Thoroughbred Legends: Secretariat

Chapter 1: Son of Thunder

Doswell, Virginia, is another of those sleepy towns along U.S. Route 1 that once were the bane of truckers and tourists, who stopped and started their way along the nation's major North-South thoroughfare in the days before vast interstate highways.

Doswell is now familiar, if at all, as the Interstate 95 exit for Paramount's Kings Dominion, a popular amusement park. Drivers speeding toward Washington, D.C., or Richmond, Virginia, may have noticed the exit sign.

A few miles away from I-95 and its array of gas stations, chain hotels, and restaurants, towns like Doswell and those throughout the rest of Caroline and Hanover counties aren't much different than they were decades ago, sleepy rural towns that are now largely bedroom communities for Richmond.

The central Virginia area they occupy is the western edge of the Tidewater section of the state, and, like much of the surrounding area, has a significant historical heritage. Hanover County is the birthplace of the famed orator and politician Patrick Henry, who is best known for a fiery pre-American Revolution public speech, with which he concluded, "As for me, give me liberty or give me death." His life inspired twentieth century historian Henry Mayer to title his biography of Henry, A Son of Thunder, a term that uniquely describes the flamboyant Henry, who was noted for his powerful oratory and staunch defense of individual liberties. He was a larger-than-life and sometimes controversial character, and an important factor in the evolution of the Bill of Rights in the U.S. Constitution.

Hanover County also is the death site of cavalry commander and Civil War legend General James Ewell Brown "Jeb" Stuart. The "eyes and ears" of Robert E. Lee, Stuart died in 1864 after being wounded at Yellow Tavern as the Confederate star continued to wane. Revolutionary War hero George Rogers Clark and William Clark (the Clark in the Lewis and Clark expedition) grew up in neighboring Caroline County, where Stonewall Jackson and John Wilkes Booth drew their last breaths.

Topographically, the region is made up mostly of gently rolling lowlands punctuated by rivers, streams, and swamps. In the summer the steamy air sticks to the skin. Mosquitoes and other hot-weather bugs abound. Heavy rains can quickly push waterways like the North Anna River and its companion, the South Anna, over their banks and into surrounding lowlands.

The two Annas, in fact, proved inhospitable enough that Union General Ulysses S. Grant decided not to confront Lee's troops along their banks. Instead, he circled the area and moved south of Richmond to Petersburg for what would be the climactic campaign of the Civil War in the East.

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