Carry me back to Ol' Virginny

Carry me back to old Virginny.
There's where the cotton and the corn and 'tatoes grow,
There's where the birds warble sweet in the springtime,
There's where the old darkey's heart am longed to go.
There's where I labored so hard for old massa
Day after day in the field of yellow corn,
No place on earth do I love more sincerely
Than old Virginny, the state where I was born.


As you might have guessed from both the title and lyrics of this most definitely 19th century song, today we made the great migration northeast into Virginia. Tonight we're staying at the town of Farmville, VA. Although most of the day was spent driving, we did manage to get to Appomattox Courthouse, along with Fort Sumter one of the most famous Civil War sights. For, if Fort Sumter is to be taken as the place the Civil War began, Appomattox is where it ended. In the house of one Wilder McLean, Robert E Lee, commanding General of the Confederacy, surrendered to Ulysses S Grant, commanding General of the Union. In McLean's parlour, the son of an Ohio tanner dictated the terms of surrender to the scion of one of the oldest and grandest Virginian families.

While Grant and Lee couldn't be present for the photo shoot, I do have pictures of the setting.


This is the McLean House. The enclosure at the front is the well, to which Robert E Lee tethered his horse "Traveller" when he rode up on April 9th 1865 to surrender to Grant.


The table and chair which Grant sat in to dictate the terms of surrender to Lee.


The table at which Lee sat at to sign the document of surrender.


A sign marking the place at which Lee and Grant met to discuss the surrender of Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. The Confederates were encamped on the ridge in the distance, and marched from the ridge past a road behind this sign to the point of surrender.



Ok, so it's not Civil War related, but this sign in the town of Appomattox was too funny not to include.

Anyways, now we're in Virginia, the pace should slow down a bit. So far, we've been through the states of Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia and now Virginia in about 2 weeks and close to 3000 kilometres. Virginia however is the scene of some of the most concentrated fighting in the Civil War, as well as many other historical relics. So, we should be proceeding at a more leisurely pace in terms of distance travelled, if not things to see.

I think the best part of the trip has been the chance to spend a great deal of time one on one with my Dad - we've often quarrelled in the past, given that both of us can be a bit prickly and short-tempered when questioned or challenged. And yes, there's been a bit of agro during the trip, but it's all been fairly low-key. I think the fact that we know we're stuck with each other reminds us both to pull our heads in when we're about to flare up.

Some time ago, my Dad went out west for about two months with his Dad (my grandfather) , and went through the Northern Territory, covering the various places my grandfather was stationed at during the war, before he went to Papua and Borneo. It was a great trip for both of them. This is a similar thing for my Dad and I - this is something I've always wanted to see, and to be honest, I couldn't think of a better person to have along with me than Dad. He truly is the ultimate tourist - he knows how to build a freezer out of two cardboard boxes, some paper bags and a water bottle, he can find a country music station ANYWHERE on a FM dial, has a psychic ability to detect when someone is sending him an SMS, can drive on the wrong side of the road with the best of them, and most importantly, can withstand my lengthy and ponderous civil war cogitations like no-one else I've ever met.

He'll do me.

I shall leave you now, with the best redneck ute I've seen so far.