The Liberal Gun Club Forum

Since I am working in southern Maryland for the next couple years and finally had a day off yesterday I decided to brave the f*****g traffic and hit the first of many civil war battlefields in the area. So Manassas/Bull Run depending on your lineage it was. As with any other battlefield let it be WW1 or 2 in Europe or the civil war or revolutionary on our soil I find them sobering. Standing in front of the replica cannon on Henry Hill and having just seen the film and museum photos its hard not to realize the carnage that happened beneath your feet. The museum there is small but still interesting and if you are a history junkie you definitely will walk away with new information and visuals of things you have read about. And of course they had some cool guns on display.

try antietam if you get the chance.

Very cool. One of my very favorite things to do is travel and be in the very place where battles were fought, where history was made. I've done quite a bit of travel around the world to do this, but I regret I've never made it to the parts of this country to visit Civil War sites. I'd very much like to do that some day.

I routinely(about once a month) do the five mile walk around it. It's a great place and amazing to think it's within 20 miles of DC. Pity that Loudoun County and PWC are trying to eminent-domain some of the surrounding land to create an "outer beltway".

If you are so inclined in the spring, come up to Gettysburg. Depending on your level of interest, you can see it in a day or spend a long weekend here. An incredible place.

I am always struck by how small American Civil War and other pre- mechanized battlefields are. Hollywood exaggerates the scale to make a battle epic and you view battle in third person. When you are physically there, say at Little Round Top, you realize how much war was an up close and personal thing back then. No grand strategy or direction of the fighting, just small groups of men fighting for their lives that repeated hundreds of times form something historians later dub a battle.

Agreed. Little Round Top, the Peach Orchard, etc. are almost intimate in size. However, standing at the copse of trees and trying to imagine the expanse of the Charge is pretty overwhelming.

What always strikes me is that it is an easy stroll from Lee's headquarters to Meade's. You could start with a double dip ice cream cone and still have some left when you arrive.

Make sure you get to Harper's Ferry. I have a friend who's a law enforcement ranger up there, he shares some of the most gorgeous views of the Potomac and Shenandoah.

Battlefields have never interested me much, they always seem to just be empty fields now. But what does always amaze me is the traveling preindustrial armies would do.

We did some visiting of sites when we went to Virginia some time back.

Did you take any pics?

CDFingers

Glad to hear you found Bull Run. If you like hiking, there's a little-known, great trail system in the area with a lot to see.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bull_Run-Occoquan_Trail

Agree with KF about Harper's Ferry. It's a must see. Tip:
1. Go up the hill to the Harper's Ferry Cemetery, past Jefferson Rock and the Appalachian trail.
2. Take the Maryland Height hike. You can see all three states and rivers from the top.
3. If you carry, be aware that you're in MD as soon as you start crossing the railroad bridge. Instant felon!

If you get further North, there's an unadvertised little battlefield in Leesburg, VA. Interesting and private.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball's_Bl ... l_Cemetery

MountainSquid wrote:I routinely(about once a month) do the five mile walk around it. It's a great place and amazing to think it's within 20 miles of DC. Pity that Loudoun County and PWC are trying to eminent-domain some of the surrounding land to create an "outer beltway".

There was an effort to place a Wallmart on some of the land a few years back. Fortunately there was enough of an outcry that the plans were scrapped. Phew!

Always liked the scene in the Patton movie at the Carthaginian Battlefield. That's the peculiar feeling one gets if they walk around anywhere in the Middle East. All the history that's drenched in the ground all around you....

Gonna Third HF. It's a beautiful place. During the Spring and Summer they have great interpreter/reenactor programs on weekends, even those of John Brown's raid with Marines dragged from the Barracks at 8th and I in period dress for it.


And if you're one of the guys that's interested in that sort of thing, you can walk up the hill from old town to the NPS executive training center and walk right up to a COG bunker entrance there. I always find it hilarious comparing security with Mount Weather, Raven Rock, etc, and then just a entrance you can walk right up to adjacent to a NPS building in HF.

MountainSquid wrote:Gonna Third HF. It's a beautiful place. During the Spring and Summer they have great interpreter/reenactor programs on weekends, even those of John Brown's raid with Marines dragged from the Barracks at 8th and I in period dress for it.


And if you're one of the guys that's interested in that sort of thing, you can walk up the hill from old town to the NPS executive training center and walk right up to a COG bunker entrance there. I always find it hilarious comparing security with Mount Weather, Raven Rock, etc, and then just a entrance you can walk right up to adjacent to a NPS building in HF.

Barracks Row Marines eh? I think I need a demo on life in a Civil War pup tent. HF indeed! Ang Lee might even come for a location shoot!