Richmond, Part 1

I visited the White House of the Confederacy and the Museum of the Confederacy.  Now both of these are actually part of the same organization.  The museum actually started in the house, until they built the current building, then they restored the “White House” to it’s Civil War appearance.  Most or all of the furnishings in the White House are period, and many are original to the house, though almost everything had been sold off after the war.  One piece, a bust of Jefferson Davis, was taken by a Union soldier as a souvenir, bounced around Massachusetts for a while, and was finally returned about a year ago.  A tea set went as far as Ireland before making its way back.

Before I continue, for those whose interest in history is less than mine, I want to list some things in the Richmond area that might interest you.  Agecroft Hall is a 15th century English manor house that was dismantled and shipped here (I don’t know why).  There is a Jewish History museum (Beth Ahabah Museum), Hollywood Cemetery has many famous Virginians buried in it, the home of Chief Justice John Marshall, the Edgar Allen Poe museum, and many more.  There are several sites and museums dedicated to civil rights leaders, and there is a Holocaust museum here as well.  That is only a small list, by the way.

Back to the Museum of the Confederacy.  There are battle flags, knick-knacks  from the era, personal effects of Robert E. Lee, Jeb Stuart, Stonewall Jackson, and many others.  There are uniforms in there that make me wonder about how much smaller they were than us.  For some reason I can’t load the pictures I want, but that’s ok, it would have been hard to see the scale of the clothing.  The pictures were an attempt to show how small they were, at least some of them.

I wonder how many can tell what this is.  I couldn’t at first, because I had never seen one before.  This is a “Sherman’s Bowtie.”  Civil War practice was, when you came across the enemy’s railroad supply line, you tear up the rails, lay them on top of a fire (built using the railroad ties), and bend the rails.  Sherman’s men started doing this. This is a rail that has been wrapped around a tree (look close, you can see a tree still wrapped up in there). I had to look twice at it to see that it was a rail.

That’s all for today, Happy Road-Tripping!