Jen G’s Blog

Over the past week I have been continuing my research which has resulted in draft forms of historical narratives for both Brentsville and Ben Lomond. 

Friday, Jan 2, I went back out to Manassas and met with Mr. Burgess, who is a NPS employee there.  He showed me to their upstairs research room.  He looked through the information they had on file there and we found a picture of Amos Benson who was a member of the 4th VA Cavalry.  This was exciting as it was the first image of someone who was from the area and a part of what I am covering in the documentary.  I spent a few hours there and found some other good pictures which Mr. Burgess has since emailed to me. I considered just filming them but I figured it would be better quality if I had a digital image and could just import it into FinalCut. After researching I went back out onto the battlefield and got some great sunset shots of the Jackson statue and of the cannon. Once I was finished there I headed over to the Bull Run library to pick up a book I had reserved.  The book, I thought, was a diary of Horatio Nelson who was also a member of 4th Va Cav. Co. A.  It turned out to be more of a narrative analysis of his diary and had few actual quotes from him. A good short read but not exactly what I was looking for.

At the beginning of this week I had emailed a couple people to try to set up interviews as well as some reenactors to try to organize a reenactment that I could film this weekend.  As of now I have had some luck setting up interviews, people have been open to them but I am having a difficult time pinning them down about when I can actually film them.  I have one scheduled for Monday the 12th but since I will be returning to campus the 15th I am running out of time.  Hopefully I will be able to get two others lined up for next week.

The biggest disappointment so far has been not being able to film a reenactment at either of the sites. I was hoping to get at least one done while I was home on break, but since that has not happened I am looking ahead to the end of the month and am planning on being back in the area the weekend of Jan 31/Feb1.  I supposed I should have expected reenactors, people who live in the past, not to check their email very often but unfortunately this is the only contact information I have for them.

The best thing that happened this week was my stumbling upon a story about Amos Benson, the first soldier I was able to get a picture for. In one of the files at Bull Run library I found this amazing story about how he and his wife took care of a Union soldier, John Rice, after the First Battle of Manassas (Benson was not enlisted yet) and after the war Rice came back and asked if there was anything he could do to repay them.  The Bensons did not want anything for themselves but asked that he donate some money to help repair their church (Sudley Church, which interestingly was used as a Union field hospital during the war).  Rice went home to Massachusetts and wrote his story in the local paper and asked for donations.  Rice was able to send more than enough money to repair the church.   I thought this was an amazing story.  I photocopied it and wrote down the authors address that was listed.  I plan on contacting him to see if he has any documentation on the story as well as if I can use it in the film.  The story could fit into my Ben Lomond narrative but I might wait and make it a separate piece that I could tackle next year.  We’ll see.

Today I am going to set up the wireless microphone set and make sure everything is working properly for Monday and then just wait for email replies…