Bragg Family South summer 2015 vacation (part 2)

After our quick visit with Susan, Jay, Oliver, and David in Kentucky, we drove a couple hours further into West Virginia.  Early the next foggy morning, we headed east towards Virginia, stopping briefly to pose for this picture (above) just down the road from where we stayed the night.  Our first destination would be Appomattox Court House, Virginia, a national historic park where Confederate General Robert E. Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia surrendered in April of 1865 to the Union armies commanded by General Ulysses S. Grant, basically ending the Civil War.  Below, the brick building is the actual court house:

But the surrender didn't occur in that building, but rather the Maclean house, pictured below:

While this was the end of this particular Civil War campaign, it actually was our first battlefield stop on this leg of our trip.  Below, Kenny poses in front of another historic home in this small town; those would have been Confederate artillery pieces in the background:

After spending a good portion of the day at Appomattox, we continued eastward towards Richmond and Petersburg.  We arrived at the main Petersburg national park office late in the afternoon, and had enough time to walk one of their shorter trails around some fortifications.  Below is a picture of a large siege mortar operated by the Union; note the kids for scale:

And just so you don't think all we focus on at these military parks is the military business, below are Hope and the boys standing in between two large tulip-poplars along the trail:

These large trees are no more than 150 years old (and probably considerably younger than that)--the fighting and long siege at Petersburg would have virtually eliminated most trees in the area.  Tulip-poplars grow fast and get quite large...obviously.  The Civil War siege at Petersburg dragged on from about early June 1864 until late March in 1865.  The armies were there long enough to build huts to live in, such as the Union hut replica that Beth is standing next to:

Far cozier than a tent, I'm sure, especially during the winter, but not likely very comfortable--at least four soldiers would have live in this when they weren't in the trenches or on the attack.  Petersburg has special meaning to Hope's family, as one of her great-great-great(?) grandfathers was taken prisoner by the Confederates very early in the battles around Petersburg, and was sent to the notorious Andersonville Prison in Georgia, where he spent much of the rest of the war.  Below is a residential neighborhood near the spot where he was taken:

Many of the battlefields in the area are not really protected by parks; people have continued to live in these areas after the battles were over.  There is no monument to Hope's ancestor here, or for many others that were captured with him...For that matter, the vast majority of soldiers that died anonymously, and needlessly, across the entire region.

Southeastern Virginia has many historic (non-battlefield) sites, including what is known as "Bacon's Castle", a late 1600s-vintage mansion/plantation:

The great wealth amassed by some early Virginia planters (mostly from tobacco revenues) did not trickle down to those who were enslaved to do the hard work.  At least three slave families lived in the decrepit shack pictured below:

Archeology of these sites has shown how even then global trade networks came into play:  the wine/liquor bottles excavated below at Bacon's Castle (very bottom) were made in Europe and probably filled with European beverages before being shipped to Virginia. 

The clean bottle pictured above is a contemporary, hand-blown bottle replica recently made at our next destination.  Before we got there, we stopped at another 1600s-vintage building--this, an early Episcopalian church surrounded by a graveyard:

We couldn't tour this church, as they were about to have a wedding there.  After a quick walk around the cemetery, we got back into the car and hopped aboard a ferry on the James River.  The kids were enthralled with the gulls, who followed the ferry knowing that passengers sometimes through them bread and other food items:

Our next destination was Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in the New World.  Below, Beth and Hope ham it up with a statue to Pocahontas, the young Indian woman who help bring peace between her tribe and the English settlers:

After some early rough years, the English (with considerable Indian help) finally figured out how to prosper in Virginia, and Jamestown grew for a while until burned down during a rebellion by Nathaniel Bacon (who Bacon's Castle is named after, although he never lived there).  Below, the National Park Service has reconstructed some of the foundations of the old town so visitors can have a better sense for how life was like then:

We arrived at Jamestown late in the afternoon, so we only stayed a couple hours before heading to our hotel in nearby Williamsburg, Virginia.  We returned the next morning to see more of the Jamestown park, including their glass blowing demonstration:

The blue bottle replicates an early design; the artisan is about to start the process of making another bottle, which they sell in various places (we bought one!).  What a neat process to watch!  We also spent a lot of time in a neat new facility, the "Archaearium":

This museum interpreted many of the artifacts found over the years in excavations at Jamestown and surrounding sites.  Jamestown is only part of the Colonial National Historic Park--nearby Yorktown is also part of this park.  After lunch near Jamestown, we drove a little ways and then visited the Yorktown visitor center, including a tour of the site where General George Washington and his French allies forced the surrender of the British army in 1781.  Below is a monument displaying captured British artillery pieces:

People still live in the small community of Yorktown, and some buildings still proudly display the "artifacts" provided to them by the battle, including this cannonball still embedded in one of the historic buildings:

My next blog will continue our vacation with our tour on the Outer Banks of North Carolina...