TRIPS INTO HISTORY

Stagecoaches came in a variety of styles. Some as just open carriages. The stagecoach of course most of us is more familiar with is the famous Concord Stage. This is the coach that many associate with Wells Fargo. This will give you an idea of the Concord Stagecoach. The coach weighed about 2,500 lbs. Amazingly, the coach could carry eighteen people. This configuration would place nine inside and nine on top of the stagecoach. The wood used in it’s construction was both ash and oak and generally four to six horses were used to pull the coach.

Making the Westward Journey by Stage

Much has been written about stagecoach travel during the old west days. Mostly it’s been depicted as none too comfortable. This is probably an accurate description especially if you’ve read some of the observations put down on paper by Mark Twain and a few others. His experience occurred about eight years before the transcontinental railroad was built. The stagecoach was about the only choice a person had to travel westward aside from horse riding alone or joining a wagon train.

Mark Twain, in his publication “Roughing It“, which describes he and his brother Orion’s stagecoach journey from St. Joseph Missouri to Carson City Nevada in the summer of 1861, gives one an understanding of what was involved in making the trip. Here are a few excerpts from Mark Twains journal…

plaza stable in san juan bautista — Plaza Stable, San Juan Bautista

“Our coach was a swinging and swaying cage of the most sumptuous description – an imposing cradle on wheels”.

“We began to get into country, now, threaded here and there with little streams. These had high, steep banks on each side, and every time we flew down one bank and scrambled up the other, our party inside got mixed sowewhat. First we would all lie down in a pile at the forward end of the stage, nearly in a sitting posture, and in a second we would shoot to the other end and stand on our heads”.

Stage Lines on the Old El Camino Real

Western Trips came across an interesting site in California which still displays advice given to stage coach travelers over a century ago by newspapermen. This display is showcased at the old San Juan Bautista California livery stable, the Plaza Stable, built in 1861 and which once served as the stop for the stagecoach. In fact, San Juan Bautista was established as both a settlement and mission by the Spaniards directly on the old El Camino Real “The King’s Highway”. Because of it’s location, San Juan Bautista at one time had as many as seven stage lines passing through it.Most of the traffic was going between San Francisco and Los Angeles but also a fair amount to Monterey, Watsonville and Santa Cruz on the coast.

Also, see our articles on the Black Canyon Arizona Stagecoach Line …Riding on the Butterfield Stage Route and The Woman Called Calamity Jane

concord stage coach — Concord Stagecoach model at Wells Fargo Museum, Old Town Sacramento CA

Visiting San Juan Bautista California

Today, the Plaza Stable is preserved as a museum which houses a variety of carriages, wagons, harnesses and other stable gear. San Juan Bautista, being only about 93 miles south of the center of San Francisco and also directly on the way to the popular Monterey Peninsula, is a great place to add to your California trip planner. If you’re heading out from the San Jose area it’s obviously much closer. San Juan Bautista is also home to Mission San Juan Bautista which is a very popular tourist site.

You’ll find an interesting photo article about Mission Juan Bautista on our Western Trips site.

Advice For Stagecoach Travelers

Travel advice and tips during the 1870’s was scarce and even scarcer when it came to traveling by stagecoach in the west. Newspapers generally took the lead in informing it’s readers about stage coach happenings.

charley parkhurst stagecoach driver — Charley Parkhurst Mural, California’s famous female stagecoach whip

In this endeavor, the information below was first published in the Omaha Herald newspaper, on October 3, 1877. Keep in mind that a stagecoach trip in many instances could be a long journey, not necessarily to the next town down the line. Because of this, there could be a variety of occurrances along the way, some okay and some not as okay. The advice given out by the Omaha newspaper was probably the result of either people desiring to know what to expect traveling by stagecoach and/or the stage lines themselves asking the paper to inform it’s readers so as to make the journey easy on all parties involved.

The published information is as follows:

“The best seat inside a stage is the one next to the driver. Even if you have a tendency to seasickness when riding backwards, you’ll get over it and will get less jolting and jostling. Don’t let any “sly elph” trade you his mid-seat.

