A cannon depicting the Union position points toward the statue of Stonewall Jackson on Henry House Hill at Manassas.
To better understand what your Civil War soldier ancestor went through, walk a mile or two on the ground his shoes walked on.
That’s how I spent last weekend, walking the battlefields of Manassas, Harper’s Ferry and Antietam—all within a short driving distance of each other.
On the Manassas Battlefield on July 21, 1861, Francis M. Poore and his comrades in the 13th Mississippi arrived at Henry House Hill where the unmovable Thomas Jackson stood. In the above photo, a cannon depicting the Union position points toward the statue of Stonewall Jackson on Henry House Hill.
Francis and his fellow rebels continued past Henry House Hill to the right of the above scene until they reached the men under Joseph B. Kershaw. Here around 4 p.m. Francis and his fellow Mississippians quickly made ready for battle. They fixed bayonets and loaded their muskets, old flintlocks altered to use percussion caps. Spotting the federal line through drifting cannon smoke, the rebels fired off a volley and then charged the federals.
For the first time at Manassas, and then at many battlefields afterward, the bluecoats heard the unearthly wail of the rebel yell.
By the time Francis and the men of the 13th Mississippi reached the crest of Bald Hill, the enemy had left in what came to be called “the great skedaddle.”
Visiting Manassas helped me understand the hard marches fighting men had to make over undulating hills and across streams. Have you come away with any new insights from visiting your ancestor’s battlefield?
My Fraser ancestors were also at Manassas on July 21, 1861. I have their handwritten letters. (Or my cousin does, in her trunk.) They weren’t with the 13th Mississippi, but they do write about the enemy fleeing from the fierce “South Carolina boys.” I like “the great skedaddle.” That’s a good one. My grandfather was named Thomas Jackson in honor of Stonewall Jackson. Sad in retrospect that all seemed so energetic at the war’s outset, as if it would soon be over!
Wow! You are lucky to have such documents. What family papers once existed for my Civil War ancestor seem to have been destroyed in a house fire many years later.
I know what you mean. We had a church fire in 1922 that destroyed Church minutes from some controversial times, and a Historical Society fire in 1906 (destroyed only some documents). Do we feel more secure today, with the “Cloud”?
My ancestors are from so many burned counties (those that courthouse fires) in Mississippi that I once thought they were burning the courthouse before moving on to the next county!