| TRAVELOGUE, PT.6: THURSDAY (Nashville and the Shenandoah Valley): Bo and I cycled around the northern end of the Trace in Tennessee, and then he dropped me off at the airport in Nashville so I could hire a car to drive into Virginia. I drove all night and found a room at a Budget Inn in Christiansburg, VA. FRIDAY (The Shenandoah Valley and the Blue Ridge Mountains): It rained all day, so I kept driving north, towards the battlefield of Antietam, which was beckoning as some sort of macabre siren. My fascination with Antietam stems from the fact that it is singularly America's darkest day. More people died on the battlefield there in an afternoon than at the World Trade Center or even the beaches of Normandy on D-Day. Antietam was a cruel quirk of fate. Robert E. Lee had the Army of Northern Virginia on the march, across the Potomac, with a goal of taking Harrisonburg, Pennsylvania before seizing Washington DC and ending the War between the States. His plan was audacious as he had half as many men as that of his adversary, the Army of the Potomac, commandeered by General George McClellan. Despite his superior numbers, McClellan was in a hasty withdrawal from a failed attack on the Confederate capital (Richmond, VA) back to DC, much to the chagrin, disgust and befuddlement of Abraham Lincoln and his War Department. Lee knew McClellan was in a chickenshit retreat and considered this an opportunity to end the war. Again, Lee would march up the Shenandoah Valley and attack with far inferior numbers, and beyond that would split his army in two and then into quarters in order to sucker punch various facets of the McClellan's Army and pull this off... But kismet was Lee's enemy, far more than McClellan. To wit: while on the march, Lee arranged a council of war with five of his generals who he enjoined to carry out a synchronized, choreographed, precise battle plan. Each general was given a copy of the battle plan. One general committed it to memory, however, and order his adjutant to destroy it. The adjutant discreetly demurred, and wrapped his cigars in the battle plan, thinking that this document which contains the details of how the Civil War would end was worthy of posterity and should not be destroyed... During the northbound travels and skirmishes of the Army of Northern Virginia, the adjutant lost his cigars. A pair of Northern soldiers found the cigars and the men were in awe of their good fortune, which rather paled in comparison to the capture of the document that actually wrapped the smoke-ables.... The soldiers brought their found treasure to McClellan, who discredited its legitimacy and was convinced the document was a forgery or red herring. An officer in the same tent recognized the handwriting, having gone to West Point with the battle plan's author and convinced McClellan of its authenticity. Another military man in the room was a Southern sympathizer and he stealthily climbed on a horse and hot-lapped it to the Confederate lines and let Cavalry commander JEB Stuart know that the Army of the Potomac was onto them.... Immediately, both Robert E Lee and George McClellan re-organized the positions of their entire armies and tried to rescue order from chaos. Dancing on a dime, the two armies met at Antietam Creek, near the town of Sharpsburg, Maryland. It was all a horrible misadventure with both dire and transcendental consequences... |