Reliving the Past
This past weekend I visited two historic sites, one iconic, the other obscure. I visited the latter, Fort Loudon’s 18th Century Market Fair near Chambersburg, PA, with a local gaming friend, John Fetchen, and his mother. I visited the former, Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, VA with a fellow church member, Robert Cramer. Both visits stirred vivid visions of our distant past.
I was eager to see Fort Loudon as it is one of the nearby French and Indian forts I had yet to tour. The event in question is an annual affair accommodating French and Indian reenactors and over 50 purveyors of French and Indian accoutrements. Seen there were: clay oven baking, on site forges, box makers, basket weavers, tin smiths and silver smiths, gun smiths, coopers, potters, saddlers, wood carvers, glass blowers, jewelers, seamstresses, leatherworkers, as well as quilts, bolts of period cloth, powderhorns, knives, flintlocks and furniture. It was an absolute wonderland of past crafts.
I had great fun conversing with a potter who displayed his amazing ceramics (artfully decorated by his wife). On display were ingenious butter keepers, pox ampules (worn on a leather string around a physician’s neck hung next to the warmth of their chest, to keep the virus alive for small pox vaccinations). I commented on a series of “leech jars” I noticed and was informed that these were their biggest sellers. I was told they are bought most often by modern medical personnel for display in their offices.
The highlight for me, however, was the reconstructed pallisades fort, originally built there in 1756 during the French and Indian War. Although it never withstood an Indian attack, Following Pontiac’s war in 1865, the fort had the curious and ironic status of being the first case of armed insurrection by colonists against a British post in the colonies. A group of locals known as the Black Boys, upset with the resumption of trade with Native Americans and the government officials who protected them, besieged and captured Fort Loudon. As one of my most recent game designs deals with Pontiac’s War, I was thrilled to stand within the stockade and dredge up our colorful and often violent past.
The following day I made a three hour car trip south to Richmond Virginia to tour the capital’s famous Hollywood Cemetery. This was my second trip to the site. It was a promise I made to take Robert there earlier in the year, a promise that had to be fulfilled. The trip there and back was uneventful - but for the long and sadly torpid stretch of the #95 depressway where our speed often dropped to 5MPH.
When we arrived we were lucky enough to find a parking place in the shade near the Cemetery entrance, but we were unfortunate in that the Director’s office was closed so we could not pick up a physical map. That was ok, maps are readily available via our phones. Amazing little libraries are our modern phones.
The weather was amazing, bright and warm with but little humidity. The Cemetery landscape is nothing less than stunning. It covers 135 acres of rolling grass and tree covered hills. The towering trees found there are beautiful, ancient and provide maximum shade. Situated on a bluff above and beside the broad, rock strewn James River. the setting is idyllic and truly spiritual.
When my wife and I first visited the cemetery it happened to be before the national move to strike down the any commemoration of Southern war heros and politicians and in particular the Battle Flag of the Army of Northern Virginia (The Stars and Bars has long been mistakenly taken for the national flag of the Confederacy). At that time we saw a myriad of these. I remember in particular J.E.B. Stuart’s grave - back then, it was absolutelhy inundated by four or five dozen such flags. This trip we saw nary a one, although I did notice three examples of the actual Confederate Flag (Three wide red and white stripes and a circle of stars on a field of blue).
It was such a beautiful day we decided to walk the grounds; up one grassy knoll then down it and on to the next. We admired the creative stonework angels and the towering marble obelisks. But since the purpose of my friend’s trip was to see the three presidents buried there, we set off with singular purpose for the “President’s Circle.”
We came across President John Tyler’s monument first. Tyler was the 10th President of the United States and served from 1841-1845. A prominent Slave-holding Virginian, Tyler followed the extremely short-termed president, Benjamin Harrison (one month). A magnificent bronze bust greets visitors to help them remember his less than memorable presidency.
We next climbed the hill above Tyler’s resting place to discover, what is undoubtedly the most intricate lacework monument on Hollywood’s grounds. the tomb of James Monroe. Monroe was another slave-holding Virginian who acted as our 5th president. He served between 1817 and 1825. Monroe is best known for issuing the Monroe Doctrine, which his policy of opposing European colonialism in the Americas while at the same time declaring our own self-determination within this hemisphere.
President Davis’ tomb was a little bit harder to find. Set apart from the President’s Circle, it lay some distance away on a flat portion of the cemetery, set in it’s own stately circle and set apart from the other graves, tombs, and mausoleums. President Jefferson Davis was a slave holding Mississippian and the first and only president of the Confederate States of America. He served a provisional term from 1861-1862, serving thereafter from 1862-1865. His term of office oversaw the bloodiest, most destructive American War our country has ever experienced. It was striking to me that although his was the largest of the three Presidential monuments and it possessed a lofty flagpole - no flag of any description hung from it.
On the walk back to our car we followed what is called Waterview Avenue. It is thus called for it overlooks the James, offering pedestrians incredibly majestic views of the river and the countryside (See the accompanying photograph). Looking below to the foot of the bluff, visitors can still see the remains of the kanawha canal and the Richmond and Alleghany railroad tracks. Both carried supplies to the Confederate capital during the Civil War. Those rusted rails also carried countless Union prisoners to the city to be incarcerated in Libby Prison and the infamous Belle Isle Prison only a short distance away. It was difficult not to imagine the train chugging along toward its destination carrying young men unsure of their own fate, let alone the fate of their country.
Earlier in the day while traipsing down Ellis Avenue we passed J.E.B. Stuart’s monument, mentioned earlier. I was struck at the time to see that this peacock of a Southern cavalry officer who garnered such lasting fame during our fratricidal conflict, died at the age of 31. Thirty-one! So many young men passed on Civil War battlefields or in field hospitals without ever having the chance to live out their dreams. Gazing at those railroad tracks along the James, I called to mind the youth that was wasted. The uniforms, the politial promises, the promised glory … the waste.
These reminders of how we got to where we are should not be simple roadside stops but reflection points They should give us pause to see who we are as Americans and more importantly, where we will go from this point on. We should not. We must not. revive and relive our most sordid past.