The One Hundred & Forty Five Year Boat Ride

Spring sprung. It happened fast here in Richmond. For awhile, it crouched like a wild-eyed cat wiggling its backside, positioning itself for the kill. When it pounced, it was quick. My sinuses were the first to alert me that we were under attack.

I endured four days of endless sneezing, but now I've adjusted. I learned years ago that if I take allergy medicine, then I'm stuck taking it. It's better for me to suffer a few days of hell and let my body regulate naturally. I was tempted, though, to stuff tissues up my nose at the office and just let them hang there, daring anyone to say anything. A runny nose is so aggravating.

In an effort to ignore my nose, I roamed around the Fan District taking some pictures. I'm only including a few. The photo at the top shows a camellia blossom. We had those around our house when I was growing up.

The tree immediately above is a saucer magnolia, and their blooms are really spectacular.

Below you'll see Robert E. Lee astride his mount in the center of Monument Avenue. In the distance is Stuart Court, where I lived in the early 80's.

Springtime means that Sadie pulls her plaid boating shoes from the back of her closet and starts humming sea shanties. A boat from her fleet is brought out of storage and delivered to her home, all spruced up and ready for cruising on the James River. The following pictures were taken on Easter Sunday. Sadie, Sheldon & I went down to Hopewell and back.

Appomattox Manor, shown below, sits on the promontory of City Point at Hopewell, and was the Union headquarters during Grant's siege of Petersburg. Here the waters are wide, and the house overlooks the confluence of the James & Appomattox Rivers. Toward the end of the Civil War, when the Union forces occupied this plantation, City Point was the busiest port in the world with an enormous U.S. supply depot for its troops.

Appomattox Plantation dates back to 1635, and the house itself was a century old when Grant used it as his headquarters. President Lincoln was visiting here when the Confederate government fled Richmond after setting it ablaze. On Easter Sunday, it was hard to imagine the calm waters bristling with schooners, packet ships, paddle wheelers, and supply barges.

One hundred & forty five years ago, after the fall of Richmond, Abraham Lincoln insisted upon being taken upriver to Richmond. Grant's staff pleaded against such a risky venture, but Lincoln would have none of it. Two days after the evacuation of the Confederate Capital, Lincoln and his son Tad were aboard the steamer River Queen heading up the same river that that Sadie had navigated. We had no need to worry about mine-laced waters, however, as Lincoln did.

About noon, the steamer encountered a line of Confederate obstructions in the river; sunken objects intended to keep Richmond safe from Union forces. Above this line, many mines remained in the water, but a side-wheel steamer, the Malvern, swept the waters. Also in attendance were a gunboat, and a transport ship holding a cavalry escort and the president's carriage & horses.

Pictured below, a modern-day dock worker sullenly prepares to pump gas into Sadie's boat. Oh, wait, that's Sheldon.

We gassed up, got ice cream, and I bought a t-shirt at Jordan Point Marina. Beyond Sheldon you can see the Benjamin Harrison Bridge, and there's a better picture of it below. The bridge replaced ferry service in 1966, and eleven years later an ocean-going tanker rammed the bridge.

The lift span had been raised for the ship, which meant that motorists were sitting on the bridge in their cars waiting for the vessel to pass. When it became clear that the ship was heading directly for them, people scrambled from their vehicles and ran pell-mell for their lives. Four cars tumbled into the water, but no one was hurt. It took twenty months to repair the bridge. Somehow, Sadie avoided ramming the bridge and inconveniencing commuters. Hats off to you, Captain Sadie!

Next we see a house on a bluff perched on the riverbank. Notice there are trees around the house. In general, there are trees lining the banks of the river. In fact, there are trees nearly everywhere you go in Virginia. One of my mother's cousins from Iowa, en route to our house on vacation, reportedly went temporarily mad in the car somewhere around Williamsburg after riding for miles surrounded by deep woods and screamed "WHAT IS BEHIND ALL THESE TREES???"

I can understand that. In Iowa, if you see trees in the distance, it means farm (a few trees) or town (many trees). Otherwise it's just fields. Ruth was simply thrown off-balance by so many things growing out of the ground that weren't crops.

Sheldon, on the other hand, grew up in Virginia. He's lived here all his life. As we passed by one of the few barren spots along the James, with probably an unsightly landfill over the rise of the bank, he commented on "how pretty that looks." What a weirdo. He & I have been riding in the car together, and he'll say "Boy, I like that house" and when I look, there's a home with not a tree in the yard and about two scraggly bushes huddled up to the house. I think he may have fallen on his head out of a tree when he was little. There's a resentment there somewhere.

On our way upriver, we passed this boat coming down; the Do Run Rum. What a splendid boat.

Going back to Lincoln's journey up this river in 1865, it was near this place that all of the vessels in his flotilla were unable to pass a second line of obstructions; the Confederates had sunk entire steamships to keep Richmond secure. Only a small span remained open. No doubt, the attending officers & crew were relieved.

Until Lincoln insisted upon being transferred to the admiral's barge, which was really just a big rowboat. A small steam tug, with thirty marines aboard to guard Lincoln, took the barge in tow. Lincoln was in high spirits, even as wrecked shipping and dead horses, the detritus of war, floated by.

There's Jimmy Dean the Sausage King's home below, rebuilt after a fire. No pigs visible in the yard.

As we got back to Sadie's place, we passed by the Boathouse Restaurant. In a river town, oddly, it's one of the only places you can dine right next to the James River. Apparently, is used to be a power plant.

On that long-ago journey to Richmond, the tugboat ran aground before reaching the city. Lincoln would continue without an escort. Four ships holding hundreds of sailors & soldiers had been reduced to an open rowboat. Twelve sailors guarded the President of the United States as he walked uphill to the White House of the Confederacy. He had made it safely to the capital of the enemy. Ten days later he would be shot in Washington, D.C. I reflected on the brash voyage of a complex and inspiring man as I looked out on the placid waters of the James River on Easter Sunday.

Here's Sadie's place, preparing to slide into downtown Richmond by the looks of this photograph.

And we end our boat ride with Fisherman Sheldon showing us how not to catch anything at all.

Of course, the next time he was out on the boat, he caught a very large shad. He says. I wasn't there to verify that tall tale. I have to rag on Sheldon a bit; he has a birthday this Friday, and he's younger than me, the bastard.