To a dog, every new adventure is a great adventure! Every new day holds
promise, and there are wondrous discoveries to be made, even in
less-than-optimal conditions. Y'know, we really should be more like dogs
...
There's something mystical about peering into a forest shrouded by fog.
The morning dew was still heavy on these wildflowers.
A long-abandoned barn belonging to the Snead family before the Shenandoah
National Park was established.
Outbuilding just behind the Snead barn, so overgrown that it's easily missed.
How could a Scot resist this photo, reminiscent of a thistle?
The sidewalk in front of the White House is always mobbed.
It's terrific to know that, regardless of age, political inclination, or nation
of ancestry, there is so much interest in our Presidential residence.
We've all seen photos of the Lincoln Memorial and its massive -- and impressive
-- statue of Abraham Lincoln, but somehow, this busy scene of people milling
about the Memorial and its reflecting pool captured my attention.
A summer soccer game in the President's Park, aka The Ellipse. I think
Thomas Jefferson would be pleased ...
I wonder if Jefferson would be as pleased to know I was thinking, as I took
this shot, that there were two Merry-Go-Rounds in the scene. (One's
visible near the foreground, just to the right of center. The other?
'Way off in the distance, just to the left of center.)
Maggie Muggins, intrepid Appalachian Trail blazer!
The colors in this photo, taken from Beahms Gap and looking north along the
Skyline Drive, look like they've been enhanced, but this is the scene, just as I
took it -- no editing, no touching up.
A close-up of one of the above meadow's inhabitants. There were several
species of butterfly flitting about on that day.
The sound of a drum can cut through the din of war -- through shouting and
shooting and chaos. This drum was carried by the regiment first organized
as the 28th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, later to be known as the Fourth
Irish Regiment of the Second Brigade, First Division, II Corps -- the
"Irish Brigade." At Fredericksburg, the men of the Irish Brigade
placed sprigs of green boxwood in their forage caps to distinguish them from all
other units. Contemporary reports from Confederate officers note the good
fight put up by the Irish Brigade, but the grim fact is that they sustained the
highest number of casualties they would suffer in any single engagement of the
war. Faugh Ah Ballaugh is Irish for "Clear the way!"
The old well in the background served the home of Martha Stephens, whose home
was in the midst of the hotly contested area now known as the Fredericksburg
Battlefield. Local legend has it that Martha remained in her house
throughout the battle, making repeated trips to the well, and even tearing
strips from her garments to bind the wounds of fallen soldiers. I wonder
if Martha's stubborn and brave spirit lives on in this white kitty, who lay in
the middle of the walkway and refused to make way for battlefield
visitors!
The Innis House, its interior scarred with bullet holes, stands as a grim
reminder of the ravages of war.
Just beyond the Innis House is this elegant monument to Richard Rowland
Kirkland, known to both Union and Confederate soldiers alike as "The Angel
Of Marye's Heights." A Confederate, Sergeant Kirkland risked his life
to bring water and warm clothing to grievously wounded Union soldiers who had
spent a bitterly cold night without water, food or medical treatment. Less
than a year later, Kirkland himself would die at Chickamauga.
Brompton, standing high on a hill overlooking the battlefield, was mute witness
to the Battle of Fredericksburg and served as a Union hospital after the Battle
of the Wilderness. Today it is the official residence of the president of
the University of Mary Washington.
Looking along the stone wall that sheltered Confederate forces on the Sunken
Road.
From this vantage point, it's easy to see -- with 21st Century eyes and the
distinct advantage of hindsight -- the futility of Burnside's attacks against
Lee's forces.
Over 15,000 Union dead, the casualties of several different battles in the area,
are buried at Fredericksburg National Cemetery. Confederate soldiers are
buried elsewhere in Fredericksburg and in Spotsylvania Confederate
Cemetery.
Of the 15,243 soldiers buried here, the identity of only 2,473 of them is
known. The others occupy graves marked by small square granite blocks
marked with two numbers: one the grave plot, the other the number of bodies in
that grave.
The Colonial Tavern ... home to the Irish Brigade. Though this pub,
located in the old Virginia Central narrow gauge railway station, was not open
for business until St. Patrick's Day 2004, it nevertheless captures a yesteryear
charm and spirit, and does honor "the Irish volunteers from the 63rd, 69th
and 88th New York Voluntary Infantry and any other Irishmen who fought in the
Civil War."