The Impact of a Few

The Impact of a Few

The unexpected finds are what make traveling such fun. Almost all the places we've visited have been owned and operated by the National Park Service or various national foundations but for a couple of days we had the opportunity to see just how important the efforts of everyday people can be in keeping history alive.

Personal items left behind by Union soldiers

Somewhere in all my reading about Civil War sites I'd read about a unique museum off the beaten path. A little digging turned up the name: White Oak Museum in Falmouth, Virginia. It turned out that the museum wasn't too far from our campground in Fredericksburg so we thought we'd drive over, spend an hour, and get on with our errands--I wanted to visit a yarn shop, we needed to go to Costco, the kind of mundane chores you have to do even when you're on the road. We were there when the museum opened for the day, expecting to zip through and be on our way.

This display alone has thousands of bullets from the encampment

Several hours later we were still there, talking with D.P. Newton--the man who created the private museum with the help of his family and friends--about how he acquired such an amazing collection of artifacts. It turned out that about 140,000 men in the Union Army camped nearby for the winter months in 1862-1863. The encampment  was in effect a city they built involving all the industries, cabins, and services that the soldiers would need to survive the winter and prepare for spring battles. When the Army moved from the area they left behind a treasure trove of artifacts. Where most museums might have a few Union belt buckles, the White Oak Museum has over 800 of them. Multiple shoes and canteens, mounds of buttons, thousands of bullets--anything you can imagine that soldiers might use in their camp was there. D.P. and local residents have been collecting artifacts in the area for years and have set up wonderful displays of them in the museum.  For D.P., who was inspired by his father to start collecting relics, the museum is clearly a labor of love. It was also a special pleasure for Civil War geeks like us.

Glenn Trimmer gave us a tour of the park

While we were at the museum we struck up a conversation with Glenn Trimmer, who served as Executive Director of Friends of Stafford County Civil War Sites, a local group who had built a new Civil War park where part of the encampment had been. Not only did Glenn explain the history of t he land and the park, he offered to give us a personal tour of it. We gladly turned our "one hour" trip to the museum into a day trip that included the park too. The park land was not a battlefield or part of the National Park system so it's been largely overlooked by Civil War buffs, but it has some pristine examples of the types of fortifications armies used at that time as well as the "corduroy" roads they built from lumber. What was even more fascinating to us was to hear how Glenn and D.P. had managed to get the park built while facing both a lack of funds and a myriad of regulations and requirements. 

Room at the Graffiti House. Letters G and C at the top may have been George Custer.

On another day we drove to Brandy Station Virginia to see the Graffiti House, a building that has wall writings left by the soldiers. Just like the White Oak Museum and the Stafford Civil War Park, the Graffiti House only exists because of some dedicated local people. The building was in disrepair and on the brink of being burned down for the lot when signatures and sketches made by Civil War soldiers were discovered.  Even then it's future wasn't certain but luckily, the Brandy Station Foundation, a small local nonprofit, was able to purchase the house and uncover the soldiers' inscriptions. The walls are covered with names, phrases, and drawings made by soldiers using charcoal from the fireplaces. Apparently soldiers back then were polite--there's no profanity, only a couple of mild put-downs like "The Yanks got it good." Some of the drawings were made by men with obvious artistic talent.     

                                                                                          

Drawing from the Graffiti House walls

The area saw much troop movement during the war, including the Battle of Brandy Station--the largest Cavalry battle (20,000 horses!) of the war--and is believed to have served at various times as headquarters, hospital and train station. One thing that makes Graffiti House special is that there are  writings from soldiers from both the North and the South. They hold fundraisers to raise money to continue the work of uncovering the graffiti using methods to conserve it properly. 

Thanks to the efforts of these three local organizations and the dedicated people in them, we got some truly unique insights into the lives of Civil War soldiers that we hadn't gotten in any other place.

Inscription reading "The United States of America"

Beautiful drawing at the Graffiti House