Pointless Prize: Civil War History

[BicycleBeth]

Civil War History Pointless Prize

I am sponsoring a Civil War History pointless prize. We have so much Civil War history in the DC Metro area, and I’d love for us to explore more of our nation’s heritage. I’ve had a great time cycling to Civil War sites this year including circle forts, the Battle of Gettysburg, and the Maryland Campaign of 1862. I’ve even designed and rode bicycle routes to follow troop movements leading up to the Battles of South Mountain, Antietam, and Gettysburg.

The Rules

For this contest, there are two ways to earn points, each of which will have a hashtag on Strava. You can earn a maximum of 7 points per day. That is, your ride can have both hashtags: #CivilWarMarker #CivilWarStreet. If you have multiple rides in one day and both rides are hashtagged for this prize, only the first ride of the day counts.

1. #CivilWarMarker +5 points
-Find Civil War Markers like monuments, historic signs with descriptions, circle forts, battle sites, and similar. Take a photo of the historic marker with your bicycle. Write a short description of the marker on Strava. This could be as simple as retyping the text of the marker or talking about where you found the marker or why it caught your eye.
-Hashtag the ride on Strava as #CivilWarMarker.
-One Civil War Marker counts PER DAY.
-Don’t repeat the same exact historic marker for the duration of Freezing Saddles. You’re on the honor system here.

2. #CivilWarStreet +2 points
-Find streets named after Civil War generals, key figures, and streets that were critical to the Civil War. Take a picture of your bike with the street sign. Write a short description of who this general/key figure was or why this street/street name was critical in the Civil War in the comment section on Strava.
-Examples for streets critical to the Civil War:
*”Military Road” in Arlington and in DC was designed to connect the circle forts defending the perimeter of Washington.
*Roads that were critical in battle movements also count as long as you annotate why they were important. For example, “Bolivar Road” is the approach that Union troops used to to engaged with Confederate troops at Fox’s Gap (on Reno Monument Road) at the Battle of South Mountain in September of 1862.
-Hashtag the ride on Strava as #CivilWarStreet.
-One Civil War Street counts PER DAY.
-Do not repeat the same street in the same city/town but you could find the same street name in a different city. For example, “Lee” Street appears in multiple cities in the region. You could ride “Lee” Street in 5 different cities on 5 different days and have them all count. But don’t just ride another block down the same street and count that as a new sign (unless it’s in a different city). You’re on the honor system here.

RULES EDITED on 1/3/2021 TO ADD:
1. Hashtags, photos, and Strava captions/ride comments must be completed no later than 3 days after the date of the ride. No saving up those points for the last minute!

2. You must be willing to accept my Strava friend request or have a public profile that I can follow so that I can read your civil war posts and audit them for accuracy and completeness.

3. If your Civil War Marker is not clearly connected to the Civil War on the marker itself, then you must explain the connection in your comments. For example, you see a courthouse or fort sign that you know was relevant to the civil war but is otherwise not explained on the sign. You take a picture with the marker and your bike. You should also explain what the connection is to the Civil War.

4. (2/7/2021 clarification) The Civil War streets, other than those used for troop and supply movements, should be named after historical FIGURES from the Civil War to include topics related to secession, slavery, abolition, the Underground Railroad, and Reconstruction and the politics of these events. Just to be clear, a key figure or historical figure is a PERSON not a city, battlefield, park, ship name, etc. The key figure should be historically remembered in some way that was relevant to one of these topics. Streets do not need to literally be named after the person. They can just be the same name as the surname of the historical figure.

5. (2/8/2021 edit, clarification, and grandfather clause). From the original rules under #civilwarstreet, I wrote “Write a short description of who this general/key figure was or why this street/street name was critical in the Civil War in the comment section on Strava.” This grammatical construction (in particular, “street name”) may have legitimately led people to believe that additional categories other than the two intended categories were allowed. Thus, I will grandfather in all entries referring to places, ships, ship movements, etc until 2/8/2021 as long as all other rules were followed.

