Mapping the path

MID-ATLANTIC BASEBALL

Yorktown, Jamestown, Fredericksburg

Dad and I enjoy a day of historic sights in Virginia: victory for the American Revolution at Yorktown; the first permanent English colony in Jamestown; and the region of several key Civil War battles in and around Fredericksburg.

In 1781, British General Charles Cornwallis arrived in Yorktown with orders to build a fortified naval post on the Virginia peninsula. His troops had fought skirmishes throughout Virginia against a much smaller French army led by Marquis de Lafayette. But with American General George Washington’s Continental Army engaged in an attempt to retake New York City — fighting alongside the army of French commander Comte de Rochambeau — Cornwallis felt reasonably comfortable in his defenses.

Meanwhile, a French fleet led by Comte de Grasse gathered funds and supplies for the siege of Yorktown while docked in Havana and Santo Domingo. Word of de Grasse’s plans reached Washington and Rochambeau, who moved their armies south while using deception to lead the British to believe they were preparing for a siege of New York City.

De Grasse arrived in Chesapeake Bay in August of 1781 and set up a blockade of the harbor around Yorktown. His ships then defeated a British fleet sent to relieve Cornwallis led by Sir Thomas Graves in the Battle of the Chesapeake Bay. Just a few weeks later, the armies of Washington, Rochambeau, and Lafayette all converged upon Yorktown. Cornwallis was trapped.

Three weeks later, after a series of increasingly intense bombardments from French and American artillery, Cornwallis surrendered. More than 7,000 British troops were captured in what would be the final major land battle of the American Revolutionary War.

After a look around the small museum, Dad and I drove through Colonial National Historic Park, stopping a various spots in the fields and forests where French and American troops had dug trenches and redoubts for their assaults.

The route led us to Moore House, a few minutes south of the fighting, where representatives of the two armies negotiated the British surrender.

A second siege of Yorktown took place here in 1862, when troops led by Union Major General George B. McClellan laid siege to Confederate Major General John B. Magruder’s smaller force at Yorktown. McClellan failed to achieve a decisive victory, allowing the Confederates to slip away, but Yorktown became a Union garrison for the remainder of the Civil War. Union dead from more than 50 nearby field burial sites were re-interred at the Yorktown National Cemetery.

We left Yorktown heading north on the Colonial National Historic Parkway, a lovely stretch of driving that first hugs the coastline next to the Yorktown Naval Weapons Station before turning west toward Williamsburg. We skirted the colonial town and continued further west to Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in the Americas.

The need for food led to conflict with the native Powhatan tribe. Captain John Smith, then the governor of the colony, was captured by the Powhatans while exploring the river for food in December 1607; and Pocahontas, the daughter of Wahunsenacawh, chief of the Powhatan tribe, was held captive by the settlers in 1610. Four years later, Pocahontas famously married English explorer John Rolfe, who was the first to plant tobacco in the colony — a crop that played a significant role in reversing the fortunes of the English settlers.

Dad and I explored the museum at the Jamestown National Historic Site before walking out to the settlement itself.

Walking amongst the archaeological ruins of the original houses and workshops, it is still difficult to imagine the hardships the colonists endured to simply stay alive. Of the 6,000 people who came to the settlement between 1608 and 1624, only 3,400 survived. In 1622, a Powhatan attack killed 300 settlers alone. But the colony continued to grow through the 17th century. Peace treaties were signed with the Powhatans that required the native people to pay annual tribute to the colonists while remaining in their reservations.

In 1699, following a fire that burned down the Virginia statehouse, the colony relocated inland to Williamsburg. Jamestown was largely abandoned by the English thereafter.

But the city is more famously associated with another George. In 1738, the family of George Washington moved to Ferry Farm, just outside of Fredericksburg. George’s mother, Mary, moved to the city in 1772 and stayed there for the duration of the Revolution.

We made a stop at the Fredericksburg & Spotsylvania National Military Park, which commemorates four major Civil War battles in the area.

The first was the Battle of Fredericksburg (December 11-15, 1862), in which Union Major General Ambrose Burnside attempted to cross the town’s Rappahannock River on a march toward the Confederate capital of Richmond. The Union’s pontoon bridges were late to the scene, allowing Confederate General Robert E. Lee to fortify the high ground. Burnside’s significantly larger Army of the Potomac failed to make any significant ground and suffered more than 70 percent of the casualties.

The Battle of Chancellorsville took place the next spring (May 1-3, 1863), 10 miles west of Fredericksburg. In this fight, Lee sent General Stonewall Jackson on a bold flanking maneuver, forcing Union General Joseph Hooker to retreat. Both sides took heavy losses.

Two days later, further west, Lee met up against Union commanding General Ulysses S. Grant for the first time in the Battle of the Wilderness. Again, the Union suffered far more casualties in this three-day war — 17,666 killed, wounded, captured, or missing — than the Confederates, who had 11,125 casualties. This was considered a draw, militarily, due to the relative sizes of the armies.

Grant moved his troops southeast toward Richmond and more favorable conditions. They met the Confederate Army at the Spotsylvania Court House, where several more attempts to break the Confederate lines ultimately failed, resulting in even more casualties on each side in intense, hand-to-hand fighting.

In these four battles in and around Fredericksburg, an estimated 13,126 lives were lost across the two armies.

With a long day and 415 years of history behind us, Dad and I drove to our hotel to rest up for our next ballgame.

> NEXT: Fredericksburg Nationals