Oh, that heartrending American Civil War.

And here we are, in the heart of Civil War territory.

Staying in the gorgeous Crowne Plaza Hotel in Richmond, Virginia, we can look out the windows to one of the great transportation corridors of the War, the James River.

It is the most exquisite, rocky and interesting river running through lovely Richmond. It has little islands and many rocks and its has rushing rapids and calm fishing spots. But here near downtown Richmond, it is not navigable. Further down, it enabled the Union army to move men and war material to places near Richmond throughout the war. I have been learning steadily about this great and terrible American war when the country was divided between north and south, Union and Confederate. Fellow countrymen slaughtered each other in the most vicious and systematic way in the favour of or opposed to slavery while the Confederate South sought recognition of its independence by Britain and France.

There is immense scholarship on this subject. Fortunately for me, Bruce is a respected expert and is my guide and we have been exploring and re-exploring some of the significant sites of the war. Richmond is one of the important places - and this lovely James river below us.

Great stonework stumps of old bridges jut out of the water in places, relics of the war.

And, right out the window we can see the Tredegar Iron Works where munitions for the South were manufactured throughout the war. It is now a Civil War museum and, despite the heat which in itself could probably melt the odd bit of iron, we walk down to visit and to learn.

The setting now is serene and lovely. The old canal area has been restored providing a scenic walk beside its shallow brown waters which dart with little fish. There’s a grassy island park where Richmonders play and have festivals. Beside the river, here are kayak rentals and, on little sandy river strands, children are playing. A couple of fisherman are perched on rocks. Approaching the museum entrance, a gaggle of young people are intently looking at their phones. Ah. Pokemon. What a strangely pervasive cult this has become.

The museum is really quiet. Apart from the Park Rangers who run it, there is only one other person. It is free admission. We are welcomed and advised to head for the top floor to see the videos.

We sit in a broad, dark corridor in front of a long wall where images are illuminated one at a time according to a string of narratives. A child’s voice tells of how the war impacted play and family. A woman tells of nursing the wounded and dying. Another woman tells of the excitement of battles around the town, of how the fire and fury of the distant conflicts looked like fireworks. Another tells of fire itself which was to consume much of Richmond toward the end of the conflict.

It is a compelling exhibit.

We walk through the big, airy showcases of Civil War relics - uniforms, doctors’s kits, canteens, muskets, and journals. The United States Colored Troops are honoured - a strong force by all accounts. There are mannequins wearing Richmond ladies’ fashions of the day, too. It is a rounded picture. Then we take our places in the screening room for a superb documentary on the unfolding of the war. Of course it brings me to tears.

We are sitting right in the Patterns building of Tredegar, right where the moulds for the weapons were made. Downstairs we see the huge cannons which horses towed across the country. We see the different ammunition they fired, so very, very cruel, able to mow down lines of men in one great boom.

This was a very close-fought war. It was largely fought on foot.

There are maps which show have much of the country the boys traversed. Incredible distances, marching to the beat of the drum, moving in vast numbers as pawns in a lethal game of strategy directed by the famous Civil War generals, Robert E. Lee, Ulysses S. Grant, Stonewall Jackson, George McClellan, Jubal Early, Ambrose Burnside, James Longstreet, A. P. Hill.

Those southern boys had the longest treks, on occasions short of food, barefooted, and in extreme haste. We already had visited the famous Maryland site of Antietam where 23,000 young American men were casualties in just twelve hours of fighting. Incredible September 17, 1862. The bloodiest day in American history.

It is a beautiful place. Lush undulating Maryland countryside. There’s a sophisticated Visitor Center and we pile in to see a documentary. The rangers are uncharacteristically lackadaisical and they don’t tell us about a guide speaking on the conflict right in front of the windows which show the battlefields and farmhouses of Antietam. We catch the tail end by luck. Stories of the suffering of the local farm families as well as the soldiers.

We go out and gaze upon the neatly-mown fields and the crisp, white farm houses. It is a deceptively lyrical pastoral scene. Mind’s eye conjures up the bloody clamour of battle. Oh, my. It is so hot.

