Visiting Manassas (Virginia) National Battlefield Park

It was a stressful drive for Dad in the RV and Mom/me following in the Jeep traversing I-495 from Cherry Hill RV Park outside D.C. to Manassas, Virginia.  With lane closures for construction and encountering two separate accidents, the 45 miles we had to cover to get to Bull Run Regional Park took 1.5 hours.  In retrospect, it would have helped my cheese bank if we hit more traffic, ‘cause we were charged a $10 “early arrival fee” for checking in at 12 noon rather than 1 p.m.  We paid it under protest.  However, after we set up on our site, Mom/Dad read all the on-line reservation info and the park rules presented to us at check-in, and they found no reference to this fee.  Mom was proud of Dad for taking the lead (she is usually the one fighting for principle and justice) in getting this $10 fee refunded to us.  It turned out to be a “new” policy that had not been added yet to their printed documents nor to the on-line reservation system at the time we booked our site.

 

Bull Run Regional Park is a beautiful park operated by a quasi-government entity, The Northern Virginia Regional Park Authority.  It offers easy access to large RV/camping sites within wooded areas with water/electric (a few sites also have sewer), dump station, hiking trails, laundry facilities, day use picnic areas, playgrounds, and, for added fees, access to a pool/waterpark and shooting range.  But it doesn’t come cheaply at $71/night which includes sales tax, occupancy tax, non-resident fee, and booking fee.

 

We arrived at the Henry Hill Visitor Center at Manassas National Battlefield Park with little knowledge other than Manassas was the site of two separate Civil War battles.  We went to the desk, asked for a Junior Ranger Book (which I completed to earn another badge!) and a map of the grounds.  Now, you know we love and appreciate the efforts of volunteers, but this gentleman was just too exuberant and knowledgeable for my simple-minded family.  He started rambling details:  names of generals, locations of fighting, strategies used, etc.  But the info he imparted was in no particular order.  One minute he was firing off facts from the First Battle of Manassas, then he would segue to information pertaining to the Second Battle of Manassas, then return to discussing the First Battle. We were glassy-eyed, suffering from an acute case of information overload.  We took a deep breath, cleared our minds of everything we just heard (the little bit we even could remember), and went to view the film, the only logical place in Mom’s methodical mind to start our history lesson.

 

Now remember, in the interest of keeping you awake and not getting my cotton-head confused, this is a very abridged version of events. 

 

After the April 1861 attack on Fort Sumter, President Lincoln was counting on a one-and-done battle against the Confederates.  Realizing recent Union recruits had only 90-day enlistments, he pressured General Irvin McDowell to begin the campaign to overtake Richmond.

 

McDowell and 35,000 inexperienced troops began their march from Washington, D.C. on July 16, 1861, with great fanfare.  Citizens and Congressmen following behind with bottles of wine and picnic baskets, expecting to witness a spectacular show.

 

So, it was on July 21, 1861, on the fields near Bull Run, a stream in Manassas, that the first major battle of the Civil War commenced.  (The North generally referred to this battle as Bull Run while the South referred to it as Manassas.  Interestingly, the National Park Service adopted the Manassas name.)”

 

Things looked good for the Union at Matthews Hill against Confederate General P.G.T. Beauregard’s green troops.  However, General Thomas Jackson’s action and leadership on Henry Hill scored for the Confederates.    It is on Henry Hill that General Jackson earned the moniker “Stonewall”.  It is also the location at which Judith Henry, an elderly and blind civilian, was killed by artillery, and where her 100-year-old home got destroyed.  After further fighting, The First Battle of Manassas concluded with a Union Army retreat.

 

Henry Hill.

This statue commemorating Confederate General Thomas Jackson stands on Henry Hill, where he earned the nickname "Stonewall".

Monument dedicated in June 1865 honoring the fallen Union heroes at Bull Run/Manassas.  Cannon projectiles found on the grounds after the battle ended were used to adorn the monument. 

The battle produced nearly 5,000 casualties (dead, wounded, prisoners of war/missing in action), and the realization by both sides that they underestimated the task of achieving complete victory over their enemy.

 

Fast forward to August 28-30, 1862.  The Second Battle of Manassas ensues—much more organized and strategic than the conflict a year earlier.  Though fighting occurred at nearly a dozen different locations, yours truly is just imparting the highlights.

 

The battle started at Brawner’s Farm.  Within 90 minutes, the conflict created 2,000 casualties among Union and Confederate armies.

On Day 2, Stonewall Jackson had 1.5 miles of Confederate forces along the route of the unfinished railroad.  Despite being under constant attack, the Confederates held their position.  Now Union General John Pope was a bit overconfident.  He presumed he was dealing only with Stonewall Jackson’s regiment.  Unbeknownst to him, Confederate General James Longstreet had joined the action. And so, General Pope’s order to attack at the “deep cut”—a cut in the embankment for the railroad—did not end well for the Union.

