Manassas

September 23, 2005

Well readers this was another one of those early morning field trip days. Today we headed to where the first real campaign of the war took place, Bull Run and/or Manassas. Lacking our super spacious luxury mobile, we went down in two passenger vans and got to know each other a lot more than we already do. Again I found solace in tunes and reading, and as I type this, I feel a pattern developing.

Nevertheless, our tour guide this week was Jim Burgess and he decided to attack the tour with First Manassas in the morning and Second Manassas in the afternoon. During the first leg of the tour, we got a special treat at the Stone House at the base of Buck Hill, as well as this great shot of the Gettysburg Semester participants.

We concluded the battle of First Manassas on the Henry House Hill in front of the Stonewall Jackson Equestrian, which honors not only his involvement there, but also the "ceremony" of receiving that legendary name. If you look closely in the photo, you can see what many believe to be Jackson sitting upon his horse with a striking resemblance to Superman. After lunch, we started on the tour of the major actions during the second battle of Manassas. This part of the tour was excessively hot and one of the thermometers in one of the vans read 104 degrees around lunch time at 1:30 pm. One of the more exciting stories of the day was the rout of the 5 th New York and the actions of the Gettysburg famed, John Reynolds. All in all it was a great trip minus the hot weather and lengthy ride back and Jim Burgess's interpretation of both battles was both exciting and knowledgeable. Next week, at Antietam, we again our led by Dennis Frye, so look back next week for the new update.