To be very clear, I will rewrite this sentence into two sentences.
For Historical Figures: Write a short description of who this Civil War figure was and what role they played in the Civil War in the comment/caption section on Strava. Historical Figures includes both prominent and historically-recorded figures as described earlier.
For Troop Movements and Critical Civil War Routes: Write a short description of why this street was critical to troop and/or supply movements in the Civil War in the comment/caption section on Strava. The idea is that you will ride your bike in the same place that troops or supply wagons used during the Civil War so that you can experience the terrain they encountered. You can use the same street for troop movements multiple times as long as each time you use it it is in a different jurisdiction. The reason for this is that terrain varies between jurisdictions, and I want you to relive the troop movements.
-For example, Georgia Avenue (the Seventh Street Turnpike) was used both for the Battle of Fort Stevens (Confederates attacking and retreating and Federals in pursuit) and for Burnside moving troops and material up to Gettysburg. Based on my research, I can get Georgia Ave in DC, Silver Spring, Wheaton, and Olney since these are four generally viewed as distinct jurisdictions.

–What is not allowed, example: Appomotax Court in Springfield, Virginia would NOT count. Why you might think it would count: Troops fought in Appomattox and Gen. Lee surrendered at the Appomattox Court House. But does it meet either of these two tests:
*Does it share the name of a historical FIGURE (a person) from the Civil War? (No. Appomattox is not a person but rather a place.)
*Did Civil War troops or supplies move on this street and in this jurisdiction? Are you riding your bike in the same place that troops/supplies were documented to be during the Civil War? (No. Gen. Lee did not surrender in Springfield, VA on Appomattox Ct. And Appomattox Court did not exist during the Civil War so documented troop movements for this street are highly unlikely.)

Prizes for the Top 3 Winners!!!
The top 3 winners will be honored on the Freezing Saddles forum and receive their choice of the following Audible audio books delivered electronically. If there is a tie for more than 3 top place finishers, then I will go through a subset of the hashtagged Strava posts, view the photos, and read the descriptions posted to Strava and subjectively decide who was more thorough in documenting civil war history.

1. The Great Courses: The American Civil War
2. The Great Courses: The History of the United States, 2nd Edition
3. Another Great Course on American history of your choice by one of these professors: Allen C. Guelzo, Gary W. Gallagher, or Patrick N. Allitt

For this forum, we can post and discuss our Civil War history finds. However, this is just for fun and not for points. The points are counted on Strava.

Track how you are doing in each category here:
Civil War Marker: https://freezingsaddles.org/pointless/hashtag/civilwarmarker
Civil War Street: https://freezingsaddles.org/pointless/hashtag/civilwarstreet
https://freezingsaddles.org/pointless/civilwarhistory

Topic

[BicycleBeth]

@bikesnick 209777 wrote:

Apologies. I have removed the post and hashtag. My submission was based on the following line from Wikipedia:
“Married to Wyatt Lee at that time, she was identified as Mrs. Rebecca Lee by the school, where she was the only African American graduate. She was the country’s first African-American woman to become a formally-trained physician.”

I stand corrected, Bikesnick. Please keep the marker. Now that I knew to look for Wyatt Lee, I found a source: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/158775134/wyatt-lee

[AlanA]

@BicycleBeth 209778 wrote:

I stand corrected, Bikesnick. Please keep the marker. Now that I knew to look for Wyatt Lee, I found a source: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/158775134/wyatt-lee

Beth. I wasn’t trying to cause any issues for Bikesnick. I am somewhat amused at what he comes up with. Since bikedavid asked about how this information was being found, I was trying to explain how easy it was to come up with a lot of random stuff by doing a simple search.

Sorry if anyone thought I was trying to challenge anything. It’s only a game! And for people who don’t happen to live along a few major routes for troops movements, the street part can be tricky. I have to say that Jubal Early and JEB Stuart have come in handy for me!

