Stafford Civil War Park

Opened in April 2013, the 41 acres of land throughout Stafford County, which had been camped on, traversed, fortified, and used by the 11^th Corps of the Union Army of the Potomac, has been compared to Valley Forge, Pa of the American Revolution.  

In 1863, over 135,000 Union Army soldiers established winter camps here after the Battle of Fredericksburg and the “Mud March” during which they suffered hundreds of desertions per night.

Spending the winter in the Stafford woods was not easy for the locals either, because the woods were decimated by hundreds of fires every night; the local population was outnumbered 15 to 1. Their farms were turned into army camps, homes became military headquarters or hospitals, and their woods disappeared rather quickly.

Union soldier morale was low especially after the terrible loss in the Battle of Chancellorsville. During the winter following the defeat, soldiers did their best to improve living conditions in the woods of Stafford County. By June 12, 1863, 160 years ago, the 11^th Corps of the Union Army of the Potomac, 1^st and 3^rd divisions moved North.

They left behind 3,500 graves of soldiers who died of exposure, disease, and other accidents. The deceased soldiers’ remains were moved to national cemeteries during 1866-1870. On this April day before Easter when we visited, temperatures were in the low 50s and the wind chill factor made the open fields and the woods so much colder.

The park preserves the remains of a winter camp, soldier-built and improved roads, a corduroy road, hut sites, chimneys, remains of a pre-Civil War bridge, an early Stafford quarry, and three large earthen artillery batteries built to defend the area. 11^th Corps Union soldiers moved to this area from Belle Plain and Stafford Courthouse in late February/early March 1863.

Soldiers wintered in tents, above ground in make-shift shelters, or in shelters dug below ground, taking advantage of the temperature insulating quality of the earth. Huts had fold-down bunks and were made of chinked logs, barrels, and even the occasional repurposed bricks. There is an intact sandstone hearth and large firebox. Sandstone was plentiful in the quarries. The huts resembled miniature cabins made of logs and topped with canvas or board roofs.

The museum displayed the letter of an 11^th Corps soldier to his parents in Germany. Sergeant Wilhelm Francksen, who immigrated in 1861 from Germany, had joined the Union Army. Badly wounded in the neck and his legs paralyzed in the Battle of Gettysburg, he was discharged from the Army in February 1864 and died in the 1870s.

In his letter to his father, dated March 1, 1863, from Stafford, Virginia, he described how they had marched 13 miles in 2 days, “drenched and frozen to the bone.” Setting up camp, they made coffee and ate crackers, hard bread, and salt pork. Huddled together to keep warm, soldiers woke up stiff on the frozen ground the next morning and surrounded by snow piled high on the linen tent.

In his awkward description to his dad, Sgt. Francksen of the 26^th Wisconsin Infantry Volunteers, wrote that the order came to make more permanent huts to stay warm. They cut down trees, dragging them through the woods, and built warmer shelters. They had to cook their own food and find water to do so.

“We were bustling around like ants in an anthill. A few days later a little town had grown out of this wasteland, consisting of good huts made from raw tree logs, with chimneys, a fireplace, and comfortable places to sleep.”

“The tree trunks were fit very skillfully together, the joints filled out with green moss, there was a porch in front of the hut with green fir, cedars, and wild laurel, with red berries with moss and colorful stones in front. Inside too, everything was very clean and tastefully furnished: a fireplace, seats, a little table, with the beds in the back, 2 bunk beds, each one for 2 men…”

Historical records dedicated a lot of time to Irish and African soldiers in the Civil War, but Germans were the largest ethnic group in federal service, enlisted in larger proportions to their overall population. In the Army of the Potomac, German immigrant-soldiers outnumbered Irish 2 to 1. They came mostly from New York, Pennsylvania, and some from Ohio, Illinois, Missouri, and Wisconsin.

“General Ludwig Blenker and his ‘German division’ were lauded for covering the Union retreat from Manassas.” After the Battle of Chancellorsville, where most of the 11^th Corps were German-speaking soldiers, under Major General Oliver Otis Howard, a West Point graduate from Maine, the German American soldiers became the scapegoats of the failed campaign after the 11^th Corps was flanked and decisively defeated by Stonewall Jackson’s veteran Confederate infantrymen.

