of Art by mistake while looking for the Smithsonian Gallery of American Art. In contrast to the Smithsonian, this one features not so much American art, but features the great Europeans and others. Manet, Monet, Gauguin, Degas, Picasso, Pissarro, Cézanne, Rousseau, as well as Rembrandt and Van Gogh. There is even a Vermeer, and, rarer still, a Leonardo Da Vinci (Ginevra de Benci), the only one on the American continent. This museum is well worth the trouble, although it does not quite match the Musée d'Orsay in Paris.

The only Leonardo Da Vinci painting on the American continent

The Air and Space Museum has two buildings, but we settled for the original downtown building. It is full of items commemorating milestones in aviation and space travel. In the space section, the Apollo 11 Command Module was prominent, as well as the moon landing craft. It also features another Apollo command module which ferried people to and from the Skylab Workshop. The back-up Skylab Workshop is also there for visitors to walk through. There are also a number of nuclear missiles from the good old days of the cold war. In the aviation section Charles Lindberg's original Spirit of St. Louis aircraft is there in all its glory. There is also the Bell X-1 aircraft in which Chuck Yeager became the first to break the sound barrier. And the little red Lockheed aircraft flown by Amelia Earhart, which she called her “little red bus”, still looks like new. This is the craft in which she flew the Atlantic, landing in a cow field in Derry in May 1932, 15 hours after taking off from Newfoundland. The story of the Wright Brothers, who started as bicycle mechanics, is also well illustrated. One of their bicycles, which sold for $42, is on display. But, so is the fully restored aircraft in which they made their first flight using a powered engine. They used a very scientific approach to the problems of heavier-than-air flight, involving the construction of the first wind tunnels. Their system of steering is still employed in fixed wing aircraft. At the fourth attempt, this machine, with Orville Wright lying flat on the lower wing, flew around 300 yards at a height of ten feet.

The Wright Brothers' first ever flying machine

Amelia Earhart with her "Little Red Bus" which landed in county Derry

The Skylab space station - a backup copy of the station actually launched

The Museum of American History is really worth a long visit. Even a full day might not be enough to study each section in detail. We went in the afternoon and returned the following morning. It covers every aspect of history, social, political, technological. In transport, there is the caleche in which Abraham Lincoln drove to meet his death in Ford's Theatre. There are also two huge steam engines from the great days of the American railroad. The political history covers all the wars involving America, including the war of independence, the civil war, Korea, Vietnam and the two world wars. The reason given for Korea and Vietnam is the same : “to prevent communist expansionism”. And, on WW2 in Japan, there is a statement that America deliberately targeted civilians in its fire-bombing of Tokyo, an undefended wooden city, and in its use of nuclear bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I'm not sure if this matches the official American account of what took place. The histories of Korea and Vietnam are quite brief, and there is a helicopter on display which was used in Vietnam. On the civil war, I found out that the number killed was much greater than I had imagined, 620,000. It also explains how prosperous the south was before the war, and how much that prosperity depended on slavery. There were four million slaves at the start of the civil war, one eighth of the total population. The south has never recovered its economic strength.

There are exhibits tracing the history of music as well as the progress of the civil rights campaign. I also learned that Alexander Graham Bell's mother and sister were deaf, which is why he began experimenting with sound. This led to the development of the telephone.

Perhaps the most recent exhibit is a battered piece of the heating system salvaged from the 70^th floor of one of the Twin Towers.

We celebrated all this by eating in a high class Indian restaurant neat Chinatown.

Abraham Lincoln's caleche which brought him to Ford's Theatre on his last night

The controversial statue of George Washington

 The Smithsonian Museum of American History

Day Three in Washington DC

Six days after the end of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln was murdered in Ford's theatre, by an actor,

John Wilkes Booth. Later on, the theatre was bought by the state, as was the boarding house across the street where Lincoln died the morning after he was shot. Both houses can be explored, but tickets have to be booked well in advance, which we had not managed to do. Eleven days after the assassination, the killer was shot dead while resisting arrest. Eventually, four co-conspirators were tried and hanged, and four more were given terms in prison. Ironically, Booth was one of Lincoln's favourite actors, and Lincoln had previously invited him to the White House.

Ford's Theatre where Lincoln was shot in 1865

Gettysburg

One of the decisive battles of the Civil War took place here in 1863. It was the biggest battle ever fought on American soil, and the bloodiest with over 50,000 either dead, injured or missing. It was the second of three incursions by the confederates into union territory, and was a decisive and critical defeat for the southerners. The Soldier's National Cemetery was opened here some months later due to the casualties in the three-day battle, and it was at the dedication ceremony for the cemetery that Lincoln made his famous speech, known as the Gettysburg Address. The speech actually took less than two minutes to deliver, but had a powerful message. The main speaker at the event, Edward Everett, spoke for nearly two hours, and wrote to Lincoln afterwards that he hoped that he had got as close to the central idea of the occasion in two hours as Lincoln had in two minutes!

 The monument to the Gettysburg Address containing the text as well as the invitation to speak

The Gettysburg cemetery for Union soldiers killed in the 3-day battle

The battle memorial at Gettysburg cemetery near where Lincoln delivered his address

Monocacy – the battle that saved Washington DC

The battle of Monocacy Junction in July 1864 was during the third and last invasion of the north by the confederates. The capital city had been left undefended and Robert E. Lee saw an opportunity to threaten or capture it. He despatched Jubal Early with 15,000 troops complete with artillery, and a hastily assembled force of 6,600 was assembled near Frederick, under Lew Wallace, to hold up his advance. Despite being outnumbered, the largely inexperienced troops fought with great bravery, and held up the advance for a whole day. This allowed time for an army to be moved to guard Washington.

The barn on the Thomas farm. The farm was central to the day-long battle

The Gambrill water-powered mill, used as a field hospital, to which the Union troops retreated

Antietam – the bloodiest day

The battle of Antietam was fought over a single day in September 1862, and was the first attempt by the confederates to invade the northern union states. The battlefield lies between the small town of Sharpsburg and Antietam creek, and is now a peaceful and beautiful place. But, it was the scene of the biggest slaughter on a single day in American history. The fighting lasted from 07:30 in the morning until around 6 pm. The Union army was led by George McLellan, who later contested the presidency with Abraham Lincoln, and Robert E. Lee led the southerners, with the Union having an advantage in numbers. One of McLellan's generals was Thomas Francis Meagher, the exiled United Irishman. At the end of the day, some 23,000 men lay dead or wounded. Some were never accounted for. The worst slaughter took place in an area known as the sunken road. What was initially a good defensive position became a death-trap when over-run by the Union army. Neither side won the battle, but a draw was like a defeat for the Confederates, who retreated in good order two days later.

The Dunker church was in an area defended and held by the Confederates at some cost

Examples of the artillery types used at Antietam

Burnside's bridge over Antietam Creek with "witness tree" still standing - taken by Union army late in the day

End of blog entry.