There's an excitement about the first class meeting of the season. I've known some of my classmates for a long time, and typically I haven't seen them in a year.There's something reassuring about seeing familiar faces year after year. Even though many things change in our world, here are the same people back for the same course. It's in a different place, of course. Last year and the year before we studied the struggle for West Virginia. Before that we dealt with the aftermath of Gettysburg, and now we are back to the chronology that followed that campaign. (The West Virginia trips were an interruption in the usual chronology; they were an answer to requests to see the sites in Dr. Poland's book about 1861.)
Of course, we have new faces each year too. We had a group this year from a University of Richmond program in Northern Virginia. They were attracted by the opportunity to earn course credits in an extended weekend (plus homework). Hope they didn't find the intense travel schedule too grueling.
This year's trips covered part of Sheridan's 1864 campaign to drive Early out of the Shenandoah Valley. We started with the battle of Trevilian Station and ended with Third Winchester.
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