The primary travel through the area was the Potomac Church Road dating from the 17^th century. The Union Army corduroyed sections of Potomac Church Road to enable troop and artillery movement and to protect and supply Union Army encampments.

When the soil is swampy, sandy, or loamy as in Stafford county, the roads must be corduroyed to allow troops and heavy equipment to march through. Good drainage and a foot or 18 inches above the natural surface insured that the road was passable with an army. Logs were covered with 6 inches of brush, and then with about 6 inches of almost any kind of earth over the brush.

Major-General Joseph Hooker ordered on February 15, 1863, that “the road from the Fitzhugh house (General Sickles’ headquarters) to the bridge across Potomac Creek, half a mile below the railroad bridge, thence to Stafford Courthouse, passing about a mile to the Westward of Brooke’s Station, be put in such condition as to be practicable for artillery at all times, corduroying it where necessary throughout its whole length; the corduroy material being of sufficient length, if possible to form a double-track roadway.”

The nearby sandstone quarry remains of the late 18^th and early 19^th century helped Stafford county’s progress. Archeological evidence showed that stone quarried here was loaded onto scows or shallow boats and floated down small tributaries to the larger and deeper Accokeek Creek.

Stone from nearby Government Island and other locations was used in the White House construction and U.S. Capitol. The quarry cutting operations were overseen by a Master Mason, usually a European. Skilled workers included stone cutters and stone carvers. Blacksmiths were needed to constantly sharpen the cutting tools.

Historians cannot exactly connect this quarry to the 1863 Union Army camp in Stafford. However, one encampment fire box, several chimneys remain, and one hearth used sandstone from nearby quarry sites.

Of the three Union Army batteries located in the Stafford Civil War Park, one of them is at 200 feet above sea level, the highest one, with a three-faced parapet which allowed it to support the other two batteries and encampments against attacks from multiple directions. “The steep approaches would have been cleared of trees in 1863 and, combined with its well-preserved 182’ of parapet and ditches, would have proven exceedingly difficult to attack from the Accokeek Valley.” It held four to five rifled guns.

The largest and strongest battery in the park had 300 linear feet of parapet, 30 feet thick. It indicates that heavy caliber rifled guns from the artillery reserve would have been used here.

 

 

 

 

 

Memories of Cold Winters

A recent snow overwhelmed a village.
Photo: Bing

It is bitter cold outside, it feels like 11 degrees Fahrenheit. The relentless Hawk is blowing arctic air, exacerbating the wind tunnel effect surrounding our house. Luckily, we are warm and cozy inside, thanks to capitalism.

When I was a kid growing up with my maternal grandparents, their tiny adobe style mud-brick winter house had two rooms, a barn for the animals, a tiny kitchen, and the hay loft for cats and mice. They never heated the big brick house because it required too much wood which they did not have. The communist farms had already deforested anything that could be cut down and used for wood.

The winters were bitter cold, and we stayed inside to stay warm. It was not unusual to have 5 feet of snow the entire winter. The whole country was situated above the 45 parallel north and all winters were extremely cold, with fast freezing temperatures and mountains of snow for months on end.

We had a whole mountain of salt at Slanic, that is something the Communist Party could not screw up in mining and delivering where it was needed. When the fresh snow melted in the city after generous treatment of roads with salt, because the sewers could not manage so much ice melt all the time, the streets turned into veritable ankle-deep rivers, with buses spraying the pedestrians with muddy grey slush and water. In many spots, the mountains of snow plowed off the streets protected the pedestrians from being soaked by passing cars and buses, but on larger streets, with pedestrian crosswalks, if you did not have tall rubber boots to handle the shallow river, or you were unlucky to cross when a vehicle drove by, you could count on taking a shower of dirty icy water.

Snow stayed more pristine in the country, 9 km (5.6 miles) away from the city only because the bus only ran twice a day, once in the morning and once in the evening, providing that it did not break down along the way.

Somebody had to go out and feed the animals and that somebody was usually grandma. Grandpa was busy fixing someone’s bike so they could ride to work or to see their relatives at the far end of the village.

My aunts Nuta and Nicuta lived at the end of the village, and I rode a bike many times to see them in summertime, never in winter. We walked from there to the crystal-clear river about one km away, with large fish swimming about. We were not afraid even though none of us could swim – the fearless ignorance of youth.

