"Every Picture Tells a Story ... Don't It:" On the Road - The Colorful Shenandoah, Chapter II | Eastern North Carolina Now

During my time in the Shenandoah Valley, it was Autumn; however, I was about one week beyond the peak, and the peak was not that brilliant in 2011 due to the terrible weather in the Southeast: not enough rain, too hot, too much rain - way too much natural stress on the regional environment. And even though the colors were rather muted, they were altogether lovely still: Above and below.     photos by Stan Deatherage

Looking north across the Shenandoah Valley, from the Skyline Drive,we get an idea of the breadth of what was known as the "Confederacy's bread basket: Above. Looking northwest across the Shenandoah Valley, from the Skyline Drive, we see the Massanutten Mountain in the middle ground, which is the southern tip of the Massanutten Mountain Range: Below.     photos by Stan Deatherage

    As you may have surmised from the previous picture of the Massanutten Mountain range, there in the middle ground, and also from the maps, the one shown and the enlarged version, the Shenandoah Valley was the perfect battle ground for the far wiser Confederate forces that needed the logistical lay-of-the-land to defeat the far superior Union forces, and continue to supply their boys in the butternut grey. The Shenandoah Valley was just too essential as a tactical asset to surrender to the far superior numbers of the North's Army of the Potomac, so these lads from mostly Virginia and North Carolina fought like wild wolverines to hold this valley.

   Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson, from nearby Lexington, Virginia, defeated the norther intruders on every battlefield, from 1st Manassas to Chancellorsville, where he was mortally wounded by one of his own soldiers, who mistook him for a Yankee courier. General Jackson knew how to access the high ground in the valley, and once used Massanutten's Synclinal Ridge, which occupies the length of the center of the northern Shenandoah Valley, as a nearly 52 mile platform, from which the resourceful general could observe the Union movements, and swoop down from the high gorges of the Massanutten Range, engage his enemy, and then retreat again to their safety. As long as General Jackson was alive, he controlled the Shenandoah Valley.
North of Staunton, in northwestern Augusta County, is this geological oddities, the Natural Chimneys. Rising from the Shenandoah Valley is this vertical outcrop, built from sedimentary rock and erosion. Somehow, I picture this unique rugged chunk of Earth as a perfect vantage point for a talented sharpshooter: Above and below.     photos by Stan Deatherage

    To be continued as time permits in "Every Picture Tells a Story ... Don't It:" On the Road - The Colorful Shenandoah, Chapter III.