Known as a "witness tree", this tree, located along the unfinished railroad, dates back to the days of the battles at Manassas.  If only it could talk, imagine what it could tell us!

 

Hiking along the unfinished railroad bed.

Views as we walked...

...within the "deep cut".

Chinn Ridge is the location of the climatic ending of the Second Battle of Manassas on August 30, 1862.  General Longstreet’s division swept the Ridge, causing severe Union losses, particularly to the New York 5^th, 10^th, and 14^th Infantry regiments.  General Pope, realizing his goose was cooked, needed to retreat, but required some time to execute the plan.  This was provided by the brave efforts and bloodshed of Ohio 25^th and 75^th Infantry as they encountered Confederate General Hood’s Texans and South Carolinians.  According to some historians, had the Ohioans been unsuccessful in holding off the Confederates, the Union Army could have been overrun and captured here, bringing an end to the Civil War much sooner and with dramatically different results.

 

The farm of Benjamin Chinn, where the climatic end of the Second Battle of Manassas took place.  You can see the foundation of their family home, known as Hazel Plain, in the background.

The Ridge on Benjamin Chinn's property that was
swept by Confederate General Longstreet, causing severe Union casualties.

It is at Chinn Ridge that Union Corporal Fletcher Webster, son of Daniel Webster of dictionary fame, dies on the battlefield.  A monument on a small plot of land, purchased in 1914 by survivors of his regiment, pays tribute to him.  Interestingly, the Texans who fought on Chinn Ridge have a monument there, too.  Why is that?  Confederate monuments were prohibited within Manassas National Battlefield Park.  Well, some wealthy Texan found a “loophole”.  You see, that small plot of land where Fletcher Webster’s monument sits was purchased before the land was designated a National Battlefield Park.  And the title to that small plot had been lost.  Whether legalities or perseverance prevailed, who knows?  But ultimately, Texas had a marker erected in 2012 to commemorate their brethren who fought on Chinn Ridge.

Fletcher Webster's monument on Chinn Ridge.

 

r

Texas monument on Chinn Ridge. 

We spent several days doing the auto tour and walking the many trails along the battlegrounds.  We imagined the troops crossing Bull Run Stream; the fear Mrs. Hill experienced being blind in the midst of battle and ultimately losing her life, alone and frightened; the endless medical needs provided by weary doctors at the makeshift hospitals; what the troops must have experienced getting attacked at “the deep cut”.   The degree of death and destruction is difficult to fathom.   It is a far cry from the pastural fields we view today.

 

Stone Bridge over Bull Run Stream.  Built in 1825, it was blown up by the Confederates in March 1862 to prevent the Union from entering Manassas.  The Union rebuilt it using original bridge abutments. However, the bridge was destroyed again in August 1862, this time by the Union, as they retreated across it after the Second Battle of Manassas.

Bull Run Stream.

A blue heron enjoying Bull Run.

Groveton Cemetery... 

...where the unidentified Confederate dead from the battles of Manassas lie enmass.

Stone House, built 1848, was used as a field hospital for both battles at Manassas.  Under truce after the Second Battle of Manassas, Federal surgeons tended to both Union and Confederate wounded. Confederates also used Stone House as a parole station for prisoners of war.

Views from a battlefield hiking trail.

We also hiked a few miles along the Whitetail Trail and 4 miles along the Bull Run-Occoquan Trail that ran through Bull Run Regional Park, but 4 miles is just a drop in the bucket, for this trail is nearly 20 miles long!

 

We glimpsed a Hindu temple from the Whitetail Trail.

This guy was going in a different direction than we were.

This buck was spying on us!

Oh well, onward and upward to our next Civil War locale.  Talk to you again soon!

A Visit to the Washington D.C. Area (Pentagon 9/11 Memorial, Arlington National Cemetery, Woodlawn Mansion, F. L. Wright’s Pope-Leighley Home)

We left York, Pennsylvania, on a glorious, cloudless day, nothing but blue skies—and tons of traffic—as we made our way to Cherry Hill RV Park in College Park, Maryland.

 

A gorgeous and enormous family-owned park (500 RV/Tent/Yurt/Cabin sites) with a plethora of amenities (even a pickleball court).  And it has a steep price tag to boot ($102/night).  We are here because we had a $92 credit on account from 2021 when our tire delamination debacle and a side trip for repairs in Indiana prohibited us from coming at that time.  The perk to staying at Cherry Hill Park is that it has a Metro Bus Station right on the premises, which will take you to the train station to get into D.C.  It eliminates worrying about parking, knowing traffic patterns, or dealing with congestion within the city.

