01 December 2009
The Bad Commute
(West Footing of the former Buckland Bridge on the Warrenton Turnpike)
Predictably, I got sidetracked again, oh well. I meant to go down to Old Town and light up a couple Luckies in the sanctity of the last night that we will be permitted to smoke a cigarette in a bar in Virginia.
It’s over, now, since the state legislature of this old Dominion has decided to get with the program and ban it as a public health menace.
I’m kind of sorry I missed it. Tobacco had a pretty good run here, almost 400 years where you could smoke just about anywhere. The trade of it funded most of the institutions, including the peculiar one that drove the young nation over the edge of the cliff and plunged us into the abyss.
The Legislature took the principled step and made the once legal activity illegal. I will get with the program, I suppose, since I have no choice and don’t hang out in bars that much anymore anyway.
I wish it was like that with the commute. The elected officials downstate could care less about the mess we have with traffic in northern Virginia, and view it as our problem, not theirs.
I suspect they begrudge good Virginia money going to maintain highways that a lot of Marylanders drive on, not to mention those people in the District.
You may be blissfully aware of the I-66 extension beyond Manassas to what used to be the little village of Haymarket. That is why I pick my times carefully to drive down to the farm, and continue past the US-29 S exit at Gainesville to head past to US-15 (South) as a sort of by-pass around the awful sprawl that snags traffic trying to get to and from the capital.
Haymarket is "under construction" as it continues to morph from agricultural village to bedroom, and has for several years. I was in a horrendous traffic jam there one afternoon a couple years ago, in the midst of green fields, wondering where the hell I was and what the hell was going on behind all those construction vehicles and SUVs.
I don't think much on the two miles down that part of the road to pick up 29 again where it crosses Broad Run, and didn't think much of that, either, except on Saturday I was stuck behind a particularly slow pick-up ad trailer combination that gave me the opportunity to actually read the sign in front of the handsome tall stone structure: "Buckland," it read, but even moving as slowly as I was, I could not read the fine print.
I told you about the Buckland Races the other day, and why the fine four-lane highway will never look the same to me again. But there is more.
Sunday, studiously doing nothing and allowing my curiosity to run, I stumbled into what a really tough commute from the old stone bridge at Buckland was like one time, headed back to Hay Market:
"Dismounted Camp (2nd NY Cavalry) – October 25, 1863
“Father,
I have just got off the dismounted camp coming down here the cars ran off the track and hurt fifty or more bad. Shinn Rush [?] was with me but he is all right but I am pretty sore all over but will soon be well. eight cars out of twelve smashed up fine. since I wrote to you I have been in the fight at Culpepper Brandy Station and when the army was falling back we was skermishing every day last week we attacked them near bull
Run. G Company was out skermished and we drove to Gainesville that day and next morning we attacked then and drive them to Buckland Mills and fought about four hours and they fell back and we after them until we got to New Baltimore and the first thing we knew we were surrounded by infantry and cavalry. we fought in good order and then it came every man for him self. my horse played out and got down. the rebels was rite on to me and i had to leave him but i see them shoot one of the first Virginia and heard them yell No Quarters you Yankee Sons of Bitch. I fired at the one on the left hand side and the ___ out of his saddle and the other one but after me I guess I run about that time I had a big open field to run across a-foot and the rebels close behind. I just got in the woods a citizen got in my way I shot him in the shoulder and ran on until I met a (inappropriate term). I hit the (demeaning term) over the head with the carrabine and mounted that is all that saved me for the rebels was about twenty yards, no reenlisting for me. send me five dollars for I have nothing but what is on my back no more.
William H. Emslie”
I certainly hope never to have a commute like that. The pell-mell flight went on for about eight miles, and that is why the Rebels called it the "Buckland Races" and some of the Yankees called it "Custer's First Stand."
The soldier that the Lakota Sioux later called Yellowhair actually didn't do too badly that day, even in defeat. He held off Fitzhugh Lee’s rebel attack long enough to preserve General Kirkpatrick and private soldier Emslie their lives, though he lost his personal wagon and papers to the galloping Confederates.
The accounts say Custer rode down to the bridge to check the lay of the land, surrounded by his staff and escort. The Rebel artillery put a round right into the middle of the group, which scattered, and thereafter avoided the open ground on the east side of the bridge, right where today’s photo was taken.
You would never know that something that interesting happened, right in the middle of Route 29. The commute is a lot easier these days, and despite the horrors and privations of war, I like to think we treat the troops a little better.
Copyright 2009 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
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