My husband and I will be visiting D.C.in late Sept.for a week and then on to Virginia for at least another week where we want to see as much of the civil war battlefields and colonial history as possible with a rental car. Is there a central location which we could stay, take day trips, and return at night or should we just plan a night here and there moving around? We have already visited the sites in Georgia and Penn. Thanks. Susie

Suggest you make Richmond your central site and take day trips out to the Civil War sites surrounding the city. If you're willing to spend long days, you can probably see Petersburg, Richmond Battlesite Park, Bull Run, and Fredericksburg.

The Virginia Dept of Transportation has great website at http://www.vdot.state.va.us/
You can order free state map here & also get info on ordering county maps. Also check http://www.virginia.org/home.asp
and click on "Suggested Itineraries", they have a driving tour of sites on the 1862 Peninsula Campaign. There is also a driving tour of Lee's Retreat that the VA tourism center should have. I would suggest: from DC spend night in F'burg, then down to richmond & stop by the Stonewall Jackson Memorial in Caroline County on your way south (his arm is buried there...the rest is in Richmond). On south to Richmond, Do Confederate Museum, White House of confed., there is a newly opened park service visitor center on the riverfront, drive down to Petersburg for a day, see Blandford Church, short hop to Hopewell where Union mounted offense, drive along the Lee's Retreat route to Appomattox to see site of Lee's Surrender. Feel free to email for more info (remove the nospam).

You could probably do it all from Richmond. However, I would suggest staying a couple of nights in Richmond and 2-3 nights in Fredricksburg. Around Richmond, you can visit such sites as Malvern Hill, Gaines Mill, and Cold Harbor. I found Cold Harbor to be the most interesting of these. Petersburg is very close to the south as well. Around Fredericksburg (which was a very important battle in itself), there were several major battles, including the Wilderness camapaign, Spotsylvania, and Chancellorsville. Of course, as Paul mentioned in his post, Bull Run is not far away either. If you have not been to Antietam, Maryland, you should consider that one as well.

Thanks for all the excellent advice!We will take it - cant wait! Susie