From Azaleas to Zydeco: My 4,600-Mile Journey through the South

The Third Battle of Manassas

The Third Battle of Manassas Jonathan Daniels began his 4,600-mile Journey crossing the Potomac River from the District of Columbia into Virginia on what was then a new bridge. He stopped to talk with a retiree fishing off the bridge before going on to the Custis-Lee House at Arlington National Cemetery. He writes: You turn into the long Memorial Bridge. Look up, then, and see it on the hill. Arlington by any seeing must be the façade of the South. Grandly and sweetly and green the hill runs up to the great house from the river. The ornate, early twentieth-century bridge still carries traffic across the Potomac River into Virginia. The bridge was designed as a symbolic reunification of the North and the South after the War for Southern Independence by connecting the Lincoln Memorial with Robert E. Lee’s house. Congress delayed funding the bridge for a couple of decades until President Harding got caught in a three-hour traffic jam on the way to dedicate the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. After that incident, Congress moved quickly to get the construction started, and the new bridge opened in 1932. I wanted to recreate the Journey’s beginning in a similar fashion—a leisurely drive over the Potomac River on the wide bridge into Virginia. I planned to drive past the Lincoln Memorial, locate a parking place somewhere near the bridge, and walk onto the Memorial Bridge. Once 22 on the bridge I would ask a pedestrian to take my picture with the CustisLee House and northern Virginia in the background. I figured it would take about an hour and I could be on my way to Manassas. Bad idea. The Washington metropolitan area has 5.5 million people now with northern Virginia, “NoVa,” being its most populated part. And that doesn’t count tourists. Forget about finding a parking place near the bridge; the tourists have them all. Traffic signs announced road construction projects and the resulting detours. Under the best of circumstances, Washington traffic for a southern boy from a small city was intimidating. With construction detours, lane closures, and lost tourists, it was a mess. Cars to the left of me, detour signs to right. Once on the bridge, the traffic wasn’t too bad. Unfortunately, though, there is no sweet or green view of the great house, only of highrise office buildings. I thought, This is not really the South; this is Anywhere, America. I was 500 miles due east of Cincinnati and 1,000 miles east of Kansas City. Two great cities—but no one would ever accuse them of being southern. I decided to head toward Manassas, leaving the ghost of Warren Harding and his three-hour traffic jam in my rearview mirror. Staying just ahead of the commuting hordes through thirty miles of urban and suburban landscape, I turned off Interstate 66 at Exit 47. The entrance to the Manassas National Battlefield lies less than a mile from this exit. The battlefield is an undeveloped oasis in the middle of the Washington metropolitan area, a metropolitan area which extends miles west all the way to West Virginia. Manassas is perhaps the most famous battlefield in the South. Two separate and important battles were fought here. Remember, Yankees named Civil War battlefields after nearby rivers, creeks, or other natural reference points. Rebels named the same conflict after man-made reference points like the nearest town or significant building. They called the first pitched battle of the conflict First Manassas, after the nearby town. Unionists called that same battle Bull Run, for nearby Bull Run Creek. A year later, the Second Battle of Bull Run, or Second Manassas, as it’s called in the South, occurred here. Both battles were significant conflicts. First Manassas was a resounding Confederate victory in which the Union army left the battlefield in 23 complete disorder. The retreating army had to dodge civilians from Washington DC who’d come to picnic and watch what had been advertised as an easy Union victory over the outgunned Rebels. First Manassas let the Yankees know that forced Unionification would be no easy task. Second Manassas, also a Confederate victory, was a much bigger battle in which 10,000 Union troops were killed or wounded. From the Confederate perspective, Second Manassas could be considered the high-water mark of the war since General Lee took his...