Fort Ward, a Civil War Museum

I dropped in on Fort Ward in Alexandria.  Fort Ward was one of the largest fortifications that protected Washington, DC during the Civil War.  Now you can walk through the park and see the places where the remains of the fort were.

There’s a display of Civil War artifacts inside, as well as a small bookstore.  The thing that amazed me the most was the displays about the soldiers.  I used to be in the army, and there are some things about that haven’t changed:

The display had a book on how a Civil War soldier should conduct himself.  We got one of those when we deployed to Desert Storm.

 Civil War soldiers used a triangle-shaped heater to warm the tent, with a hole above to let the smoke out.  We used a pot-bellied stove to warm the tent, with a pipe that poked through a hole in the tent.

When Civil War soldiers got together to cook and eat, it was called a “mess.”  When I lived in the barracks, I ate in a mess hall (though the army has been trying to change it to “dining facility”).

Fairfax Museum

It was so cold yesterday–temp was 35, with wind chill bringing it down to 22–that I opted for an indoors trip, this time to the Fairfax Museum. 

The museum is located in the first two-story school built in Fairfax in 1873.  Virginia has historical markers all over the state, and the museum had an exhibit of African-American history as it related to their markers.  Admittedly, I was not impressed with this exhibit.  It felt like they didn’t have a lot of material to work with–the room just seemed empty.  Like a 300-page book without much of a plot.

The second floor was more interesting, though I ended up looking at the exhibit in the dark (seriously!).  I took the elevator up, saw it was dark–just one set of lights on.  I went back downstairs and told the woman at the front desk; she said the other volunteer was up there. 

I went back upstairs, figuring that someone would come up and turn on the lights.  No such luck.  So I wandered around and tried to see what I could.  It primarily featured exhibits on the Civil War as it related to Fairfax. 

Carpenter’s tools were on display, including a ‘whet stone’ used to sharpen chisels and blades.  These were from the 1800’s,  Also on display was a Depression-era floral-patterned flour sack.  The flour sacks were made like this so they could be reused to make aprons, children’s clothes, and quilt squares.  This quilting site has more information.

Later, I went to the library, and they had a planned power outage.  Guess it was my day to be in the dark!