Friday, 7 September 2012

Tonights free accomodations....I have all kinds of cool toys to keep me occupied!















Today is a sunnier day than yesterday ...I woke to blue skies and decided to hang around this area today and see more civil war sites instead of pushing on to the coast just yet. I have plenty of time now.
I rode along the Richmond battlefield national park trail and spent all morning riding where thousands had fought so many years ago. The trail is superbly looked after, there are next to zero cars, the road is perfect and the battlefields are marked well so you get a good feel.for what eS going on at the time. Back then there were few trees and the battlefields seemed to be more open than the dense woodlands that now cover them. I rode towards Richmond and along the lines of confederate forts and trenches that had protected the souths capital from union troops. The forts and interconnecting trenches are still clearly visable.
I rode from the union line over no man's land to the confederate line at Malvern hill...didn't take long..so I videod it.

About 2pm I decided to go back to the church I stayed at last night and the pastor kindly said I was very welcome to.stay tonight again....so I rode to the store, got some food and here I am..back in church...the church where confederate troops must have rested before going up to the attack at Malvern.hill just along the road....7000 of them didn't come back that day...and none of them reached the union artillery line on the hill....which isn't really a hill...more of a slight incline...in a corn.field.


Huge bamboo plants in the fields here this morning



Shots from the battlefield at Malvern hill today

My bedroom tonight



This house is right on the old front line...nice gaff ain't it!





Savage station...the railway is still there behind the trees

The fighting here was in a swamp...didn't kill off the mosquitos though!








Union trenches just metres from.the confederate trenches




Garthright house scene of much sufferrong by wounded soldiers



Gaines mill

The fighting at beaver dam creek





Gains mill

Confederate trenches at cold harbour looking towards the union trenches I'm the field





Confederate trenches at cold harbour in the rain

Slash church





The church guest book ...a warm welcome and a dry place to sleep for the night on what was once a ferocious battlefield.



Scenes from Malvern hill