Petersburg to Jamestown Great American Railroad Journeys

I have crossed the Atlantic to ride the railroads of America

with a new travelling companion.

Published in 1879, my Appletons' General Guide will steer me

to everything that's novel,

beautiful,

memorable or curious in the United States.

-ALL:

-Amen!

As I cross the continent, I'll discover America's Gilded Age

when powerful tycoons launched a railway boom

that tied the nation together and carved out its future

as a superpower.

I've travelled from the cradle of American independence, Philadelphia,

through the nation's capital, Washington, DC

and south to Richmond, Virginia

on my way to Jamestown.

Today, I continue in Virginia,

south through Petersburg to the naval base at Norfolk.

From there I'll head to

colonial Williamsburg.

I'll end where the earliest English settlers hung their hats, Jamestown.

TRAIN HORN BLARES

I'm reaching the end of my United States journey

travelling through Virginia.

As I've raced through American history,

from colony to global superpower, I'm looking forward to

a conclusion that will lift up my heart.

On the way, I get into colonial character

on Williamsburg's plantations...

Push away for me a little bit more.

Perfect.

That's a good looking furrow.

..discover the truth about the first settlers...

This is ground zero.

This is the centre of the beginning of the New World.

..and my spirits are raised by the First Baptist gospel choir.

# The Lord is my Shepherd

# That I shall not want. #

-Where are you going?

-Petersburg.

-To your left.

-Thank you.

'I'm travelling on a route recommended in my Appletons'

'which starts in Richmond and goes all the way

'to Charleston, South Carolina.'

My next stop is Petersburg, which Appletons' tells me is,

"A well built-city at the head of navigation of the Appomattox River.

"Since the Civil War, the place has prospered

"and the signs of the conflict are rapidly disappearing."

To which I say -

hallelujah!

Thank you very much. Bye!

Petersburg was the scene of one of the last great struggles

of the American Civil War,

which culminated in the abolition of slavery in the United States.

I'm meeting Julian Green Jr from the First Baptist Church -

the oldest African-American Baptist church in America.

-Oh, Michael, it's such a pleasure to meet you.

-And you, sir.

Welcome to First Baptist.

Julian, when do black people first become Baptists in Virginia?

In Virginia, it goes back to 1756.

Blacks were worshipping on various plantations because that was

the saving grace for what they endured on a day-to-day basis.

Because families were split,

husband and wives were sold to different plantations.

Some Baptists defended slavery, but others preached against it,

believing that all men were created equal by God.

By the 1770s, up to a tenth of Virginia's population was Baptist.

We are 241 years old.

We are proud of that and we are humble of that.

Was singing important from the earliest days?

Singing was the way that the message translated to them.

The music was how the message got to the masses.

John Newton had a revelation

when he coined the song, "Amazing Grace,

"how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me."

MUSIC: Amazing Grace by John Newton

In the late 1800s, gospel music began to evolve as

southern African-American churches fused different musical styles.

These included hymns, like John Newton's

and religious folk songs called spirituals.

When they sang the song,

# Swing low, sweet chariot

# Coming for to carry me home. #

What was that saying?

That was saying that, "Look out, there are writers coming,

"there are people coming to take you away from where you are."

How they're coming and where they're coming and where they're going,

that was the song that was telling them the destination

moving up to Canada, moving up to the north to seek their freedom.

MUSIC: Swing Low, Sweet Chariot by Wallace Willis

Virginia was on what became known as the Underground Railroad -

a covert network for escaped slaves fleeing north.

It was neither underground nor a railroad,

but supporters adopted rail terms as code.

A "rest stop" was a station.

The "owner of a safe house" was a stationmaster.

A "guide" was a conductor.

Did the slave owners suspect that there were codes being

transmitted in the church?

Not until they saw some retribution, some retaliation.

And there was a special way that the messages were delivered

in the black church than how they were delivered in the white church.

