Our Ancestors On Spring Break, Letting Their Hair Down

JPK Huson 1863

Brev. Brig. Gen'l
Joined
Feb 14, 2012
Location
Central Pennsylvania
I'm not sure any of us can imagine what in blazes ' it ', meaning life was like those awful years, here in our country. For the men and women immersed in the war that is all there was- uniforms and death, camp and campaign, dirt and disease, fear and adrenaline and guns and bayonet and homesickness and heartache and tents, mud, horses, officers and maybe no tomorrow. Those a home fared better depending on where they may have lived, social status and how may horses they had in the race, as it were. It's still a kind of slow death waiting for the telegram, the garden gate's creak, the postman's knock at the door.

tourist at homephoto stage stop.jpg

How'd anyone get anywhere? Not everyone could afford their own team of horse much less changes of horses through a long trip. Trains sure did nor run everywhere- stagecoach, then hire your own transportation at some local livery stable. This is a stage stop- guessing some private homes could be used for a fee.



Vacation:

an extended period of recreation, especially one spent away from home or in traveling.
"he took a vacation in the south of France"
synonyms:
break, time off, recess, leave, leave of absence, furlough, sabbatical, spring break

https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=vacation+definition

tourist at home yosemite.jpg

Love this. Yosemite.

Oh good Heavens. As ruthless as it sounds, doing a little recreating while men died- perhaps men you knew and loved, some did. Who needed it more? Rattling around an empty house, listening to the clock, waiting for letters and worse. Recess from the war. I can't swear all of these are between 1861 and 1865. They were all tourist destinations.. In the case of Point Lookout, as soon as the photographer opened his studio, glued onto rocks thousands of feet in the air it took on a festive, get-away air. Even while wearing uniforms you get a sense of ' posing with tourist backdrop ' from these photographs, may with wives in tow, plus children. America, North and South, needed a break.

tourist mt vernon.jpg

Measures were taken to keep Mount Vernon safe. As it is today, Mount Vernon was a tourist attraction during those years.

tourist niag boy.jpg

Niagara Falls- thee are frequent images from here. It's never a great idea to guess but New York was far from harm's way.

tourist niag horse.jpg
tourists niag flls.jpg
tourists niagra falls.jpg

This last is extremely pre-war, just one of my favorites.
photo painting.jpg

They seem slightly 1870's- included them because ladies did tend to get together for afternoon activities. It was getting away without getting away. Most named these clubs things like ' The Wednesday Afternoon Club ', etc. ( my grgrgrandmother's ), and took turns presenting enlightening programs.

tourist at home photo croquet2.jpg

You could do whole threads on croquet- how odd these quiet, sylvan scenes are in the midst of a country's violent war. Dozens of era photos, croquet games at homes and hotels.

tourist chemung county 1860 baseball - Copy.jpg

Chemung County, New York baseball game. Can you imagine?

tourist pontoon bridgegeorgetown.jpg

Another favorite- that's an army's engineered bridge, outside Georgetown, civilians making the most of some social occasion on one of islands. I know which, it's just escaped this description.


tourist2 crystal palace.jpg

Really, really wish we still had the Crystal Palace

tourists lookout.jpg

Lookout Point was a very cool, tourist slash military attraction for tourists slash military with nerves of steel. And photographers.... one of them fell to his death. It was beyond tragic.

photo july4 picnic.jpg

This happens to be a 4th of July picnic but they could spring up out of thin air, for any occasion, mostly church based. I'm not sure our society appreciates ( or remembers ) how much of every day society revolved around various churches. Seems so odd to me this has been a little lost.
photo knitting.jpg

What you could call an ' outing ' so peaceful! You took your breaks where you could get them. It seems we became awfully good at I.

Or they brought ' peace ' to the war- this wife moved into a casemate, rocking here, her husband nearby. I don't know. Again- creating their breaks. Yosemite, a casemate, Niagara Falls-on the back lawn. Those who could, did.
women in wp interior of casemate - Copy.jpg






 
I was trying to find a photo but not have been able to find one yet,but. One month after Gettysburg on August 3,1863 Saratoga Race Track opened with a crowd of 5,000.it still goes on today August at Saratoga.
 
We just found the first tick on our dogs- I'd rather see crocus and daffodil. With winter fleeing, thought to bump this. Wonder why no one mentions ticks in the old journals? Or Lyme Disease. Just really, what a lovely time they had that day.
 
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