While watching a documentary on the Civil War a few days ago, there was mention of an act during that bloody conflict that shows us that no matter how cruel and inhumane war is, there can also be amazing acts of sympathy and love for one’s fellow man. The small town of Fredericksburg, Virginia was […]
Not all Southerners believed in slavery before the Civil War, including many wealthy landowners who owned slaves themselves. One such was a prosperous widow named Hannah Coulter, who acquired the beautiful Chatham plantation, located across the Rappahannock River from Fredericksburg, Virginia, in the 1850s. Coulter specified in her will that upon her death her 92 […]
“A better man cannot be.” Those are the words Thomas Jefferson used to describe James Monroe in 1785, and most scholars of our country’s fifth president would probably agree. Born in Westmoreland County, Virginia in 1758, Monroe attended the College of William and Mary for a year before dropping out to join the Continental Army, […]
In nearly 18 years of fulltime RVing, not to mention our travels away from the RV lifestyle, we have been to so many interesting places. Historic cities, battlefields, mountains, deserts, and seashores. And we have found that one of the best ways to get an overview of a place is by taking a trolley tour. […]
Any of us who remember our high school history classes know about the terrible winter George Washington’s troops spent at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania during the American Revolution. But did you know there was also a winter encampment during the Civil War that was just as harsh? So much so that it has been called the […]
Note: This story is from the January-February 2015 issue of the Gypsy Journal. Before the days of motels at every freeway exit and the comforts of traveling in your own RV, anyone on a journey away from home had limited choices of where to spend the night. If money was tight and the weather was […]
Note: This story is from the January-February 2015 issue of the Gypsy Journal. We all know a lot about George Washington, the Father of Our Country, but how much do you know about his mother, Mary Washington? Would she be called the Grandmother of Our Country? Born November 30, 1708, in Lancaster County, Virginia, Mary […]
We were up and out the door earlier than usual yesterday to explore historic Fredericksburg, Virginia. Established in 1728, this friendly and charming little city on the banks of the Rappahannock River was an important commerce center during Colonial days, when ships traveled upriver from the coast to load up on locally grown tobacco, bound […]
I’m beginning to feel like I have my very own personal rain cloud hanging over my head, dumping on me every time I turn around. It rained three out of the seven days we were in the Washington D.C. area, two of those days so hard that we couldn’t go out and sightsee. Now we’re […]