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Civil War Sesquicentennial? Thanks, but I Think I Have to Wash My Hair that Year

Richmond is loaded with history but never has been able to convert it into much of a tourism industry. This weekend's grand-opening celebration of a $103 million visitor/museum facility in Gettysburg is prompting some Richmonders to think again about the city's potential to ride the wave of generation to be generated by the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, only three years way.

Gettysburg has a big advantage in being known as the biggest, most pivotal battle of the Civil War, a place that President Abraham Lincoln commemorated as hallowed ground. Richmond has a different place in the national psyche –- the capital of the Confederacy, with all the baggage that entails.

But, as Katherine Calos writes for the Times-Dispatch today, the city does have major assets: an abundance of battlefields within easy driving distance, the Tredegar Iron Works , the Virginia Historical Society and the Museum of the Confederacy . Said Robert C. Wilburn , president of the Gettysburg Foundation : "You have an awful lot to build on."

Bacon's bottom line : There's not much in Calos' story to indicate that anyone in Richmond is acting to mobilize the coming surge in popular interest in the Civil War -- nothing remotely comparable to the excitement over the 400th Jamestown anniversary. It would be logical for the museums and battlefields to coalesce with other interested groups, like the Metropolitan Richmond Convention & Visitors Bureau , to market the region.

But so many people are so ambivalent about the Civil War – not just African-Americans but those in the business community who would rather have the nation forget the city's identification with slavery, the Civil War, Jim Crow and Massive Resistance – that I wouldn't be surprised to if Richmonders settle for a very low-key celebration this time around.