Antietam
12 miles this morning, actually 12.3 on this course which is the now habitual Acme Loop with the 34th St. add on and a couple of miles tacked on at the end after Erin and Kevin J. bowed out. Today is MLK Day (and also Tony's 9th birthday - halfway to adulthood) and the kids have off from school, so there was not that urgency to be home to get Tony to school. Thus I took a longer route this morning and now don't have any question of whether to do another workout later today. Time, by the way, was 1:41:01, translating roughly into an 8:10 pace. That's misleading though, as pace was quicker at the beginning than at the end.
It was colder out than I realized, and I underdressed just enough to make things uncomfortable. Mostly this was due to my lack of wearing a hat, and that resulted in my face and ears chilling up. Other noteworthy events on this morning's run was news that Kevin ran sub 70 and pr'd in yesterday's 10-mile Icicle Run, impressive given the course and conditions. We caught a beautiful postindustrial sunrise, and further explored the notion of foxes and coyotes in Philadelphia, a topic which fascinates me enough to have found some followup on this topic here.
In my virtual travels (see map in yesterday's entry) I am now in Antietam. I now see this little exercise as a virtual Chautauqua - modeled after the traveling educational shows that were popular in the rural US about 100 years ago (and I'll credit the book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance for introducing me to this phenomenon). Only instead of educating the locals I let the locales educate me, and pass on some of this newfound knowledge here (but not to much to bore).
Antietam took place in 1862 when Lee, after venturing up to Maryland for awhile, dug in there and waited for McClellan to root him out. What resulted is a battle where each side basically decimated themselves by throwing troops at their opponents lines. The tactics are hard to follow, but then there may not be any, as European military historians reportedly don't study the US Civil War, which they characterize as "mob warfare". Nonetheless, there are three outcomes that I find noteworthy:
First, it was the bloodiest day ever in US military history with over 23,000 casualties on both sides. Damn.
Second, after all that bloodshed the battle is considered a draw - noone won. Historians generally say that had McClellan been more aggressive after this battle he could have delivered the coup de grace to Lee's army and precluded the need for three more years of fighting.
Third, despite the draw the battle ended Lee's foray into the north and gave Lincoln the pretext to issue the Emancipation Proclamation. This means that after Antietam the Civil War was officially about freeing slaves.
Which makes a good segue for the next stop, Harper's Ferry WV, where John Brown made his stand. Its just down the road, 13 miles or so, and so the Chautauqua continues.
It was colder out than I realized, and I underdressed just enough to make things uncomfortable. Mostly this was due to my lack of wearing a hat, and that resulted in my face and ears chilling up. Other noteworthy events on this morning's run was news that Kevin ran sub 70 and pr'd in yesterday's 10-mile Icicle Run, impressive given the course and conditions. We caught a beautiful postindustrial sunrise, and further explored the notion of foxes and coyotes in Philadelphia, a topic which fascinates me enough to have found some followup on this topic here.
In my virtual travels (see map in yesterday's entry) I am now in Antietam. I now see this little exercise as a virtual Chautauqua - modeled after the traveling educational shows that were popular in the rural US about 100 years ago (and I'll credit the book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance for introducing me to this phenomenon). Only instead of educating the locals I let the locales educate me, and pass on some of this newfound knowledge here (but not to much to bore).
Antietam took place in 1862 when Lee, after venturing up to Maryland for awhile, dug in there and waited for McClellan to root him out. What resulted is a battle where each side basically decimated themselves by throwing troops at their opponents lines. The tactics are hard to follow, but then there may not be any, as European military historians reportedly don't study the US Civil War, which they characterize as "mob warfare". Nonetheless, there are three outcomes that I find noteworthy:
First, it was the bloodiest day ever in US military history with over 23,000 casualties on both sides. Damn.
Second, after all that bloodshed the battle is considered a draw - noone won. Historians generally say that had McClellan been more aggressive after this battle he could have delivered the coup de grace to Lee's army and precluded the need for three more years of fighting.
Third, despite the draw the battle ended Lee's foray into the north and gave Lincoln the pretext to issue the Emancipation Proclamation. This means that after Antietam the Civil War was officially about freeing slaves.
Which makes a good segue for the next stop, Harper's Ferry WV, where John Brown made his stand. Its just down the road, 13 miles or so, and so the Chautauqua continues.
posted by seebo | 10:36 AM
1 Comments:
Stephen A Douglas was a great debater, but Abrham Lincoln was the Great Emancipator. Or so I hear.
I once saw a fox in the Belmont Woods. I was very surprised to see what small creatures they are.
Post a Comment
<< Home