May 1863 - Union Cavalry raid though the Northern Neck of VA; Lee's Stratford Hall; Road to Guinea Station

May 1863

Union Cavalry raid the Northern Neck of VA

Colonial Beach, VA 

https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=22108

Here George Washington, while living at Wakefield with a brother, went to school, 1744–1746. Here Union Cavalry came on a raid through the Northern Neck, May 1863. Several miles north of this place, James Monroe, fifth President of the United States, was born, 1758.

OMG what is this sign talking about? Not, The Battle of Oak Grove; that opened the Seven Days Battles. We are in Virginia but on the coast, not near Richmond. I am aware of cavalry action in this area, but nothing rises to the level of even a skirmish. Who were those Union raiders? And where is it documented? 

Is this my man Judson Kilpatrick? Isn't he in MD or PA by now? Is it Buford? They could be here making trouble here "far behind enemy lines" but not having anything close to a battle. 

This source (Chapman, Jr. William Hathaway. Yankees, Blue Pigs, and a Castle: The Northern Neck And The Civil War.) which I can't find anywhere, apparently claims: "In May of 1863, a Federal army officer reported that operation on the Northern Neck had resulted in the destruction of 50 boats and goods in transit worth $30,000, and in the taking of 800 slaves, 40 or 50 prisoners (including two officers), plus many mules and horses." It either quotes or is quoted here. 

* "George Washington’s brother mentioned in the inscription was named Samuel Washington (1734–1781)."

*

While in the neighborhood...let's visit the house where General Lee was born. Yes, today. 

Stratford Hall 

In the North, we save the Hero Worship for American heroes, not the aristocrats who attacked it. 

Stratford Hall
Birthplace of Robert E. Lee

Robert Edward Lee was born at Stratford Hall on January 19, 1807, to Henry “Light Horse Harry” Lee — a Revolutionary War hero — and Ann Hill Carter. Robert E. Lee spent the first four years of his childhood here before moving with his parents and siblings to Alexandria, Virginia. Years later, during the Civil War and after Lee's wife's home, Arlington, had been turned into a United States military cemetery, Lee wrote a letter to his daughters Agnes and Annie Lee. “I am much pleased,” he wrote on November 22, 1861, “at your description of Stratford and your visit. It is endeared to me by many recollections, and it has always been a great desire of my life to be able to purchase it. Now that we have no other home, and the one we so loved has been so foully polluted, the desire is stronger with me than ever.” Lee never purchased Stratford, however, and never owned a home.

After thirty-two years of service in the U.S. Army, Lee resigned his commission on April 20, 1861, and accepted command of Virginia's army and naval forces three days later. On June 1, 1862, Confederate President Jefferson Davis gave him command of the Army of Northern Virginia. Lee became general-in-chief of Confederate forces on January 1, 1865. He surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia to Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. In October 1865, Lee became president of Washington College in Lexington, Virginia. He died there on October 12, 1870.

The room Lee was born in. I thought I heard he died here too, but the Civil War Trails marker says he was at his college.  

Cliffs along the Potomac at Stratford Hall's private beach 

Well-preserved/restored Mill 

https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=176502

Bad pic, good story: to the right is the paternalistic plaque on the slave cemetery; on the left is better context and an apology.

This marks the area where are buried those Negroes who serve Stratford so faithfully on this plantation

vs.

This monument was erected by the Board of Directors of Stratford Hall in 1953. The reference to "those negroes who served Stratford so faithfully" reflects the attitude of the time shown by upper and middle class whites to former slaves and their descendants.

 

The cemetery is the final resting place for many African Americans, including members of the Payne family, whose association with Stratford Hall dates back to the early 19th century and possibly to the period when Stratford was owned by the Lees. Wesley Payne (1875 – 1954), who continued to work at Stratford Hall after its acquisition by the Robert E. Lee Memorial Foundation in 1929, provided names of some family members interred here:

 

Walter Payne (uncle)* Hannah Jackson Payne (mother), c. 1845 – 1886 Ardrick [Theodorick] Payne (brother), 1868 – before 1880 Lal [Lawrence] Payne (brother), 1879 – 1883 Wesley Payne (great-grandfather) Ardrick [Theodorick] Payne (great-uncle) William Payne (great-uncle) Walter Payne (great-uncle) Hannah Payne (infant sister) 1886 – 1886

# No quarter for traitors. 





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Also in VA, also in May of 1863 (and also in VA also in May a year later):

https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=1717

Road to Guinea Station

On 4 May 1863, the ambulance bearing wounded Confederate Maj. Gen. Thomas J. (“Stonewall”) Jackson from the Chancellorsville battlefield turned east here en route to Guinea Station, where he died on 10 May. A year later, Union troops of the Army of the Potomac followed the same route when marching from the Spotsylvania Court House battlefield south to Totopotomoy Creek in Hanover County. During this march, Union generals Grant and Meade stopped briefly at Massaponax Baptist Church, located two-thirds of a mile north of here.