 

This is the third time we have stayed at this park with advanced reservations, but the first time we have been assigned an inappropriately-sized site.  Perhaps it is the young, inexperienced staff of college-aged employees?  Who knows.  But not only was it too short to fit our RV, Suite Retreat, but its proximity to car parking for yurt guests made it impossible to access with the turn radius of our medium duty truck, Big Boomer.  We were given the opportunity to review three other sites, so we chose the longest one available with adequate access.  We called them to advise which site we selected.  We also noted that we did not receive a pass for my Rambling RV Rat Pack Rubicon, despite them charging us at check-in an additional $7 for an extra vehicle (They charge for anything over two vehicles/site, even if they all fit within the confines of your assigned spot.)  We were informed to return to the office to pick up the car pass and to get an updated tag with the new site number on it.  No words of apology for our inconvenience.  Wouldn’t it be proper customer service for a staff member to have delivered these to our site?

As you can see, it was a VERY tight squeeze, even in the revised site assignment.

 

After reacquainting ourselves with the Park, my parents decided to use what an Office Staff member described as an “underutilized” pickleball court.  Guess that staff member didn’t really know what transpires here, ‘cause we went several times over the course of our stay and each time the court was in use.  Furthermore, no one was applying the generally-accepted practice of lining up paddles to rotate in people to play.  Instead, one day my parents waited over an hour before they were granted use of the court to play one game against a couple of youngsters who were new players.  On another occasion, my parents offered to play doubles with a couple.  However, the couple declined, citing their preference to play singles. Obviously, my parents’ endeavors to play pickleball over our 3-day visit were a bust.

 

We were happy, though, to reconnect with Susan, a long-time full-time RVer who is back working at Cherry Hill Park as shuttle service.  We met her years ago when she and her hubby John were running the café/grill here and we were still in a sticks/bricks just RVing during weekends/vacations.  We had been reading their blogs already, but it was a wonderful opportunity to meet in person back then and ask specific questions about the nomadic lifestyle and work-camping.   Susan/John were our inspiration in bringing our full-time RVing plan to fruition (While some folks are spontaneous and can jump right in, my parents are more structured.  They researched the lifestyle for over a decade and worked toward the goal of being completely debt-free, paying off the sticks/bricks, custom-built truck, and new RV before pulling the trigger in 2012 to start our nomadic journey).

 

The next day we had an easy commute via the Metro bus/rail system.   Our mission was to pay our respects at the Pentagon 9/11 Memorial (as we had done at the Trade Center in New York City and the Flight 93 Memorial in Shanksville, Pennsylvania back in 2021).   The Pentagon 9/11 Memorial is done tastefully, with 184 granite benches, each inscribed with the name of a departed soul, resting over pools of reflective waters.  The benches are arranged by birth year of the victims, ranging from 1930 (Age 71) to 1998 (3 years old).

Since we were in the general vicinity, we revisited Arlington National Cemetery.  We walked throughout the many hallowed graves of the men and women who served our Nation with honor and valor.  We watched the solemn changing-of-the-guard ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.  We stopped at the gravesite of John Fitzgerald Kennedy.  Resting beside him is Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and two of their children who died as infants.  (The remains of John Jr. and his wife Carolyn, who died in a plane crash together, are not here.  Instead, they are buried at sea.)  And we said a prayer at the Memorial for the Columbia astronauts, which was not on the grounds the last time we visited.

Changing the guard, Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

Monument to the Columbia astronauts on far right.

The Kennedy Gravesite in foreground, Arlington House in background.

Of interest to us in conjunction with our Civil War Battlefield Tour, was a stop at Arlington House at the top of the hill within Arlington National Cemetery.  This was once home to Confederate General Robert E. Lee and his wife, Mary Anna Randolph Custis Lee (who was his childhood friend AND distant cousin).

 

The mansion was built by slave labor between 1803 and 1818 by General Lee’s father-in-law, George Washington Parke Custis, grandson of Martha Dandridge Custis Washington (yup, that’s the one--wife of good old I-cannot-tell-a-lie George).  General Lee and Mary Anna were married in the parlor of the home, as were two of their slaves, and George Washington Parke Custis lived in the home until his death in 1857.  It was at this home that Lee, a West Point graduate and officer in the United States Army, made the painful decision to respectfully decline President Lincoln’s request for him to head the Army of the Potomac.  Instead, Lee supported the decision of his beloved home state of Virginia to secede from the Union, and he became the Commander of the Army of the Confederate States of America.   As a result of the South’s loss of the Civil War, the Union confiscated the Custis/Lee family’s cherished Arlington House and its 1,000+ acres, eventually creating Arlington National Cemetery (wow, that must have been one giant NJ middle-finger salute to the Commander of the Confederate Army).

The view from Arlington House.

It is believed that George Washington Parke Custis (father-in-law to General Lee and grandson to Martha Dandridge Custis Washington) fathered a daughter with his slave, Arianna, which makes for an interesting family tree of diverse lineage.  

