Appomattox

Here's to another round of Saving Private Ryan last night although we had to get up earlier than the two previous days so we didn't watch all of it accordingly. The group was up, done with breakfast and on the bus by 7:45 A.M. as we had over an hour drive to our last stop, Appomattox Court House. Sometimes we don't always get the directions right, thus we drove by the sign a few extra times, which only led to more excitement in the group. Pulling in and walking up to the Court House itself, which acts the Visitor Center, brought back memories of when I was there almost six years ago; it has truly changed for the better since I had been there last. We took advantage of both films the Visitor Center had to offer, as well as touring around some of the museum's collection. With those things out of the way, we stepped outside to meet our tour guide, Patrick Schroeder, which was quite a shock to say the least.

No one had informed any of us that we would be doing a living history tour of Appomattox Court House with Patrick, or should I say Mr. Peers. It was good fun none the less, and at the conclusion of his portion of the living history tour, everyone hit the bookstore while we waited for him to step out of his Mr. Peers character. Lunch at Wendy's came next and boy was everything thankful to eat! Everyone's stomach full, and the bus filling up with fuel, Patrick took us around the fields of the two battles that happened here, Appomattox Station and Appomattox Court House. Preservation of the actual battlefields has been a struggle for the NPS here and it was quite apparent while Pat was taking us around.

Next on the list was what we voted for: the North Carolina monument, the only one on the field, and the Cemetery. Both were nice stopping points before heading back to the village to stop at the McClean House. Most of us were looking forward for this part of the tour since we had left for lunch, and now we were finally here. Receiving a brief history of the house and it's occupants from another park ranger, we then got to tour the house before hitting the road. With our tour over, we loaded the buses and hit the road for Gettysburg thus concluding are three days, 11 months of the war trip to Richmond. It was such a blast and the places we visited are so much more than just the words that I have written here. Check back in few weeks for, unbelievably, our last trek of the semester, Washington, D.C.