Grandpa rode his bike to work in bitter cold in winter. The round trip was 18 km (11.2 miles). If it sounds like a short distance, it was, but try doing that in subzero temperatures, surrounded by nothing but flat prairies, with no trees in sight to block the wind and gales of icy snow cutting your face like tiny daggers. It might as well have been to the moon and back to me.

All those cats living in the hayloft brought about fleas and did not make much dent in the rodent population living in the walls because I could hear them playing catch at night. Grandpa dusted the cats periodically with DDT but the fleas hitched rides and returned with a vengeance. We were covered in flea bites but warm from the wood stove. Good thing nobody developed allergies or terrible itching reactions and rashes from so many bites as there were no meds to be found in the socialist paradise we lived under.

I was so relieved when I was old enough to go to first grade and move in with my parents in the city into a much larger space of about 450 square feet. It felt like a cold palace in wintertime but no flea bites. And I had way more kids living in the same apartment complex to play with.

 

Snow, Squeals of Joy, and Snowflakes

Photo: Ileana Johnso

We finally got five inches of winter in one day, on the second day of spring, March 21, 2018. A few powdery flakes in December dashed our hope for a white Christmas.  This was a heavy snow which could easily turn to slush and then refreeze. The Hawk was blowing slightly but the snow did not scatter like powder in all directions.

We tried to go to our local park but it was closed. Two menacing park rangers, high on their minion power to control admission to nature, told us in threatening voices that the park is closed and we should leave. The fact that we were on state roads paid by us as taxpayers of Virginia, seemed to escape the tiny brains of these control freaks. But, in the name of peace and tranquility, we turned around without saying a word.

We decided that we could trudge our way into the park through our own back yard before we got too wet to care about nature and its breathtaking beauty.

Photo: Ileana Johnson

 

The snow was coming down fast covering the landscape in a winter wonderland, to the delight of children in the neighborhood who brought out their sleighs to slide down the many hills around. For the first time ever, I-95 N was completely empty of traffic, only a few south-bound vehicles.

Trucks with ploughs attached were busy clearing main roads and highways while many streets remained covered in a silent white blanket.

Photo: Ileana Johnson

 

Our resident fox surprised me as she dashed across the back yard, running swiftly into the woods in search for food. She has become the object of concern of many neighborhood newbies who are worried about their pets. They don’t know that the fox has a taste for squirrels but in a bind, she might steal other critters.

Grazing under the snow

Photo: Ileana Johnson

 

The snow is coming heavier and the flakes are dancing in the crisp air. It has collected five inches so far; it’s a heavy snow that would sting painfully in a snowball fight.  A few children on our street have brought out their toboggans and are squealing with delight as they wipe out at the bottom of the hill into the white blanket. A few are trying to build snowmen but the snow is too heavy and they give up, making snow angels instead.

Photo: Ileana Johnson

 

We walked to the river bank and, before I had a chance to snap a few shots of the wooden path covered with untouched whiteness, a yellow lab bounded out of the woods sliding on the wet snow. She seemed to be in sledding dog heaven, jumping and running in and out of bushes laden with snowy cotton balls that fell to the ground in a white flurry, covering her with shimmering flakes.

Photo: Ileana Johnson 2018

 

The red cardinals made a stark contrast to the overwhelming brightness – like a jumping feathery stain of blood. A family of deer is foraging at the edge of the park, their heads disappearing in the snow.

We laughed when we caught sight of the marina’s plastic bald eagle nest. We really thought it to be real several years ago when we got five feet of snow and it was much harder to make out shapes accurately in the total whiteout.

Photo: Ileana Johnson

 

The falling snow gives the Potomac River an enchanted glow that only an artist could imagine and paint with his magical pallet and brushes. The barren branches are covered in lacy white designs shooting up to the grey sky. The railroad bridge is cast in the distance in a wintry fog.

A few ducks are slowly gliding on the curiously grey water and birds are chirping in the trees. Yesterday they were ready for spring, preparing their nests and building new ones, the Japanese magnolia was on the verge of opening exquisite pink blooms, and today winter is back, as if it is quarreling with spring and keeps coming back to make one last point before final departure.