The ministers had different dialect.

Different words.

Those words meant something to those sitting in the church.

"Canan" referred to Canada

and "shepherd" was another name for a guide.

Up to 100,000 slaves are thought to have escaped

using the network between 1810 and 1860

as America wrestled with the question of slavery.

What difference does the end of the Civil War make to blacks

and their church here in Virginia?

What it meant was then that a person held as slaves

could be set free and they could go about their way

living in a free society.

Because the Emancipation Proclamation

was signed, it didn't change the heart, the mind of individuals.

So, the slavery context was still there.

The 13th Amendment of 1865 abolished slavery,

freeing four million enslaved people.

But they didn't become equal citizens.

New legal codes denied African-Americans key civil rights,

such as voting and serving on juries.

US society, once divided between free and enslaved,

continued to be split between black and white.

Today the First Baptist Church continues in fine voice.

# The Lord is my Shepherd

# And I shall not want

# He will

# Supply my needs

# God will

# Supply

# He will

# Supply

# God will

# Supply

# He will supply

# God will supply

# All of my needs. #

The opening words of Psalm 23 that's sung with a power

and passion and beat that I've never heard before.

And in the mouths of a black choir in the American South

how poignant are the words,

"the Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want."

I'm continuing 85 miles southeast to a centre

of American naval history, Norfolk, Virginia.

Here in the Hampton Roads water basin,

the James and Elizabeth rivers pass into Chesapeake Bay

and the Atlantic Ocean.

On its eastern shore, is Naval Station Norfolk -

the largest naval base in the world

and home to the United States Atlantic Fleet.

With some 43,000 military personnel, nearly a third more than

Britain's entire Royal Navy, it's home port to 59 vessels.

The Wisconsin is a World War II ship built on the most incredible scale.

I mean, those are 16-inch guns which means that the shell

was 16 inches in diameter, of course, feet in length.

Hurled with enormous ferocity over a distance of miles to make

an impact on an enemy ship devastating.

Battleships like the USS Wisconsin owe much

to an historic American Civil War battle -

history's first dual between ironclad vessels.

I've come to discover more from naval historian Clayton Farrington.

Appletons' tells me of a battle at sea between the

Confederacy and the Union in 1862, just off Norfolk, Virginia.

Tell me about that.

At the beginning of the conflict, the first realistic strategy

that was proposed was to strangle the Confederacy by the sea.

The only way that the South was going to be able to win is if it had

continued relations with the rest of the world, including Great Britain.

So, the initial strategy taken by the Confederate naval authorities

was simply to build a ship, an unstoppable ship,

to destroy the blockade and that came into being as a vessel

called the Confederate State Ship, Virginia.

The 263 foot Virginia was a Union steam frigate

salvaged from Norfolk Navy Yard by the Confederates

who armoured it with iron.

On March 8th 1862, she virtually decimated a Union fleet

of wooden warships.

But as Confederate hopes of breaking the blockade rose,

a fearsome new Union naval foe arrived.

That vessel was called the USS Monitor

and it was conceived by a Swedish immigrant, John Ericsson.

Ericsson's Monitor... As revolutionary as the Virginia was,

it wasn't even close to the USS Monitor.

The Monitor presented almost no profile in the water

which to shoot at, only one turret.

But it was enough to do the job.

History's first dual between two ironclad vessels took place

the next day.

The Unionist Monitor was fast and manoeuvrable,

whilst the Confederate Virginia struggled to keep up steam

and retired with a leak in her bowel.

What were the consequences for navy design generally after what

happens during the American Civil War?

Well, virtually every major combat vessel that was designed,

not only the American Navy,

but in navy's around the world after the Battle of Hampton Roads,

was a variation on the essential Ericsson design.

As the Union's stranglehold on the 3,500 mile Confederate coastline

intensified, the Southern states where aided by Great Britain.

Some of the most effective vessels put on the seas

by the Confederate States were built in Britain.