[bikesnick]

Beth,
I have been trying to highlight people from the Civil War that might not be as well known as others. To find people, I have looked through records of Medal of Honor winners, nurses, spies, Underground Railroad conductors, etc. and then look for streets with those names. It has been very informative and I have learned that there are many interesting people who have accomplished much, that I never knew about. There were so many people, that for the month of February, in honor of Black History Month, I only chose African Americans. Similarly for March, I am choosing women. History always has been one of my least favorite subjects, but this has been an enjoyable challenge. Thank you for creating it.

[bikesnick]

[submitted on 12 March 2021]

Rebecca Lee was the first Black woman to receive a doctor of medicine degree in the US. During the Civil War she practiced in Boston, serving poor African American women and children. After the War, she worked in Richmond for the Freedmen’s Bureau* to provide care for freed enslaved people. In 2019, the Governor of Virginia declared 30 March (National Doctors Day) as the Dr. Rebecca Lee Crumpler Day.
* The Freedmen’s Bureau was a US government agency, post Civil War, to help with provisions and care of former enslaved people.

Lee Street (Falls Church, VA)
[ATTACH=CONFIG]25124[/ATTACH]

[AlanA]

@bikesnick 209784 wrote:

Beth,
I have been trying to highlight people from the Civil War that might not be as well known as others. To find people, I have looked through records of Medal of Honor winners, nurses, spies, Underground Railroad conductors, etc. and then look for streets with those names. It has been very informative and I have learned that there are many interesting people who have accomplished much, that I never knew about. There were so many people, that for the month of February, in honor of Black History Month, I only chose African Americans. Similarly for March, I am choosing women. History always has been one of my least favorite subjects, but this has been an enjoyable challenge. Thank you for creating it.

I’m with you! I am not a big history buff either, but this game is really informative.

I did not notice that you only used African Americans for Feb. or only women for Mar. Thanks for pointing that out. That’s pretty amazing that you made that effort! I am just scrambling to find roads at this point.

[BicycleBeth]

@bikesnick 209784 wrote:

Beth,
I have been trying to highlight people from the Civil War that might not be as well known as others. To find people, I have looked through records of Medal of Honor winners, nurses, spies, Underground Railroad conductors, etc. and then look for streets with those names. It has been very informative and I have learned that there are many interesting people who have accomplished much, that I never knew about. There were so many people, that for the month of February, in honor of Black History Month, I only chose African Americans. Similarly for March, I am choosing women. History always has been one of my least favorite subjects, but this has been an enjoyable challenge. Thank you for creating it.

Super cool! I’m so thrilled to hear that you’re enjoying history in a new way. I had noticed that you seemed to be playing a special version of the street game so it’s cool to understand more about your approach.

Thank you for understanding about me not finding out about Rebecca Lee being married to Wyatt Lee from the sources I looked at.

Keep up the good work!

[consularrider]

White’s Ford on the Potomac.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]25128[/ATTACH]

[Boomer Cycles]

#CivilWarMarker – Frederick Douglass Park
Downtown St Michaels MD, at corner of Talbot & Mill Streets.
Landscaped seating area and information kiosk about Frederick Douglass who lived as a slave in the St. Michaels area from 1833-1836.

Douglass wrote several autobiographies, notably describing his experiences as a slave in his Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1845), which became a bestseller, and was influential in promoting the cause of abolition, as was his second book, My Bondage and My Freedom (1855). Following the Civil War, Douglass remained an active campaigner against slavery and wrote his last autobiography, Life and Times of Frederick Douglass. First published in 1881 and revised in 1892, three years before his death, the book covers events both during and after the Civil War. Douglass also actively supported women’s suffrage, and held several public offices. Without his approval, Douglass became the first African-American nominated for Vice President of the United States as the running mate and Vice Presidential nominee of Victoria Woodhull, on the Equal Rights Party ticket.

Sent from Boomer_Cycles via my iPhone using Tapatalk

[bikesnick]

Francis Elizabeth Quinn was a soldier in the Union Army during the Civil War. She enlisted five separate times using different male names, including giving a false name as her true name when discharged. She even petitioned President Lincoln to allow her to remain in service. During her fifth time of enlistment, she was captured by the Confederates, attempted escape, was shot and discovered to be a woman in hospital. She was released in a prisoner exchange.

