In Virginia, Touring Lesser-Known Civil War Sites
By JONATHAN VATNER
NYT
APRIL 12 was the 150th anniversary of the attack on Fort Sumter, which ignited the Civil War. Over the next four years, Fort Sumter, as well as Fredericksburg, Manassas and other major Civil War battlefields, will see heavy foot traffic. Gettysburg alone is expecting more than four million visitors in 2013, the 150th anniversary of that battle and the Gettysburg Address.
But for every story told in history books and on tourism trails, dozens more have been mostly ignored.
“While the big battles like Gettysburg and Fredericksburg garner all the attention, the war was actually won and lost in a multitude of small actions across every corner of the South,” said Mike O’Donnell, an author and publisher of books for military collectors. “And the bigger sites have been developed, since they were turned into parks. Many of these smaller places haven’t changed at all.”
Mike O’Donnell, I should add, is also my uncle. Growing up in Massachusetts, I knew Uncle Mike as an impassioned storyteller who, visiting from Virginia, arrived in a big white van full of books that catalogued relics of the Civil War: belt buckles, canteens, uniform insignia. He spun riveting tales of military honor for me and my brothers. Since then, I’ve learned that he is something of a leader to relic hunters — known sometimes as “amateur archaeologists,” sometimes as “looters” — who search battlefields with metal detectors.
(More here.)
NYT
APRIL 12 was the 150th anniversary of the attack on Fort Sumter, which ignited the Civil War. Over the next four years, Fort Sumter, as well as Fredericksburg, Manassas and other major Civil War battlefields, will see heavy foot traffic. Gettysburg alone is expecting more than four million visitors in 2013, the 150th anniversary of that battle and the Gettysburg Address.
But for every story told in history books and on tourism trails, dozens more have been mostly ignored.
“While the big battles like Gettysburg and Fredericksburg garner all the attention, the war was actually won and lost in a multitude of small actions across every corner of the South,” said Mike O’Donnell, an author and publisher of books for military collectors. “And the bigger sites have been developed, since they were turned into parks. Many of these smaller places haven’t changed at all.”
Mike O’Donnell, I should add, is also my uncle. Growing up in Massachusetts, I knew Uncle Mike as an impassioned storyteller who, visiting from Virginia, arrived in a big white van full of books that catalogued relics of the Civil War: belt buckles, canteens, uniform insignia. He spun riveting tales of military honor for me and my brothers. Since then, I’ve learned that he is something of a leader to relic hunters — known sometimes as “amateur archaeologists,” sometimes as “looters” — who search battlefields with metal detectors.
(More here.)
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