They were new vessels, the Alabama and the Florida in particular

were responsible for dozens and dozens

of American merchant ships being lost.

And that became a bone of contention to some considerable degree

after the war.

The South needed to maintain its lucrative exports of cotton

to the Lancashire mills.

It ordered blockade runner ships from Liverpool.

British crews signed up to the Confederate Navy,

joining the British built Alabama,

which captured or destroyed 55 Union merchant ships.

The United States and Britain have had many conflicts.

How would you count phrase the downs and ups of that relationship?

The low points were here.

That aside, however,

within a generation or two the situation had completely changed

and this was the place from which the most help militarily

came from to help Britain in both World War I and World War II.

No single place has seen more highs and lows in this country

than Norfolk, Virginia.

To reach my next destination, passengers must cross the water

in order to rejoin the rail road for a short journey upstream.

My last railway journey takes me back in history

to before the American Civil War.

Indeed, before the American Revolution,

to colonial times to a town founded in 1632

and now restored and preserved - Williamsburg.

In Appletons' day, this historic settlement had fallen into ruin.

But after careful and lengthy restoration

dating back to the 1920s, today it's a living recreation

of its colonial past, populated by costumed re-enactors.

-Good day to you.

-Good day, sir.

I'm looking forward to meeting the locals.

-Good morning.

-Morning.

Are there many farmers in town today?

Most of them reside in the James City

and the York County plantations.

-Mm-hm.

-But I can think of my father is out of town today,

but he owns a James City and a York County plantation nearby.

So, is your father...

Would he be regarded as middle-class or part of the gentry?

Certainly middle-class.

Might you be in a position to own slaves?

Yes, and indeed my father does own slaves.

At this point, he has a variety of different slaves

on the York County and the James City plantation

and we also have three house slaves, each with two children,

in our property in Williamsburg.

-You must have heard, as I have...

-Mm-hm.

-..of Baptists, particularly...

-Yes.

-..going around saying that slavery is morally wrong.

-Yes.

How do you react to that?

I feel that we could not make our society work

without slaves currently. It's simply impossible.

Mr Thomas Jefferson says, "It's like holding a wolf by the ears.

"You don't like it, but you don't want to let go."

Now, I'm paraphrasing the man, certainly,

but that certainly one sentiment helped.

The middle-class became established in American colonial society

during the 18th century.

And its success in the South was underpinned by slaves,

forcibly transported from Africa to work on the cotton plantations.

By 1775, they numbered 200,000.

Excuse me, ma'am. Do you mind if I share this bench with you

-for a moment?

-Oh, not at all. Go right ahead.

Thank you very much indeed.

What costume are you wearing?

Pretty much like folks that are working-class, lower class, slave.

And here you are sitting out on a bench in the street.

Would an enslaved person be able to do that?

No, sir, your enslave were definitely...

Very rarely did they have free time where they can

sit down and do anything.

Their main responsibility was to either be working in the field

or cooking in the kitchen, that type of...

Now, some of the black population is, in the 18th century, freed.

I think there's only 12 free blacks in the town here.

So, at first I was thinking,

"This is a bit like an amusement park."

But then as I began to approach the people in costume

and the people in character, I find they all have a life story.

And so history lives through their biographies.

'It's time to increase my experience in the field of history.'

Ooh, ah! I've got a furrow to plough!

In colonial times, most Virginians lived on rural farmsteads,

like Great Hopes Plantation.

'By Appletons' day, landowners gave labourers housing

'and a share of land in return for half the crop.'

They sent me over to help with the ploughing.

Perfect. We need some help, we always need some help here.

These are a beautiful beasts, what are they?

These are oxen. This is Duke and Dan.

This is a fine team.

Ten years old and they know what they're doing.

Hello, Matt. Would you mind teaching me the ropes, please?

Of course, of course.

So, your plough is going to cut the side, turn it over.

