a number of us set out last Sunday morning, on a spectacular Shenandoah Valley day

[above: historic Pritchard House on the Kernstown Battlefield]

With Scott Patchan's Cedar Creek issue of Blue & Gray in hand, a number of us set out last Sunday morning, on a spectacular Shenandoah Valley day, to visit the parking lots, ditches, and medians where interpretation of that battle is most easily conveyed. Best of all, however, was the stop at Belle Grove, where rolling pastures and lines of sight made it somewhat easier to envision the events of 1864, the quarry notwithstanding. Our guide eschewed a visit to the visitor center as part of one of the preservation world's ongoing feuds. All in all, it was another memorable gathering for the intrepid members of The Civil War Forum. All of this week, we've been voting on next year's (Western) venue, and early returns point to New Orleans. Here are a few photos from last week (click to enlarge):













Above, site of John Brown's scaffold, Charles Town, West Virginia; below, Kennedy Farm where Brown plotted, near Harpers Ferry













left: Steve Meserve,
inveterate tour guide,
historian par excellence,
misguided football fan







Scott Patchan, and Steve

















Above: The Pritchard House

thursday road notes

A rainy day in Winchester and environs. At noon, about 20 of us carpooled over to Charles Town, West Virginia for a stop at the Jefferson County Museum -- they've got quite an impressive collection, including some nice Civil War material, and John Brown-related artifacts. Perhaps most impressive is the wagon that carried Brown to the gallows.

Following historian Steve Meserve, we walked past the prosecuting attorney's home to a slightly newer iteration of the old court house where Brown was tried. Then we drove to the gallows site, and finally passed through lovely forlorn Harpers Ferry to the Kennedy Farm, where Brown gathered his weaponry and plotted his holy insurrection.

Back at Winchester it was time to greet old friends and meet some new ones in the Lord Fairfax Room. Guide and speaker Scott Patchan made his appearance, and after all enjoyed a hearty repast, Scott set the stage for the next two days of tours, helping us get our minds around the expansive, overlapping operations of that bloody 1864 Shenandoah summer.

Time to get some zzz's now. The trouble with flying from the West Coast to the East -- for night owls like me -- is that even if you go to bed early, it's still way too late. It was worth it, though. As I was typing this I got to see the Baby Ruth scene from Caddyshack one more time.

13th Civil War Forum Battlefield Conference

THE 1864 SHENANDOAH VALLEY CAMPAIGN

We have 43 people signed up for what promises to be another deeply informative and memorable series of tours and talks later this month, headquartered in Winchester. There are still several seats available, if you're interested in attended. It's a fun group of people—many who have been to most or all of the past conferences, some who signed on in recent years, and always a handful of welcome first-timers.

It's a great deal: $275 for two full days of bus tours (with box lunches), two half days of tours by carpool, and three evening buffet dinners with after-dinner presentations by our historians Scott Patchan and Stevan Meserve. The Civil War Forum continues to sponsor the best tours, with the best guides, for as low a cost as possible. Anything left over goes to The Civil War Preservation Trust.

Among other sites, we'll spend much of our two days of bus tours with Scott visiting Cool Spring/Snickers Gap—including a walk down to the river and a visit to the Parker House; 2nd Kernstown Battlefield, 3rd Winchester Battlefield, Fisher’s Hill and Tom's Brook. On Sunday morning we'll finish up with four hours at Cedar Creek.

For early arrivals, we have an optional 4-hour outing planned for Thursday afternoon to Charles Town, WV to visit John Brown-related sites, including the Kennedy Farm, where Brown and his men hid out while preparing their raid, the Jefferson County Museum—whose collection includes the Stuart Horse Artillery flag, John Brown pikes and memorabilia, and the wagon that took Brown to the gallows—the courthouse where Brown was tried, and the gallows site, plus a walking tour of the town. Our guide for Thursday will be Stevan Meserve, whose stellar research isn't limited to Loudoun County, the subject of a nice Civil War history he published last year.

For registration information and updates, click here.

As if there weren't already a severe shortage of hours in the day

to read all the things that pique one's interest, the editors of The Atlantic.com have opened the flood gates on a treasure trove of reading material from the magazine's archives. This is very exciting, and will cause me no end of trouble (thanks to friend Luke for tipping me off).

From the Editor's Note on January 22: "Beginning today, TheAtlantic.com is dropping its subscriber registration requirement and making the site free to all visitors. Now, in addition to such offerings as blogs, author dispatches, slideshows, interviews, and videos, readers can also browse issues going back to 1995, along with hundreds of articles dating as far back as 1857, the year The Atlantic was founded.

I love all the book reviews, and more access to the annual fiction issue. Check out the 2007 fiction issue here. Civil War buffs, of course, can mine the archives for snippets going back to the war itself. Look at this "flashback" from February of 1862. And here's a page that contains links to several poems published during or soon after the Civil War years by such authors as Emerson, Whittier, and Longfellow.

I found this provocative essay/review by Christopher Hitchens on John Brown, "The Man Who Ended Slavery." "It was not at all the tear-jerking sentiment of Uncle Tom's Cabin that catalyzed the War Between the States. It was, rather, the blood-spilling intransigence of John Brown, field-tested on the pitiless Kansas prairies and later deployed at Harpers Ferry. And John Brown was a man whom Lincoln assiduously disowned, until the time came when he himself was compelled to adopt the policy of 'war to the knife, and the knife to the hilt,' as partisans of the slaveocracy had hitherto been too proud of saying."

Here is a fascinating piece on "Our Liberian Legacy," a subject that always gives me pause: "This is only the latest development in what has been a troubled and bloody history, and one in which the United States has been inextricably involved. Though Liberia was never a colony in the European sense of the word, it was settled by freed American slaves at the instigation of American slaveholders, and there has long been significant debate about what level of U.S. involvement in Liberian affairs is appropriate. What, indeed, is the United States' legacy in Liberia? And what, if anything, do Americans now owe Liberians? These questions are not new. Atlantic contributors have struggled with America's obligation to Liberia for three quarters of a century."

Did you know about the Colfax Riot, a "forgotten Reconstruction tragedy, in a forgotten corner of Louisiana"? I didn't. Check out this intriguing historically-oriented travel piece by Richard Rubin, who unexpectedly came across this marker:

COLFAX RIOT

On this site occurred the Colfax Riot in which
three white men and 150 negroes were slain.
This event on April 13, 1873 marked the end of
carpetbag misrule in the South.

Erected by the Louisiana Department of Commerce and Industry 1950

The author writes, "now, I'd studied the Civil War and Reconstruction quite extensively, and I'd never even heard of the Colfax Riot. Neither had the half dozen history professors and the dozen Louisianans from New Orleans, Baton Rouge, and Alexandria I'd asked about it since I'd first read that marker."

There's a lot to read. Better get cracking.