Depiction of a slave family.  (Hey, whose that guy in the mirror!  He wasn't part of the exhibit!)

 

In addition to losing the family plantation, General Lee, though never incarcerated, was considered a war criminal—that is until 1975 when then President Gerald Ford pardoned Lee, 110 years after the end of the Civil War.

 

In keeping with the theme of plantations and a “family” connection, we visited Woodlawn in Fairfax County.  This was the home of Eleanor Parke Custis.  She was the sister of George Washington Parke Custis (General Lee’s father-in-law who built Arlington House) and the granddaughter of Martha Dandridge Custis Washington (President George’s wife).  The acreage was initially part of Mt. Vernon, George Washington’s plantation.  In 1799, George presented 2,000 acres to Eleanor and her husband Lawrence Lewis (nephew of George Washington) as a wedding gift from him and Martha, and he hired an architect to build them Woodlawn Mansion, completed in 1805. (Holy cow, the Six Degrees of Separation concept is real!)

The Woodlawn docent (who introduced himself as a “public historian”) gave a wonderful lesson of life at Woodlawn, but from the perspective of the enslaved people who toiled here. Though informative, enlightening, and an important story to tell, the Woodlawn Tour should not be billed as a “house tour” since it included virtually no information on interior design and/or architecture.   Mom queried why most rooms were devoid of any period furnishings, to which the docent replied they were removed to avoid “distraction from the narrative.”

 

The grand staircase.

The property itself has an interesting history.  Seemingly, George Washington’s Last Will and Testament indicated his slaves should be emancipated upon his death.  However, Martha, his wife, made no such decree in her will.  Therefore, upon her death, many of her Mt. Vernon slaves were transferred to her granddaughter, Eleanor, to toil at Woodlawn Plantation.  But as the years transpired, the soil lost nutrients, and the tobacco crop waned.  It was increasingly more difficult to maintain Woodlawn Plantation.  So, in 1846, Eleanor sold a parcel to a group of Quakers from New Jersey, who, as staunch abolitionists, farmed the land without the use of slaves.  They bought/sold more parcels as time went on, ultimately selling the mansion and some acreage to John Mason, a Baptist minister.  The sale came with two stipulations:  no alcohol on the premises and no slavery.  Having lost considerable acreage through eminent domain for the building of Fort Belvoir, Woodlawn Mansion consists now of only 126 acres, owned and operated by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

 

Also on the property is the Pope-Leighley house, a structure designed by Frank Lloyd Wright which was saved from eminent domain demolition (for I-66) and moved to its current location at the Woodlawn complex.  Now this House Tour was terrific, earning a Rambling RV Rat 5-cheese award!  The docent provided architectural/interior design information, family history, and anecdotes about F. L. Wright.

 

F.L. Wright's principles for owning one of his Usonian home designs.  Like full-time RVing, minimalism and functionality are essential.

Copy editor by trade and master craftsman by hobby, Loren Pope and his wife Charlotte wanted a home in Falls Church, Virginia to look like part of nature.  But the Pope’s were of humble means and could only afford a small dwelling.  To whom else would they turn than F. L. Wright, who had articulated in interviews his wish to design homes for middle-class families (like his American System-Built Homes that we saw in Milwaukee, Wisconsin).  Wright rejected Mr. Pope’s overtures to hire him on more than one occasion.  But Wright, perhaps impressed with Mr. Pope’s tenacity, relented.  He designed a modest 1,200-square-foot home in the Usonian style, a modernized, simplified, and more affordable version of his Prairie-styled homes.

 

The home has some signature F. L. Wright designs like a cantilevered carport roof and the "compress and release" small entryway way into the spacious living area.  The home was constructed of glass, red tidewater cypress, concrete, and brick.  Wright employed radiant heat flooring (saying it kept pets off furniture) and a green cooling concept.  He utilized plywood in his design, a cutting edge material for the building industry back in 1940.

The hallway "compression"...

..."released" into the spacious living area.

Small but functional kitchen.

Mr. Pope crafted the chest of draws in the closet area of the master bedroom.

Mr. Pope got a loan from his employer of $5,700 to finance the building of this home, which he repaid through payroll deductions.  To stay on budget, Mr. Pope and his wife could not buy Wright’s lighting package, so the home has only recessed lighting.  Similarly, they had to nix Wright’s carpet package.  Wright gave them the directive that only beige or teal carpet would complement his design palette.  The furniture provided by Wright was minimal, but versatile. In the end, the home cost $7,000.  However, Wright did not take the final payment, having developed a friendship with Mr. Pope during the building process that continued throughout the rest of their lives.

 

The Popes, having suffered the loss of their child in this home, sold the property to the Leighleys in 1946 for $17,000.  The Leighleys retained the integrity of the home and were responsible for having it moved and preserved for future generations.

 

And with that, I will sign off.  Talk to you again soon!