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We drove to Fredericksburg today, childhood home of George Washington. Dan had to work, and Staci had never been and we were looking for a good educational adventure on our day off from school.
We picked up interesting masks at the visitor center, and they made us laugh all day long, but we were really there to follow a special path taken by slaves to their freedom at the beginning of the Civil War. Martin Luther King Junior Day seems like the right kind of day to remember our tragic and triumphant history.
With the right maps in hand and masks to creep out people in our path, we began our drive.We started here on the banks of the Rappahannock River. I must have warned the kids a dozen times not to fall in the water. It was way too cold of a day to need to worry about frozen feet.Thankfully they listened. Our faces froze each time were out of the car, but our shoes stayed dry and no one was swept away.
It was here at this river's edge in 1862 that an enslaved John Washington crossed over with a few friends and Union soldiers. Ten thousand slaves would follow him in the following months. They fled to the North, many working for the Union army after crossing over.
Our next stop was Chatham Manor, a site of the National Parks. It was confiscated by the Union Army when the fighting got to Fredericksburg and served as a hospital for many years. But it's history is deeper than that. Many presidents and diplomats have stayed here for it's nearly three-hundred year-old history.
Like many plantation homes, it has undergone multiple transformations and additions as owners have re-contructed it with their preferences. The Catalpa trees are still standing with a lot of help from iron frameworks.
The music staircase seems slightly out of place, but a meaningful piece considering the number of times it changed hands throughout different points of three different centuries. And the green kitchen is possibly my favorite non-historical thing about the house. It's really just a food prep area--the kitchen is it's own building of course.
Our final stop along the trail to freedom was here at Aquia Landing on the Potomac River. It's the spot where former slaves boarded ships to sail north to their freedom. We read stories of the courage and persistence of John Washington and many others who persevered until the very end. It was a fitting conclusion for the unbelievable circumstances of their lives of slavery.
With the right maps in hand and masks to creep out people in our path, we began our drive.We started here on the banks of the Rappahannock River. I must have warned the kids a dozen times not to fall in the water. It was way too cold of a day to need to worry about frozen feet.Thankfully they listened. Our faces froze each time were out of the car, but our shoes stayed dry and no one was swept away.
1 comment:
You were in our neck of the woods! We live in rural Stafford, and F-burg is our closest city. We love our little historical city. And Aquia Landing and Falmouth Port (on the Rappahannock) are our go-to beaches (along with our leech-filled lake, which we frequent all summer...!). If you ever want to come out here again, let me know! We've got several Civil War battlefields, George Washington's childhood home, and lots more! Plus, we'd love to see you after all these years!
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