This is a retrospective blog of my seven-week exploration of Virginia along with a journey through the Shenandoah National Park and on down the Blue Ridge Parkway to Cherokee, North Carolina. 'Retrospective' means simply that it wasn't written during the trip, but is being written in hindsight a little over a year later. Baaswell Sheep accompanied me and is writing the blog in the way he's done my later blogs, since he's so good with the color commentary. Unfortunately, since I didn't plan for this blog back them, my pictures are limited to the major attractions, but I'll try to make those galleries a little bigger than I do in my later blogs.
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So, time for a history and geography lesson, starting with a pop quiz: what do you see pictured to the right? If you said the Appomattox Court House, you're right, and you're wrong. It's the modern day court house, but not the one that's part of Civil War history, and not even the site of that court house either. That's because a lot has changed in a hundred and fifty years. Originally, the town of Spring Hill was the county seat of Appomattox County, and the town and the court house there are where General Lee surrendered to General Grant. That said, there's still more to the story. Technically, very little happened at the court house itself – the agreement was worked up and signed in a private house across the street, but somehow it was the court house that got attached to this important moment in history, probably because there was a formal surrender carried out in the vicinity. On top of that, the original court house burned to the ground a few years after the surrender, so the one you see at the historic site today is actually a recreation of the original. With that out of the way, we can begin our journey.
A few miles east of the current day city of Appomattox is the original county seat, known then as Spring Hill, today a National Historic Site. It's pretty amazing to be able to walk through a genuine village, as many historic sites consist of just one or two buildings, or if there's more, they've been recreated or moved to be unduly close together to make it easier on the tourists. Here, you can walk down the dirt roads much as they were back in the mid 1800s and really picture what life was like back then. It all starts of course in the reproduction court house, which functions as the visitor's center with an introductory movie and a museum. Then, you can visit some of the other buildings, the most notable being the private home where the surrender papers were officially signed. According to the lore, that house was disassembled and hauled away to be put on display in one of the big cities, but that never happened, though fortunately the pieces and parts were not just dumped in a landfill, so they were able to be recovered and brought back to the original site to be restored. The last house picture below is the backside of this house (somehow we forgot to take a picture of the front). The next to last picture is the room where the surrender was signed, and the last picture is a painting of the event.
Clover Hill? / Spring Hill? Village, Appomattox, VA
Before we left the historic site, we did a short mile-long hike through one of the fields where troops encamped before the surrender. It was nice and scenic and relaxing to get away from the people visiting the village area. And then, a little ways off from the national historic site we found a local group's smaller but still interesting recreation of a small rural town with a handful of period buildings. Like the historic site, it's open to the public for no charge, though they ask for donations. Unlike the historic site, you can't go into the buildings except on select days when they have staff present, which was not the case this day. Still, we made the most of the nice, quiet setting, walking down the short road and looking though the windows and then meeting the live chickens before we left.
To be brutally honest, there's not much to see or do in downtown Appomattox – it's a very small town with just a few shops. It's not a case of a lot of empty storefronts like some towns: this one just never got very big to begin with. One of the restaurants is Granny Bee's, promoting a classic meat-and-two-vegetables country fare. My companion decided to be nice to me tonight and we got a three vegetable plate that was pretty good, and big enough that we couldn't find room for dessert, much as we wanted to try one. Instead, we just retired to the inn to enjoy the front porch for our last night in town.
Please note that all restaurant and product names are used simply for referential purposes and links provided as a courtesy. Reviews are the sole opinions of the reviewer: no restaurant has paid to be listed here, and no restaurant is being explicitly endorsed. In other words, go out there, try them all, and form your own opinions!
So, time for a history and geography lesson, starting with a pop quiz: what do you see pictured to the right? If you said the Appomattox Court House, you're right, and you're wrong. It's the modern day court house, but not the one that's part of Civil War history, and not even the site of that court house either. That's because a lot has changed in a hundred and fifty years. Originally, the town of Spring Hill was the county seat of Appomattox County, and the town and the court house there are where General Lee surrendered to General Grant. That said, there's still more to the story. Technically, very little happened at the court house itself – the agreement was worked up and signed in a private house across the street, but somehow it was the court house that got attached to this important moment in history, probably because there was a formal surrender carried out in the vicinity. On top of that, the original court house burned to the ground a few years after the surrender, so the one you see at the historic site today is actually a recreation of the original. With that out of the way, we can begin our journey.
