The Unfinished Railroad

I spent most of today in a really great meeting. Yes, you read that right. I was down in Virginia at the Manassas/Bull Run Battlefield, talking about what the park will do with the Unfinished Railroad and surrounding land. This is the part known as the Deep Cut.

The Unfinished Railroad was a key feature in the Second Battle of Bull Run (or Manassas, for you Secesh). Stonewall Jackson deployed his corps in the woods behind the railroad and held off Federal attackers for two days while he waited for the rest of Lee's army to get into position for the great attack that made this a major Confederate victory. Jackson did not line his men up behind the railroad, but kept them in formation in the woods behind hit, sending them forward to meet Union attacks. This tactic worked well, and it kept Jackson's men from being trapped in a shallow part of the trench as happened to many Confederates in the Bloody Lane at Antietam. As you can see, in some places the railroad grade was a formidable barrier, but in others it was only a bump, or nothing at all.

There was heavy fighting at several places along the railroad; this is the location of the famous "rock fight," when Confederates who had run out of ammunition began throwing rocks over the railroad berm at Federal troops on the other side. Another famous moment came further up the line where Maxcy Gregg's South Carolinians had been driven back from the railroad by Kearny's federals. Gregg found himself in a beautiful meadow full of flowers. Cutting some poppies with his sword, he held them up and said, "Let us die here, men." Quite a few of them did, but they held the line.

The meeting was about how best to protect the railroad -- whether to keep it clear of trees, whether trails should run along the top, and so on -- and how the park should be using this part of the landscape. The interpreters explain their goals for the visitor experience, "what story we want to tell" in their lingo. We then figure out how to make that happen: where to put trails and parking lots, where to put what sort of signs, what trees should be cleared, what parts of the park can be made accessible to people in wheelchairs, and so on. Above is a good cross section of a tall part of the railroad berm, at a stream crossing where a trestle was planned but never built.

I find this sort of discussion fascinating, and I feel very lucky that sometimes I can get paid to take part.