Civil War Battlefields

We arrived in Luray, Virginia on Thursday, July 18^th for the weekend and a family reunion. We stayed at the best KOA we’ve ever stayed at, hands-down. The RV sites were spacious and there was lots of open space in the campground. We had a beautiful flowering bush next to our site, called a butterfly  bush.

 

The family reunion was on Saturday and there were about 25 attendees from Arkansas, California, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and us.

On Monday, July 22^nd, six of us went to New Market, VA to visit the New Market Civil War national battlefield and museum. The battle was interesting in that the Confederate Army leaders called up cadets from Virginia Military Institute to fight and they marched about 30 miles to the battlefield from VMI. Many of the Civil War battles were in Virginia with the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia fighting the Federals or Union Army.

Tuesday, we departed Luray and headed north through Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania to the Gettysburg KOA for a 2-night stay. It was only a short 2 ½ hour drive.

Once we got set up, we decided to drive over to Sharpsburg, MD to see the Antietam National Battlefield. Julie’s great grandfather (her Dad’s grandfather) was a wheel wright for the Union Army at Antietam. We found it interesting that the North referred to this battle as the Antietam Campaign where General Lee invaded Maryland. The South referred to the battle as the Battle of Sharpsburg. Same battle, but referred to by two different names. Using different names was common throughout the Civil War.

 

On the way back to the Gettysburg KOA, we stopped for dinner in Fairfield, PA at the Taverna 5450, a small tavern-restaurant. Our server told us that anything on the menu with that contained the word crab was worth ordering. We ordered crab bisque, crab cakes, and crab ala vodka. We weren’t disappointed! Highly recommend it if you ever pass through Fairfield.

On Wednesday, July 24^th, we toured the Gettysburg National Military Park. This is the Sesquicentennial (150^th anniversary) of the Battle of Gettysburg. Earlier this month there were reenactments of the three battles on July 1, 2 and 3. We went to the National Park visitor center, where we saw a film, a cyclorama painting (depicting the battles), and an excellent museum. Afterwards, we did a self-guided auto tour that took us 2 ½ hours. Gettysburg far exceeded our expectations because there was so much to see.

 

We drove to the Andrews Air Force Base Family Campground today to stay for three nights. Tomorrow we’re going to ride the Metro into Washington, DC and do some sightseeing.

Steve & Julie Cornelius