shenandoah
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Joined: 3/1/2007
From: Shenandoah Valley, Virginia
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An article in the local paper Daily News Record in Harrisonburg, VA. Personally, I am not much into marching. I would rather do all that on the computer. Historically, he should be nearing my house at the end of the month(near Strasburg where Stonewall flanked Commissary Banks). Of course, the roads are all paved and he doesn't have to do any fighting! So he should make great time. Maybe I will go down to Route 11 when he passes and give him some hardtake, bacon and cornbread. Or maybe green corn and some apples(not those fancy shiny apples either.) This is what they call hardcore. There are a lot of those guys around here.
PORT REPUBLIC — U.S. Army Lt. Col. D. Jonathan White talks the Civil War talk.
Now, White, of Waynesboro, is walking the walk.
On Thursday, White embarked on a trek of 400 miles, following the path of Gen. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson during the Shenandoah Valley campaign of 1862.
The walk fulfills a personal goal as he ends a 22-year Army career this summer. But White, a Green Beret, is also using the occasion to raise awareness about the loss of Civil War battlefields in the region.
Jackson’s Schedule
A rifle over his left shoulder and knapsack on his back, White walked through Port Republic in his Confederate living history uniform. He headed for Brown’s Gap in the Blue Ridge Mountains in the Shenandoah National Park.
White, 43, plans to follow a schedule set by the Stonewall Brigade, which was under Jackson’s command.
White picked up the campaign’s trail from May 3, 1862, with his walk into Brown’s Gap.
The trip will take him across the length of the Valley twice, including Harrisonburg, and as far north as Harpers Ferry, W.Va.
He will finish at Port Republic on June 9.
Jackson fought five battles in about as many weeks, inflicting a series of defeats on Union forces in the Valley during the spring of 1862.
Jackson’s campaign, still considered by some a military model, diverted Union troops away from a major effort to capture Richmond, the Confederate capital.
Jackson’s movements exploited the topography that White plans to revisit.
For the trip, White has packed a canvas blanket boiled in linseed oil to help keep the rain off when his schedule calls for camping along the route.
Susan, his wife, will deliver some food. "I expect to lose some weight on this trip," he said.
Native Virginian
Susan dropped her husband off at Port Republic on Thursday.
"He’s talked about this forever," she said.
Susan described her husband, a native of Roanoke, as a man bound by duty. "It’s his way to honor those who defended Virginia," she said of the walk. "He is a son of Virginia."
Her husband’s interest in the Civil War developed as he grew up in Waynesboro.
"It’s everywhere in the Valley," he said of the reminders of the conflict.
Military Service
White started his college career at the University of Alabama as a cadet in the Army ROTC program. He finished his undergraduate work in Russian and East European studies at George Washington University to be closer to Washington, D.C.
After graduation, White began his commitment to the Army. From 1985 to 1988, he was part of the 101st Airborne Division. He joined the 5th Special Forces Group in 1989.
He found himself in Iraq in 1991 and 1996, and again in the Middle East in 2003.
For the past two years, White has been an instructor at the British Joint Services Command and Staff College, about an hour west of London.
Subjects he has taught include military history, which includes the American Civil War.
Saving Civil War Sites
Battlefield preservation is important to the study of the 1862 campaign, White said.
But inevitable growth and development, he said, are encroaching on Civil War battlefields that help tell the campaign’s story.
"I just want the historic nature of the land to be factored into the calculations of development in the Valley," he said.
In the spirit of his walk, White wants people to donate money for preservation to the Shenandoah Valley Battlefields Foundation based at New Market.
The foundation’s Web site is at www.shenandoahatwar.org. White has a link to the site on his Web page at www.walkthevalleycampaign.com.
"I want people in the Valley to realize that historic land is going away," he said.
Contact Jeff Mellott at 574-6290 or jmellott@dnronline.com
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