We take the car and drive the well-marked route, down lines of monuments, seeing stone generals gazing into infinity across the fields.

There were encampments here, advances there, generals moving their pawns across the board, messengers riding between the troops and the generals, messengers relaying orders, bringing news of enemy movements.

Corn is still grown as it was then. Confederate boys approached stealthily through a tall cornfield to surprise their enemy. But, caught in the sunlight, their bayonets glinted above the corn. They were spotted. They were mown down along with the corn by quickly deployed artillery firing canister.

Battles raged all over the landscape. In the woods, around the creek, in

the fields and rises, around the farms. Thousands upon thousands of men. They killed with cannons or their bare hands. Knives and bayonets were used in hand-to-hand fighting as well as the rows of muskets. Thousands. They died in incomprehensible thousands. Some so young. Tired and hungry and afraid. How many called for their mothers?

We go to the saddest place of them all.

Sunken Road. The Bloody Lane.

Here, a clever strategy backfired and the boys seemingly hidden in this sunken road died one atop the other, in layers. They were slaughtered like sheep in a sheep pen.

Today the trench is well-mown and well-trodden. There’s a big, solid memorial.

It seems so serene. The air is so fresh and sweet-smelling. Birds. Crickets.

And yet...

The boys were just mown down.

McClellan was the Union General. Lee the Confederate. Burnside also of the Union. We see Burnside’s Bridge, a stronghold attempting to hold the North at bay. Beside it stands an old sycamore tree which is the only living witness to that conflict. I had taken note of its existence at the Antietam documentary and was keen to find it. It seemed very special to me. The Antietam rangers were not a bit helpful. Odd. One man ringed a spot on the map but that ring turned out to be the whole bridge area. It was a really hot day and already we had hoofed around battle field sites. No tree bore any historic marker.

We looked at possible elderly trees all around and were feeling hot and frustrated. So I asked dear Dr Google who informed me it was right beside Burnside’s Bridge. And there it was, a big old raggedy thing. The bridge is undergoing renovations. We gaze down upon it from a viewing area above, wilting somewhat in the heat. It was not this hot on the day they fought here; one mercy, if one could call anything a mercy in that terrible war.

There was Lincoln back in Washington, appalled at what was going on, seeking only peace and resolution.

But the war had to play out. He sent directives. For the most part, his generals did as he bade, but much to the President’s disappointment, McClellan moved so slowly and cautiously.

Here in Virginia, we move around forever in the spell of that war. There are so many scenes of conflict. It is hard to comprehend the scale, especially considering that everything was done on foot, except for the transport of supplies which was sometimes done by train or river, but more often by horse and cart. Those hundreds of thousands of soldiers and the many animals needed a lot of food and water. They did not always have it, especially the Confederates. They often were hungry. Sometimes bare-footed.

We pass Sailors’ Creek, another terrible war site. We are en route to Appomattox following the line of retreat of Lee from Richmond. Here in April, 1865, Robert E. Lee with his brave and exhausted army of Northern Virginia, was finally to surrender to General Grant with his by then larger and better equipped Army of the Potomac.

Lee had been outmanoeuvred. Weather and luck were against him. His supply train was intercepted. His boys were starving. Paths of retreat were blocked.

As we arrive at Appomattox, a Park Ranger is beginning a guided tour. We latch on with alacrity. What luck. This man, Albert, is one of this world’s great story-tellers. We sit under a shady tree as he begins the description, pointing to this grove of trees here where battalions camped and this rise in the land where soldiers were masked from view.

He paints pictures of the protagonists,

of Lee and Grant, and of the troops converging from here and there. Of the weather and the clothes and the cannons and the trains.

He colours that last day with thumbnail accounts of of individual soldiers - the one who came from Appomattox and did not have far to go home, the one who had fought the entirety of the war only to die on the last day here. His descriptions are so vivid that tears well in my eyes.

He describes the desperation as circumstances closed on the Confederates and how an end to fighting was called as messages were carried to and fro between Lee and Grant.