In cold weather, don’t ride with tight-fitting boots, shoes, or gloves. When the driver asks you to get off and walk, do so without grumbling. he won’t request it unless absolutely necessary. If the team runs away, sit still and take your chances. If you jump, nine times out of ten you will get hurt.

In very cold weather, abstain entirely from liquor when on the road, because you will freeze twice as quickly when under its influence. Don’t growl at the food received at the station: stage companies generally provide the best they can get.

Don’t keep the stage waiting. Don’t smoke a strong pipe inside the coach. Spit on the leeward side. If you have anything to drink in a bottle, pass it around. Procure your stimulants before starting, as “ranch” (Stage Depot) whiskey is not “nectar”!

central overland stageline — Central Overland California & Pikes Peak Stage Line stamp

Don’t swear or lop over neighbors when sleeping. Take small change to pay expenses. Never shoot on the road as the noise might frighten the horses. Don’t discuss politics or religion. Don’t point out where murders have been committed especially if there are any women passengers.

Don’t lag at the wash basin. Don’t grease your hair, because travel is dusty.

Don’t imagine for a moment that you are going on a picnic. Expect annoyances, discomfort, and some hardship.

Expect the Unexpected

Not exactly a twenty-first hiking guide, but the article above appears to have been printed in an honest effort to make the journey as comfortable as possible for all passengers. Much of it pertains to issues of how to get along with your fellow passengers as well as the driver, usually referred to as the “whip”.

There were so many variables coming into play during a stagecoach journey that most advice can be summed up as “expect the unexpected“. To be sure, not every journey was horribly difficult. Just as in today’s news, the extraordinary is what gets publicized the most. By the same token, traveling by stagecoach was quite different from rail travel. That’s one of the reasons that the railroad brought more people west and created towns all along it’s way.

In addition to the Plaza Stable at San Juan Bautista, a lot of information about the old west stagecoach can be found at any one of the Wells Fargo museums such as the one in Old Sacramento and San Diego California. Also, you can view the old Deadwood Stagecoach at the Buffalo Bill Museum in Cody Wyoming.

(Stagecoach and San Juan Bautista photos from author’s private collection. Charley Parkhurst Mural and Overland Stage Line stamp from the public domain)

One of the most interesting stories to come out of the American Civil War was the arrangement of a site for the formal surrender of Robert E. Lee and his troops. How was the site selected? Who was in attendance at the signing? What became of the structure and furnishings after the war? These are all interesting details you may not have read about.

robert e lee in 1850 — Robert E. Lee at age 43 in 1850

First, one of the most ironic events in the Civil War concerned the site ultimately chosen for Lee’s surrender. How one man was connected to two of the largest of Civil War events, years apart and at two separate locations, is ironic in the extreme. The details of this along with the arrangements for the surrender of Robert E. Lee are two of the war’s more ironic moments.

The McLean Home

A man named Wilmer McLean had the distinction of claiming that the Civil War started and ended at his home. In a large way he was correct. It so happened that in 1861 McLean had settled at a site known as McLean’s Ford very near Bull Run. The Confederate forces had dug in at Bull Run erecting earth works as a defense of an expected surge of Union troops into the south. McLean’s home was essentially put on ground zero.

On July 18, 1861 a Union shell was fired and amazingly fell into the chimney of McLean’s house. The story is that the shell landed in a pot of stew and exploded. While there were no casualties in the McLean home as a result of the explosion, the event marked the opening salvo of what would be known as the first Battle of Bull Run. This engagement many say was the start of the war.

The Surrender of Robert E. Lee

Now, from the McLean Home that was at Bull Run in 1861, we fast forward to the last days of the Civil War. The setting was now 1865 with Richmond Virginia under heavy Union siege. Jefferson Davis had already fled the Confederate capital and was on the run heading to the Carolinas. Generals Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee were only a few miles apart.

The surrender of Robert E. Lee came at a time when the war for the Confederates was in utter turmoil. Lee’s army was ragged after months of marching and skirmishes and the lack of an adequate supply line, namely food, was devastating. Without a supply line and the choke hold the Union Army had on the South, Lee had very little choice than to surrender his army to General Grant.

