On my way to pick up Randl from the airport in DC today, I stopped at the Monassas National Battlefield Park, scene of two major Civil War battles, First Bull Run (July 1861) and Second Bull Run (August 1862). The National Park Service has done a beautiful job of maintaining these battlefields to look much like they did almost a hundred and fifty years ago, with similar tree lines and grassy fields. I walked part of the trail through the fields of the first battle. The pictures above are of this battlefield. The house is an old farm house that was there during the battle. The 84-year-old woman who owned the farm was inside the house, refusing to leave, and was killed in the battle. Her grave is to the left of the house. Various monuments and trail guides are placed at strategic places on the battlefield, along with cannons as they would have been during the battle.
I have never been much of a Civil War enthusiast, and to my knowledge, none of my ancestors were directly involved in this war, but they were certainly affected by it. The Greenhalgh family arrived in New York at the end of this war and saw soldiers returning in tatters. Mormon immigration from England was severely curtailed at some points during the war. It was also because of the war and the resulting loss of the southern U.S. cotton crop that the English cotton mills fell on such hard times and the Greenhalgh men and women found themselves with not enough work as weavers.
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