The Generals met in the house of Wilmer

McLean adjacent to the Appomattox Court House.

Lee was a handsome man. I have seen so many images of him in my time in the South. He is still considered a hero for, indeed, he was a particularly brilliant and gracious man by all accounts. And he dressed in a new uniform for his surrender, giving this sad piece of history all the dignity he could afford it. Grant, on the other hand, had

quickly ridden miles over muddy spring roads to attend the ceremony, and arrived with his boots and field uniform splattered with mud.

After the signing, Grant ordered his Union boys to create a guard of honour and for the rest of that long, sad day, the Confederate units, one after another, filed down that guard of honour.

Union men shared rations with the starving Confederates.

We stand with our ranger on that path where the soldiers stood. A few unexpected drops of rain fall like a teardrops.

Lee sought that his boys did not disperse in humiliated defeat but that their travels and travails be respected. He organised that certificates be printed for those boys retreating to the south. They were entitled to free travel where possible. A printing press procured by Grant churned out thousands of these papers.

And it was over.

But never forgotten. It was a turning point in American history and in the country’s sense of identity. It was to spell an end to that shame of slavery.

Lincoln, who long had yearned for this outcome and had preached grace and civility to all his generals, was to be assassinated only two weeks later.

Everyone still mourns him and wonders how much better things might have been had he lived.

State hopping

If it hadn’t been for local knowledge, we’d never have scored a passage on the ferry at all. As it was, we have to take the 3.30 voyage rather than the midday one we’d hoped for. And we are lucky to get tickets for that. These Cape May/Lewes ferries ply the waters to and fro all day long and still there are massive queues. This is a very busy country. People are on the move all the time.

But the Americans are pretty good at it.

For instance, this ferry terminal is a destination in itself. It has a great big swanky waterside restaurant with a classy live music performance going on. It seems to be a thing for families to swan over to the terminal for lunch watching the big ferries chug in and out. It’s like the old days when people went to the airports just to

watch the planes. But, in this case, there is a purpose-built lounge, bar, restaurant, and shops to make it all into a big commercial happening thing with a party atmosphere.

The partying goes on among the ferry passengers, we soon discover. There are bars on the ferry. They are enthusiastically patronised. Bunches of passengers are getting rather happy and very noisy.

Not everyone.

We are the sort who like to watch the sea, the passing boats, the disappearing land, and the birds.

Seagulls follow the ferry excitedly feeding in the wake. Some like to fly beside or aloft over the ferry, seemingly suspended in the air. Riding on the upper deck, we are sometimes at eye level with them. Great big Atlantic gulls. Wonderful. Jonathan Livingston seagulls.

There are a lot of dogs on the ferry. There are a lot of dogs everywhere, as it happens. Dogs are accepted family travellers. They are in all the hotels. It is the era of the four-star hotel dog. Just $15 a night, I'm told. Some hotels offer designer dog beds and treats to encourage the canine custom. True story.

So, I suppose I am not surprised to see so many

dogs on the ferry.

I am surprised to see Mennonites, though. I am always surprised to see Mennonites - gentle, quiet, homely souls in their buttonless frocks and little headpieces.

It is a glorious 90-minute voyage across the pea green Delaware River estuary and then we are in Delaware.

Oh, bliss. Look. Corn fields. Tall, feathery-topped corn. I have seen cornfields right across this mighty country. I have seen them from little, bitty plants across the vast expanses of Wyoming and South Dakota. I have seen them getting bigger as we travelled east. I have become attached to the sight of them. They are not quite so lush here but I am so glad to see them again. I break out the Chex Mix in celebration.

Here in Delaware we are driving past settlements with mown verges and flower beds. There seems to be a lighthouse motif repeated along the roads. There are rental shops for almost everything: chairs, umbrellas, scooters, bait. You can rent bait?

More corn crops. Fields of soy. Corn. Lovely neat, sleek crops.