Regarding Wilmer McLean, like many all over the country, he became tired of the war. When the armies retreated he moved to a farm in southern Virginia and resided in a house that fronted a street at Appomattox Courthouse. The house was on a well used stage route and had previously operated as a hotel. It became a single family home after McLeans’s purchase. As history would have it, Appomattox Courthouse would be the site where the Civil War officially ended. This time however, it wouldn’t be shells exploding that brought McLean to the center of events. By fate, it was in this small village that he had chosen to live where the Civil War would touch him again.

Where to Have the Official Signing

mclean house at appomattox courthouse — McLean House at Appomattox Court House in 1865

When Lee decided that there was no other alternative than to surrender and word of this was sent to Grant, the next question was where would this meeting take place?

McLean was walking in the village when a Confederate soldier approached him and asked where the two opposing generals might meet. McLean showed him a few sites which weren’t satisfactory for a variety of reasons, mostly inadequate furnishings. Eventually, McLean took the soldier to his own home and the site appeared perfect. The two Civil War generals met there afterwards, the surrender documents were signed and McLean’s house in Appomattox Courthouse would reside forever in Civil War History. In a very real way, by simply fate and coincidence, Wilmer McLean was present at both the official start and ending of the American Civil War.

Two additional Trips Into History photo articles you’ll find interesting are the Civil War Submarine and the Confederate Navy.

Preserving Such a Historic Site

At first most people would have assumed that the McLean House would have been carefully preserved for posterity. The fact is that it was and wasn’t. It stood at the same site in Appomattox Courthouse until the year 1893. At that time it was disassembled and brought to Washington D.C. for an exhibition. The people who financed this move however were ruined during the deep Financial Panic of that year and the house was never reassembled. The contractor who had torn it down and shipped it to Washington was never paid. All of the parts were laid out in the open and eventually were deteriorated beyond repair. The famous house would never be put together again.

The Original Furnishings

McLeanAppomattox_Court_House_Union_soldiers — Union soldiers gathered around the Appomattox Court House in 1865

Not as a surprise, some of the original furnishings in the McLean House appomattox courthouse in 1865″ at the time of Lee’s surrender became quite valuable to collectors. Chairs where Lee and Grant had sat were taken away against the wishes of McLean. Chairs which had cane backing were cut up and sold as mementos. General Philip Sheridan reportedly bought the table where the surrender terms were written up and eventually donated it to the widow of George Armstrong Custer. According to the book, A Terrible Glory by author James Donovan, Brevet General Custer mingled outside the McLean House with Confederate officers he had known from West Point while the surrender document was signed. General Custer and his troops had been involved in skirmishes and victories just a short time earlier around the village. General Ord also purchased the table where the signing actually occurred. That table is now on display at the Chicago Historical Society.

As luck would have it, a man named P.C. Hubard had made very detailed drawings of the house for the contractor before it was disassembled. Hubard’s drawings were then preserved in the Lynchburg Virginia Library. There the drawings stayed for decades. In 1948, just a few years after the end of World War Two, the Federal Government ordered that a replica house be constructed. Hubard’s drawings would be critical for the project. Donations were forthcoming and the state of Virginia appropriated money for the furnishings. The total cost of the project ended up to be just under $50,000.

The dedication of the McLean Home was made in 1950 in the presence of U.S. Grant III and Robert E. Lee IV. The home resides now at the Appomattox Courthouse National Historic Park in Virginia. Also within the Appomattox Courthouse Park is a Confederate Cemetery which is the final resting place for eighteen soldiers killed during the battles of Appomattox Station and Appomattox Court House.The park visitor center shows two different 15 minute videos on an hourly schedule in it’s 70 seat theater.

The Appomattox Court House National Historic Park is located in south central Virginia about 95 miles west of Richmond. If your road travels take you to Virginia, you’ll certainly want to add this very historic site to your trip planner.

(Photos from the public domain)

The Stagecoach

The Surrender of Robert E. Lee / The Ironic Details