As you fly into Reagan Washington National from almost anywhere in the south, fix your gaze out the window when you begin to let down to DCA. Out there, in a hallowed stretch of northern Virginia, live the ghosts of battles past. Nowhere do they come alive as in and around Fredericksburg, arguably the epicenter of the American Civil War.
There, you can:
Tour ground that came to define us as a nation: Bloody Fredericksburg; pivotal Chancellorsville where Stonewall Jackson fell at the hands of his own men; the maddening confusion of the fight that was The Wilderness, and the brutal battle of Spotsylvania Court House. If you want to how men fought and died for what the believed, you’ll find precious few sites more suffused with heroism than these.
See how the gentry lived in the antebellum South at Kenmore Plantation, in the heart of Fredericksburg. Built by George Washington’s brother-in-law, Kenmore is as resplendent in flowers as it is the history of the time. Turn off your cell phone, pull out you ear buds and savor the serenity of the 18th century.
Taste how whiskey was meant to be at A. Smith Bowman Distillery. They employ traditional methods and time-honored recipes here to produce the kinds of spirits that are best sipped slowly, never hurried. Tours run Monday through Friday.
Story by Jerry Chandler
(Images: Rob Shenk, AlphaTangoBravo/Adam Baker)