Delaware is Vice President Joe Biden's territory, says Bruce. Politics seems prominent with election signs of all sorts dotted along the roadside:

I.G. Burton for District Governor, Fred Shade for County Council, Kathy McGuinness for Lieutenant Governor, Max Schaff, Sam Wilson, Mike Miller for Congress. They flash past too fast to photograph.

Where it is not rural, it seems to be full of new developments. Aha, that one looks like the template the Sims computer game creators used. I used to build virtual houses like that back in the days when I played The Sims. I drift into nostalgia for that favourite computer game. Such are the indulgences of the eternal car passenger. This Alamo Nissan Rogue of the mysterious deep green hue has been a sort of home base for at least 10 weeks now.

We pass through Georgetown, very neat, a classic little American darling town with lots of restaurants.

Bruce is looking for chicken BBQ stands. Delaware is famous for chicken and he remembers its roadside BBQ chicken as one of the great yummies of this world. No sign of chicken. There are farm stands, instead. This one touts Candy-Lopes as well as peaches and cherries.

Fields of corn and soy. Woodlands, Open pasture. Farm stand selling corn and watermelon.

A massive billboard looms. Bridgeville - If you lived here, you would be home.

Hmm. What smarmy idiot thought of that?

Bridgeville seems to be a sprawling, flat town. It seems to be mad on billboards. I wouldn’t want to live there.

Back into countryside and it is more diversified agriculture. As well as corn there are crops of sunflowers and apple orchards. Did I mention corn?

Sign: Don’t Reach For Just Any Peach.

Corn.

Ma & Pa’s Farmstand - corn and cantaloupes.

Delaware is certainly a fecund little agricultural state. There is charm to this intensity of small home-grown enterprise. The farms themselves are becoming prominent. Huge handsome farms they are, too. And more produce stands. We grown our own corn, brags one. You don’t say. Another farm stand advertises Lopes. This one’s a fruit market. It has peaches and lima beans.

We don’t stop at any of them since we are looking for the remembered chicken BBQ stands.

It turns out they have not vanished. They simply are shut. They’re a lunch thing and it is getting late now.

Bruce swallows his disappointment and promises me curry for dinner.

We drive past a massive dairy farm and suddenly we are in Maryland.

Altered State, I trumpet brilliantly.

Bruce flicks me a sideways look.

Sign: State Law. No Texting. No hand-held phones.

More corn fields. Now the farm stands are replaced by acres of mini storage compartments.

The sky is lowering. Clouds are massing. We are coming in to Denton. Car yards and strip malls. Walmart, Dunkin’ Donuts, Subway. We cross the Choptank River and marvel at its name. The sun is casting elliptical rays through the cloud layers. It is like a religious painting. Co-incidentally, there’s a huge solar panel farm. It extends for many acres. We wonder what it powers.

Oh, look, an outlet mall. A glossy, crowded hub of joyful consumerism. I look longingly.

Onwards we drive. Rivers, waterways and trucks, lots of trucks. Here comes the famous Chesapeake Bay bridge, a cable suspension bridge across the glorious, great bay.

That is one mighty view. The water is dotted with boats, barges and jet skis. People are playing on little beaches on the bay shore. Some are fishing off rocky groynes. It is the end of a hot day.

Now we humming along the road to Baltimore between walls of trees. And Bruce has a conniption.

What! Signs to the National Security Agency!

In my time working in the intel community it was completely secret, dark secret, he gasps. It used to be you couldn’t even mention the acronym NSA.

As if just to annoy him, there are more signs. NSA employees only. NSA deliveries here. There’s a stern cyclone wire fence but Bruce is still scandalised.

He points out the mass of power lines going in. They’re processing the world’s communications with huge supercomputers in there, he says.

But we’re on home turf now. This is Bruce’s old stamping ground. This is where I came 20 odd years ago when first we met. We’re nostalgic.

Soon we are unpacking in the Columbia Homewood Suites by Hilton.

Our destination for family reunions.

And what is that I spy across the way?

It is the Royal Taj Indian Restaurant - and the promised curry becomes delicious reality.