Snow is still falling, a myriad of flakes dancing in the air, dancing in my heart, falling on my hair and on my face. Like the kid I used to be, I stuck my tongue out to capture the magic of snow falling from the sky. There is nowhere I would rather be at this moment when I experience the happiness of my childhood winters, carefree and innocent, enjoying life and God’s seasons. It is a dreamy snow, a March snow that appears suddenly like a roaring lion and melts the next day like a lamb, one that will be gone tomorrow, but the memory will linger in my mind’s eyes, my videos, and my photographs.

The Polar Vortex Was Called Winter in My Childhood

It was bitter cold last night. Tiny snowflakes started to fall in the afternoon, turning lawns into a fantastic winter wonderland. Snow began to accumulate like a soft immaculate blanket. Then the hawk came and started blowing the soft dry snow into swirls of wind, howling past the windows, biting and stinging cheeks with the pricking sensation of needles. The wind chill was below 10 degrees Fahrenheit.

The ghostly whiteness cast an illuminating glow inside the house all night. Trees were claiming their stake of the pristine snow-covered ground with intense shadows. The moon was a hanging globe of shiny silvery yellow.

The sunrise made the snow sparkle with an orange glow peppered with crystal rhinestones. It was an invigorating and frost-biting sun.

When my hubby shoveled the drive way, the scraping of the plastic against the asphalt reverberated in the quiet stillness of the street. An occasional stronger gust of wind would temporarily blind him with a snow shower from the tree tops. The tall oaks were creaking with frozen stiffness.

I had left a six inch deep frying pan on the deck last night and it was now covered completely by snow. I could have used a ruler instead but it was more fun this way.

The roads were deserted in spite of the school closures. Nobody went to work except my husband. No kids were outside playing in the snow or sledding down the many hills in the neighborhood. No laughter of kids chasing each other in snowball fights or building snowmen. Homes were shuttered like tombs.

Even the animals were hiding in the woods. There were no deer hoof prints or fox paws in the fresh fallen snow. A silent black bird with white throat was taking a snow bath on the lamp post. The non-hibernating squirrels were hiding in their nests; the ground was way too cold and frozen to dig for nuts between the evergreens.

Are the kids sleeping late or huddled in front of television or computer screens? Are they frightened by the cold, afraid to play outside because they might hurt themselves?

We used to play outside all day in bitter cold winters, oblivious to frigid cold, wetness, and slosh around us or the adult discomfort and misery. Parents had to walk to work, slipping often on the thick ice. We took tumbles like rubber figurines, getting up with a roaring laughter each time, rubbing the painful part.

Bundled up to the eyeballs in layers, with pajamas next to the skin, kids were stuffed like Michelin Men. We skated and sledded until dark, sometimes hitching rides on the tail bumper of slow moving cars. There were no regulators around to tell us that we might die. When the lights came on, we knew it was time to go home. Our clothes were so wet and frozen, it took a little while to peel off all the layers, like a tight onion.

Some dads pulled their children on sleighs on Sundays, trudging through snow and ice like dutiful oxen to make their bundled kids happy. We tobogganed down a steep hill nearby, climbing it with a flexible flyer in tow over and over until our cheeks were rosy and our running noses red from the blustery wind.

On our way to school, sometimes we were secluded from view and wind by snow drifts on both sides – it looked like we were walking through crystal tunnels, occasionally splashed by passing busses. Often the two mile walk back and forth to school was very cold and painful when we slipped on ice or the wind picked up, we were buffeted so hard that the snow felt like little ice daggers cutting our faces with the discomfort of paper cuts – pain by a thousand miniature icicles.

There was a nice ski resort called Sinaia, not far from my hometown – it was “reserved” for foreign vacationers who paid in dollars and the communist elites who had villas in the area and could afford to buy the equipment, pay for lessons, and ride the ski lift to the top. The skating rinks were reserved for the elites as well – ice skates and boots were very expensive.

Our fun winters from long ago are now called polar vortex by the very wise and omniscient climate change discoverers.

I drove to Sinaia last year and visited the lodging base area where more hotels have been built since the temporary “fall” of communism. Now that capitalism in America has given me the opportunity to afford to fly to a ski resort, stay in a ski lodge, buy equipment or rent it, ride the lift to the top, my knees are not so cooperative.