Corporate Getaway- Studies in Leadership &
Managerial Decision Making
ITINERARY:
Arrival Day This afternoon we will be picked up at the airport and transported to Middletown Virginia and to the Wayside Inn (www.alongthewayside.com). A storyteller will join us for dinner and acquaint us with the history of the old Inn as well as the Middletown area. Rich in its own history, the Wayside Inn first began to serve travelers in 1797 as they journeyed across the Shenandoah Valley. Upon the building of the Valley Pike twenty years later the Inn became a stagecoach stop and a relay station for fresh horses, as well as a place where weary travelers could rest and enjoy good food and spirits. During the Civil War officers and soldiers from both the Union and Confederate armies frequented the Inn. Although the occupation of Northern Virginia changed hands many times during the war, the Inn was spared any serious damage. The Inn and the Middletown area were both central to the Shenandoah Campaigns of 1862 and 1864. Without question Stonewall Jackson was here on several occasions.
After dinner we will have our first leadership discussion which will focus upon the relative, and not so relative skills and personalities of the best organizers in comparison to those best suited to execute a plan. Within this scope we will study the commands, and personalities of Generals George McClellan, Joseph Hooker, Robert E. Lee and Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson.
Day 1 This morning we will leave the Wayside Inn and travel to Sharpsburg, Maryland, where we
will take a morning tour of the Antietam National Battlefield. The Battle of Antietam was fought in September 1862, and was the signature battle of Lee’s Maryland Campaign of 1862, his first of two raids into northern territory. The Battle at Antietam has forever carried the dubious distinction of having been the single bloodiest day of battle during any war in American History, accounting for more than 20,000 American casualties. After lunch at the Brewer’s Alley Restaurant and Brewery (www.brewers-alley.com) in Frederick, Maryland we will visit the National Museum of Civil War Medicine (www.civilwarmed.org). Late afternoon we will drive to Cashtown, Pennsylvania, eight miles west of Gettysburg and check into the Cashtown Inn for the night (www.cashtowninn.com). Tonight we will be joined for dinner by a costumed storyteller who will tell the of the Civil War ghosts that still roam the halls of the old inn.
Day 2 The Battle of Gettysburg, July 1 - 3, 1863, was fought in tandem with Grant’s siege ofConfederate forces at Vicksburg, Mississippi. Both are considered by many historians as the turning point of the Civil War to the favor of the Union. With neither commander particularly wanting to fight at Gettysburg, a series of prevailing circumstances forced the two sides together on these rocky hills that surround this small town in southeastern Pennsylvania. As the story goes, the battle actually began when Henry Heth, one of A.P. Hill’s division commanders authorized a patrol to go into the town to requisition shoes for his troops. It was during this mission the rebel patrol came into contact with its Union counterpart, and as might be expected, the two engaged one another setting into motion the greatest battle ever fought in the Western Hemisphere. When all of the fighting ended, 28,000 Confederate, and 23,000 Union men were counted as casualties.
After breakfast this morning we will begin our second leadership discussion, this time centering upon the importance of communication and the attention to detail necessary in executing a successful plan. This study will focus upon lapses and errors in communication, which led to bad battlefield decisions by Lee and led to the defeat of, and the destruction of one-fourth of his army. In addition we will examine Lee’s battle plan and compare it to that of Union commander George F. Meade on the eve of battle. After lunch at the Cashtown Inn we will take a panoramic tour of the battlefield, after which, we will move our study to three critical points on the battlefield (1) Seminary Ridge; (2) Little Round Top, and (3) Cemetery Ridge. Upon concluding our afternoon we will drive to the Meander Plantation (www.meander.net) near Orange, Virginia for dinner, and for the night.
After dinner we will continue our discussion of Lee’s leadership skills, and how he used them to keep an out-manned, under-equipped, and under-fed army in the field constantly fighting under overwhelming odds, winning tactical victory after victory well into 1864, but ultimately losing the war of attrition.
Day 3 This morning during breakfast we will continue with a leadership discussion that focuses upon the command partnership between Lee and Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson, and how it was instrumental to the early successes of the Army of Northern Virginia. In addition we will compare the Lee Jackson partnership with that of Abraham Lincoln, William Tecumseh Sherman and Ulysses S. Grant and compare the successes of these men during the Overland and Atlanta Campaigns of 1864 leading to the final Confederate capitulation in the spring of 1865. Finally, this will draw contrast with the failures of Jefferson Davis in developing similar partnerships with his field commanders in the west, which led to the ultimate demise of the Confederacy.
After our leadership discussion we will meet our guide (dressed in the uniform of a Captain in the Cavalry Corps of the Army of Northern Virginia) and begin our first tour of the day at the Wilderness Battlefield. After touring the Wilderness Battlefield, we will tour the Chancellorsville, Fredericksburg, and Spotsylvania Battlefields with lunch in between at Fredericksburg. Today we will be covering two separate campaigns. The first being the Fredericskburg Campaign of December 1862, which extended into the following spring as the Chancellorsville Campaign, the springboard which sent a victorious Confederate Army northward to meet its fate at Gettysburg. The second was the beginning of the 1864 Overland Campaign at the Wilderness. This campaign began in May and ended in the environs of Petersburg in July, 1864 where Grant laid siege to the critical Confederate rail center. We will depart late afternoon from Spotsylvania for Richmond where we will have dinner at the Tobacco Company Restaurant (www.thetobaccocompany.com) and then we will retire to the Jefferson Hotel (www.jefferson-hotel.com) for the night.
Day 4 After breakfast this morning we will have our final leadership discussion where we will focus upon the disastrous “Crater Fiasco” during the siege of Petersburg in July 1864. Labeled as the “saddest day I have witnessed in four years of the war” by Ulysses S. Grant, as multiple command failures led to the loss of 4,000 Union casualties. After our discussion we will drive to Petersburg and tour the battlefield. After our battlefield tour we will drive to Michie Tavern (www.michietavern.com) located at the base of Monticello Mountain for a late lunch, after which we will return to the airport and our trip home.
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