A fairly easy contraption to run.

Good, now, lower. Lower down.

A little bit too deep,

so push down a little bit and then push away for me.

Push away with the left.

Yep.

-Quite tough work.

-Yep, yep.

Let the beast do the work. Let them pull.

-I see, yes.

-And just guide.

So, relax your arms, relax your chest, your elbows.

That's better already.

OK, yep. Come to me a little bit.

Good, now straighten out.

Perfect. That is a beautiful looking furrow.

And spill.

-Very good.

-Oh!

More furrows than on my brow!

Ed, what sort of farmers are we?

Oh, middle-class. We're doing well.

We're not surviving, we're thriving.

What do we plant here?

We'll plant tobacco next year, right here.

Are we fairly self-sufficient now in America,

or are we still importing stuff?

-We buy a lot of your stuff.

-Oh.

Because of this reason - we make money.

We make money through tobacco especially

and you all want it and we're delivering.

-What can we sell for you?

-Oh, you can sell iron.

You can sell cloth.

We don't make our cloth. Why would we do that?

We grow tobacco. We make money, we buy it from you.

Virginian Indians had long grown tobacco,

but it was too harsh for European tastes.

In the early 17th century, the English settler John Rolfe

cultivated a leaf with milder West Indian seed.

By the 1770s, tobacco was the bedrock of the colony's economy.

I mean, actually, you live in 2015.

Oh, yeah, I'm just like you.

And you're ploughing a field...

And you're ploughing a field with some oxen.

How come?

I love history and I want to share it

and this is a unique way to share it.

The thing is this is real.

We're really going to plant this field.

And I think that has a special connection with people.

Colonial farmers also cultivated Indian corn to eat.

From field to fork, I'm curious to know what they made with it.

-Hello, Steph.

-Hi.

-What's the recipe today?

Well, today we are doing a recipe for johnny cake or hoecake.

This comes from Amelia Simmons, 1796.

This is the first known published American cookbook.

Basically, you're going to start with your cornmeal

and then you got your shortening or your lard.

So, this is basically your pig fat here.

That really looks revolting, doesn't it?

I like it, I've grown accustomed to it.

This is your shortening for everything.

I mean, it's delicious once you get used to it.

So, how's this doing?

'The lard is mixed with cornmeal and milk and molasses to sweeten it.'

Just take a bit.

Give up the spoon there.

And just kind of form it.

And then we're going to put it in the frying pan over here.

And you'll notice we've got the frying pan with the legs,

so we can use it over the coals.

There you go.

I'm beaten back by the heat.

They're looking good.

-Shall I see whether they're ready?

-I think you should.

Oh, they look good.

Mmm.

It's good. It's...

A little bit austere, but with the molasses

it's a little bit sweeter.

Crunchy, like what you would call a cookie.

-Absolutely.

-What I call a biscuit.

You see it referred to when people talk about visiting Virginia,

writing down what they've eaten.

You know, you see corncakes, johnny cakes.

This is a pretty common meal.

Putting on period costume helps me to stand in the shoes

of a historic Virginian.

Virginia was respected by the other colonies because of its antiquity

and its learning and its riches and its success.

And they didn't much like being told by the British that they

should pay taxes to the Crown and later in their history,

they didn't much like being told by Yankees

that they shouldn't own slaves.

After the American Civil War, the South had to be rebuilt.

It remained mainly agricultural, but by the end of the 19th century,

its railroad mileage had doubled

and new industries in coal, steel and cigarettes were flourishing.

My Appletons' Guide now leads me seven miles southwest

to the shore of the James River and the site of the first permanent

English settlement.

Jamestown, named after British king James I,

is as fascinating today as it was for the 19th century traveller.

The small colony which took root here spawned a nation,

which one day would outgrow its mother country many times over.

I'm meeting senior archaeologist David Givens.

-Nice to see you.

-I'm very moved.

