Richmond, VA

Photos by Greg

Back to U.S. History!

Our last stop was Richmond, which was the capital of the Confederacy during the Civil War. Booth was headed there thinking that he would find that everyone loved him and revered him as a hero, but alas. He was shot in a barn instead.

We stopped by the state capital building, which is just gorgeous. It's on a very big hill and back in the day it looked over the James River, but now there are lots of ugly office buildings in the way. It's really unfortunate.




Dress: Alexandra Grecco
Cardigan: J.Crew
Necklace: My Gammy's
Belt: Stolen from my mom
Sunglasses: Dalaga
Shoes: Vinatge

The highlight of our visit in Richmond was definitely the tour of Jefferson Davis' house. One of the best things Sarah Vowell says in her book, "Assasination Vacation," is that historical tours aren't ever really about the important events that happened during the time people lived in the building, but rather the "thingyness of things". For example: how having wall paper that looked like marble was actually better than having the actual rock because it was a display of someone's wealth. Wall paper was really expensive back then and when someone had wall paper in their front hallway you knew that they were loaded. Those are the tid bits you learn on historical tours. Not that Jefferson Davis was sitting in this exact chair when he received the news that Lee surrendered to Grant.

Regardless, our tour guide was very sweet, funny and knowledgeable so he made the whole thing very interesting. Plus it seemed like he had practiced and memorized some kind of script or guideline, which our tour guide at Dr. Mudd's house definitely did not do.

We drove down Monument Ave before heading back up to D.C. Monument Ave. is exactly what you think it is - a street with lots of monuments on it. Literally every block had another Civil War statue. Stonewall Jackson, Jeff Davis, J.E.B. Stuart, P.T. Beauregard, George Pickett... I could go on. The best one though, is of Lee. It probably has the most grass around it and it's in the middle of a traffic rotary. It should also be noted that it's HUGE.

Richmond is so pretty and I can kind of see myself living here. I have no idea what I would do, but it definitely feels simpler down there, which was really refreshing.

This ends our history lesson! Well, for now :)