N. Quinn Street (Arlington, VA)
[ATTACH=CONFIG]25150[/ATTACH]

[bikesnick]

Belle Reynolds was a nurse during the Civil War, including at the Battle of Shiloh. She traveled with her husband’s regiment for almost the entire war. For her service, the governor of Illinois awarded her the rank of major. After the war, she studied and practiced medicine, surgery and homeopathy.

Reynolds Street (Falls Church, VA)
[ATTACH=CONFIG]25193[/ATTACH]

[bikesnick]

Mary Stevens Jenkins served as a soldier in the Civil War. She enlisted in a Pennsylvania regiment while still a schoolgirl, remained in the army two years, received several wounds, and was discharged without anyone ever realizing she was female.

Jenkins Lane (Falls Church, VA)
[ATTACH=CONFIG]25206[/ATTACH]

[bikesnick]

Susie King Taylor, enslaved at birth in Georgia, escaped to an island controlled by Union forces and became the first Black teacher to openly teach freed African American students (children and adults) in Georgia and the first Black Army nurse. She served as a nurse and teacher in the 33rd USCT regiment, without pay. After the war, she was the first, and only, African American women to publish an account of her experiences during the Civil War.

Taylor Road (Falls Church, VA)
[ATTACH=CONFIG]25222[/ATTACH]

[Boomer Cycles]

Private William A. Collins of Statesville, N.C., served in Company C of the 48th North Carolina Infantry Regiment from March 1862 until his death in December 1862. The collection is chiefly letters that William A. Collins sent to his family in Statesville, Iredell County, N.C. Collins’s letters discuss camp life; the Regiment’s first combat action against Union gun boats at City Point on the James River near Petersburg, Va., 16 June 1862; and actions in northern Virginia and Maryland in the course of which he was wounded and captured at the Battle of Antietam on 17 September 1862.

Liberty Cemetery is a 1/4 acre parcel originally deeded to Ebenezer Lodge No. 14, Sons and Daughters of Liberty for use as a graveyard in 1907 (Db X6:539). The cemetery and surrounding property was condemned by the Fairfax County School Board in 1965, displacing a small but vibrant Afro American community for a school that was never built. It is now located within Pine Ridge Park near Inova Fairfax Hospital.

Collins struggle wasn’t recognized until the 1990s, but it came too late to benefit his displaced descendants.

Sent from Boomer_Cycles via my iPhone using Tapatalk

[bikesnick]

Jessie Rupert, while living in pro-Confederacy Virginia during the Civil War, taught African Americans to read and write (which was illegal), flew the American flag, burned a Confederate flag, and cared for both Union and Confederate wounded soldiers.

Rupert Street (McLean, VA)
[ATTACH=CONFIG]25249[/ATTACH]

[BicycleBeth]

Thank you everyone for playing the Civil War history game with such enthusiasm! We had 31 people participate and over a dozen regular players. I learned so many new things about the Civil War especially regarding the abolition movement, the Underground Railroad, and how the Civil War and Reconstruction changed Washington City long-term. I loved reading your posts and learning from your cycling adventures. As promised I have Audible “Great Course” prizes for the top 3 Civil War History players.

Congratulations to the winners!

#1 Matt Williams 529 points
#2 Alan Adams 433 points
#3 Cathy Miller 322 points
Honorable Mention: Glenn Glenn/Bikesnick, 194 points

As a reminder, here are the prizes:
The winners will each receive their choice of the following Audible audio books delivered electronically to their email. Check out the options online at Audible

1. The Great Courses: The American Civil War
2. The Great Courses: The History of the United States, 2nd Edition
3. Another Great Course on American history of your choice by one of these professors: Allen C. Guelzo, Gary W. Gallagher, or Patrick N. Allitt

To get you your prize, I’ll need your email address and which Great Course you would like. I’ll message you on the forum to get your email address.

[Author]

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