I mean, this spot, we are so close to where the first

English European colonists come and establish their settlement.

Oh, yeah. This is ground zero.

This is the centre of the beginning of the New World.

Who were these English people who came here?

These weren't Puritans.

No, our first colonists are a varied sort.

We have miners, goldsmiths, bookmakers.

They were over here as part of a company to transform

the New World as a safe place to extract resources.

In 1607, three ships with around 100 sailors onboard

landed at Cape Henry

and sailed upriver into the territory of the Powhatan Indians.

There they established the first permanent English settlement.

How are they greeted by Native Americans?

The natives greet them actually with open arms.

Virginian Indians that were here wanted to make

part of their kingdom, to use the term.

And so, of course, you know that doesn't go very well

because the English want to make the Powhatan part of their kingdom.

Are they short of food?

Yes, they are.

They're continually short of food and trade with the Virginia Indians

only lasts so long.

When John Smith returns to England 1609,

they resort to violence with the natives, the Virginian Indians,

and that never works out well.

And so, eventually, they're stuck here in their fort.

The Indians are attacking them and they revert to cannibalism.

Captain John Smith was vital to the survival of Jamestown

in the early years.

Captured, but later released by Chief Powhatan's men,

he proved skilful at securing food from the Native Americans.

He instilled rigid discipline, ordering that,

"He who will not work, shall not eat."

Once it's realised how difficult it is to live here,

how come they keep coming?

The resources in the New World are so huge.

They're so varied.

To build an empire, you need to have resources

and that's what the English did, of course.

How does it come good in the end then?

Because after all, eventually, it succeeds.

What's the turning point?

The turning point is...

The redemption of the colony is when Lord De La Warr arrives

and he brings with him a new angle or a refocus of the colony.

Lord De La Warr arrives in June 1610,

just as the colonists were abandoning the Jamestown enterprise.

He brought 150 new settlers, constructed two forts

near the mouth of the James River and generally brought order.

I've found on this journey and I've found it now with you,

that there are great chunks of Virginian history

that I did not know.

It's kind of overshadowed by Massachusetts.

Why?

That pilgrim myth is a Victorian concept.

After the South lost the war in our Civil War,

the palatable, if you will, story was the pilgrims.

Many history books for kids start with Plymouth

and that first Thanksgiving, where the Indians and the pilgrims

sat down together.

And in reality, the first Thanksgiving is here in 1608

when Pocahontas herself brings food to help the colonists

survive that winter.

The Virginia Company settlement of Jamestown

drew on English precedence

in recognising the private ownership of land, supplying 50 acres

for any colonist who paid his passage across the Atlantic

and in establishing an annual assembly -

the oldest in the New World.

With the wealth provided by tobacco,

Virginia had ambitions beyond being an outpost of empire.

Travelling by train has brought home to me

how enormous is the United States.

And journeying through its history, I'm impressed by

the colossal ambition of its founding ideals

of liberty and equality.

Americans would disagree amongst themselves about how

successfully their country has applied its values.

But I'm convinced that those founding principles still supply

the United States today with unity,

clarity and a sense of purpose.

Great strength in a nation still filled with hope about its future.

It's the end of this American adventure and I brim with memories.

Whoa!

Argh!

In Appletons' footsteps, I've travelled

on the world's largest rail network...

Don't you love American locomotives with their great big long horns

and their bells? Off we go!

TRAIN HORN BLARES

..marvelled at this nation's natural beauty...

The very first thing you see is a great plume of mist.

..and the scale of American ingenuity...

People thought that they were just flying with the birds

walking across this bridge.

..from lobster

Wow!

..to street food.

Mmm, that's pretty good, isn't it?

I've embraced the cultural highs.

MUSIC: Gonna Fly Now by Bill Conti

Rocky!

LOUD EXPLOSION

Above all, I've enjoyed unfurling the triumphs and the tragedies

in the history of this idealistic republic.