Trip to Virginia in April

[cbreedon]

I don't post on here a whole lot but I'd like some advice....

My wife and I are taking a trip to Virginia, DC and Maryland in April.

Our loose itinerary is:
Manassas probably the 1st day after landing at Dulles. It is only a few miles.

Then down to Williamsburg/Jamestown area.

Then over the Chesapeake bridge/tunnel up to Rehoboth Beach and visit Dogfish Head Brewery.

Then through Annapolis to DC for a day or so.

My question is: We want to hit another battlefield on the way to Williamsburg. I know there are several along the way but I am not sure which would a good one to visit? We went to Gettysburg and Antietem a couple of years ago and enjoyed them.

Also are there any other good things to hit in the areas mentioned. Breweries, restaurants, historical attractions, etc?

Thanks

[wheres_my_horse]

Assuming you are going down 29/17 from Manassas to 95 towards Norfolk, you have Battlefield Brewing in Fredericksburg and Williamsburg Ale Werks. Never been to either, they are on my list.

King's Arms Tavern in Williamsburg is good period food.

[cbreedon]

What about battlefields? We want to hit one on the way from Manassas to Williamsburg. Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville are on the way. Of the two which is the more interesting?

[mmescher]

Unfortunately, both Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville suffer from fringe development as the I-95 corridor has developed. When you see Manassas or Antietam, they were relatively unified battles with large tracts of land preserved early while the area was still rural.

In Fredericksburg, a lot of the battle involved crossing the river, skirmishing in town, and then the attack on the Stone Wall at the base of Marye's Heights. The town has swallowed this part and the only remnant is a small part of the stone wall that looks directly into back yards not many feet away. The Slaughter Pen area south of town is less developed and CWPT just acquired a big chunk of it so you don't have to imagine open landscape as much.

Some of the elements of Chancellorsville are almost completely obliterated and development is encroaching on other portions. The area around Salem Church is, with the exception of the church itself, buried under strip malls and similar development. The main battlefield is still heavily wooded second growth so you have none of the sweeping vistas of some of the more open fields. I haven't been there in years so I don't know how much development has further encroached on it. But around the visitor center you can walk in the woods a short distance and get some idea of what it was like to try to conduct an organized battle in an area where it was hard to see more than 50 yards in the woods. If you are coming in early April, you will have greater visibility in the woods than if you are coming later.

Of the two, it is hard to say which is the more interesting because they are both so incredibly damaged. Spotsylvania and the Wilderness might also be options but the Wilderness is also broken up by development (at least they named some of the streets after the generals) and I haven't been to Spotsylvania.

A possible option is to visit as much of all of them as your time allows, enjoying the remaining portions of each.

In the Williamsburg/Jamestown area, I would recommend the NPS area with the location of the original fort over the state run Festival Park.

Michael Mescher

[Chip]

I recently was in Richmond on business and managed to squeeze in Cold Harbor and Gaines Mill. Both are within a mile or so of each other and have nice trail walks. I liked Cold Harbor because many of the earthworks are still intact. Battlefields are just off of 295, north of I-64 and potentially right on the way to Williamsburg.

Have a good trip!

[TheQM]

I would agree with Sam,

Here's a partial list of sites along Route #64 out of Richmomd:

Seven Pines
Savage Station
Glendale
Malvern Hill
Gaines' Mill
Cold Harbor

Spotsylvania Court House, south of Fredericksburg, is still pretty rural.

[GAR]

We made a similar road trip in '09. Williamsburg was great fun and only about 15 minutes away from Jamestown. Driving up the Virginia peninsula from Jamestown, there are several historic plantations, including Belle Aire, which was built by my gggg... grandfather, Richard Bradford. Really. Washington DC has more to offer than can be possibly be seen in just a day or two and should be in cherry bloom are that time. Besides the monuments and historic buildings, you've got the Smithsonian Museums and just across the river, Arlington Cemetery surrounding General R E Lee's former family home which was about half restored when we were there. We walked back across the bridge and saw the Lincoln Memorial, the Viet Nam Wall and the three soldier bronze statue, missed the Korean War Veterans Memorial but wish we hadn't. We had tickets to tour Ford's Theater, but the kids got antsy and we were anxious to get on up to Gettysburg. I always wanted to retrace Booth's escape route from Ford's and see Surratt's Tavern and Mudd's farm, maybe next time. Garrett's farm, where Booth died, has been paved over for a highway on ramp or something. Ain't progress grand? Check it out here, along with other great area things of interest: http://www.civilwartraveler.com/EAST/MD/booth.html
Take lots of pictures of yourselves standing in front of landmarks. It'll be much more interesting to look at later than pictures of just the landmarks by themselves. Have a great time!
Gary

[Radar]

Petersburg Battlefield maybe. It's been years since since I've been there though.

[BobSullivanPress]

Just completed a History trip with my daughter over the summer to this area. We visited many of the sites recommended here. As others have posted, many of the sites require somewhat of a suspension of disbelief on your part, imagining the area without development. If you are heading to Williamsburg from Manassas, I'd pick the Richmond area to visit. Lots of places to see from the 1862 and 1864 campaigns, and you can easily spend a day visiting what you'd like to see.

As a person who visited most of the major sites in Virginia 35 or so years ago, and then visited them again last summer, I believe I can sum my thoughts up: 1. There's a lot more commercial development around most sites. 2. The sites themselves are much better preserved, marked, and interpreted. For example, Ft. Darling (Drewry's Bluff). Visited it in my 20s, there was one gun there at the end of winding trail, all covered over with weeds and hard to find. Just visited it recently. The entire earth fort has been cleared out, marked, interpreted, and all sorts of pictures and such are there. The view of the river is better too. Much better than it was 35 years ago. But some, like Salem Church mentioned above, are worse

Not to hijack this thread, but I took the following book out of the library before our trip: The Complete Civil War Road Trip Guide: More than 400 Civil War Sites, from Antietam to Zagonyi's Charge, by Michael Weeks. You can find it in your library (I did) or online. It's an absolute gold mine of information on places to pick from. As a bonus, it lists every site with an address, so that if you have a GPS you can plug in the information and get there. Understand, I've visited every major Civil War site in Virginia in my lifetime, but I still found this book extremely informative and helpful. Get it before you go.

[Jim Mayo]

If you are near Richmond definatlely do Cold Harbor and continue down through the seven days battles to Malvern Hill. That would be a whole campaign under your belt in one day. Lots of preserved land on that route from Seven Pines to Malvern Hill. Do one of the plantations while you are near the river.