Went down to Richmond (VA) this weekend to see youngest daughter in med school. Wound up spending more than a little time for first time visits to…
(1) Jeff Davis’ White House — which is relatively small (though probably not much smaller than the original federal White House) but absolutely magnificently restored to an exact moment in its time by people who care. The architecture of the time, the appointments to include rugs & unique wallpapers, the room design symmetries (even when false doors had to be used), the furniture and personal effects — everything was as though you stepped through a time portal. The docent/guide could not have been more knowledgeable of evenest smallest personal & architectural details and also had a wry sense of quiet humor… and made the home (for that is what it was ) truly live.
Davis’ home left a far more indelible impression on me than Mt Vernon, which has grown turista impersonal, and/or Arlington House, whose structure and appointments have been left in a embarrassing shape.
I recommend it highly, and visitors are always impressed by particular portraits of Jefferson’s life-heroes on multiple walls
(2) In the White House’s shadow, and vastly overshadowed by the immense Medical College of Virginia risen high around it, is the small Museum of the Confederacy. Outside the entrance is the propeller drive shaft of the Merrimack/Virginia. Made by Tredegar Iron Works, solid steel, 25-30 feet long and 15 inches in diameter with a massive connecting flange to the engine — it jolts you once you realize the proportions it signals for rest of the ship. The propeller end also piqued my curiosity as it had only two flutes to engage the screw, and
90 dgr to each other instead of 180 at that. (I’m sure some period engineer can explain that better than I can.)
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Inside the museum it’s a short tour compared to what you’ve come to expect from military museums. But you walk out having see real men, with real lives displayed in their personally-owned equipment and clothing and oictures — canteen with ragged 58 caliber hole in it
*after* having gone through the man you see before you; the red sash with two brown-stained holes front and rear…. Original JEB Stuart’s West Point Diploma — largely unchanged unto present day, Longstreet’s, Pickett’s, AP Hill’s — his signed by James K Polk … first dark horse and last strong president before the Civil War….
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…and you realize how young even the old men were….
I guess the thing that lingered in my mind from the museum was Lee’s field tent, including his personal *original* steel-framed cot, desk, trunk, spurs, gauntlets, ledgers, notebooks, field eating utensils, lamp, saber belt, familiar knee-length boots (small feet he had), … and his 1851 Navy — which was still had the original mid-war loads in it after his death–and whose every cylinder then fired flawlessly before being consigned to the ages.
(3) Tredegar Iron Works — now only a ghostly shell of its former self — but from whose water-driven machinery rose all the cannon, rails, and armor plate the Confederacy used. All the more surprising to me than its mere survival of the war was it’s continuing heavy production until 1957.
But in Tredegar’s mostly photo displays was this simple portrait that haunts me …
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…as truly “…Somewhere in time…..”
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