A Last Salute

Espdesigns.com and eSpd.com are one of the oldest (1995 to present) independent Internet sites that used to be located close to Internic's (National Science Foundation) and AOL's corporate headquarters in Northern Virginia. Since 1995, we have continually provided, through our registered eSpd® service, previously unknown information in the field of historical preservation, paleontology and technology via the Internet," for educational institutions, scholars and the general public.

This site is also historic since it was the first broadband powered web site during Bell Atlantic's ADSL trial in 1996... two years before broadband was publicly available.

• The services offered here are currently being overhauled so bear with us as we try to bring it up to today's standards. Since this material (over 4GB) is used by a number of educational institutions we felt the only viable way to do this was to do it live, so do expect changes or periods of inactivity. Listed below are some of eSpd's® services now available but will be subject to change as we go forward...
• Initially we demonstrated in 1995 for those of us who are disabled how we can still play a positive role in helping our global community and others through the Internet. Back then the Internet was just a small community run on a honor code. If anyone breached etiquette they were flamed or shunned. Email was not known at least the way it is now and few had use for firewall's.
• At that time we presented "A Last Salute" (January 1996) to six Civil War soldiers who would have been bulldozed out of their graves had they not been located by local historian Kevin Ambrose and removed by the well known Smithsonian anthropologist Dr. Doug Owsley. Since so many children were asking who these unknown soldiers were, we posted the excavation online. From that point on the site grew on it's own especially as we started to post some of our previous findings from The Battle of Ox Hill (Chantilly)
• The findings from the archeological salvage survey (1976-1986) of Ox Hill were the first ever conducted of an entire Civil War battlefield and is the only surviving physical record of the 300 acre + battlefield from both the east and west side of the battlefield separated by West Ox Road. Over 1000 artifacts from the survey of the Ox Hill Battlefield were recovered, plotted and are still being conserved (as time and strength permit). The record presented here also shows where the combatants and the boundaries of the battle were located prior to the destruction of the battlefield. The local governments master plan had earmarked the battlefield for development and even offered the developer to move badly overgrown granite memorials commemorating the heroic deaths of two well known Union Generals killed during the battle.
• History is what binds us to our mortal ideals and core values, somewhat like the many religions throughout the world that bind us spiritually. All should be treated with respect... especially on hallowed ground. It defines who we are as a people.
• The only other early examples of battlefield archeology in the United States was the archeological survey at Custers Last Stand which showed how it was anything but a heroic last stand. Instead dedicated professionals after a lot of hard work found it to be a rout that was over in minutes with most of the troopers fleeing for their lives as they were cut down. There was no last stand! An amazing endeavor of good honest forensic work, in spite of all the newspapers and books who had glorified Custer - in the end science prevailed.
• The same type of investigation is true of the Ox Hill Battlefield except the hallowed ground where the fighting occurred was not protected by the National Park Service. It's a worst case scenario with a completely different outcome. No Battlefield! All that can now tell the real story is the archeological salvage survey and a detailed map updated one month before the battle that we own along with other maps from 1858 to present. Future generations won't be able to see an excellent example of Stonewall's tactical genius and ability to read the terrain or the courageous uphill advance of the outnumbered Union troops. All one has to do is look at the picture of the battlefield taken for the 1907 Board of Supervisors to see a big chunk of the 300 acre battlefield where the grass field was located and the low rise in the background where Benjamin's' Battery was located (which is now the county dump).
• We also have an extensive collection of museum quality amber fossils that have been used by many schools and individuals. If we could ever photograph the entire collection it would recreate a prehistoric rain forest complete with plants and insects appearing as they had millions of years ago. The state of preservation of extinct species in amber is nothing short of miraculous.
• Again as time permits we are currently working on a previously undiscovered film of JFK's family giving "A Last Salute" at his grave site (just prior to vacating the White House). Although brief and captured on the the new hand cranked 16mm personal movie camera that came out in late 1950's and early 1960's, we can at the least provide slides if we're unsuccessful in cleaning up the 8mm film we had transferred from the degraded 16mm film. Included in stark contrast to this presentation are excerpts from a comedy album portraying the first family. It was never sold again after the assassination.

•  Our eSpd® Services provide one-of-a-kind original content not only from our contributions but from other contributors who were also interested in protecting who we are as a people... our history. People like the Brown and Proctor families have offered their personal knowledge as one of many other descendents whose family history have laid unknown in America's attic. The Internet has changed all of that and brought a lot of unknown history and other material into the public's view that never would have been seen otherwise.

• We have spent 32 years and personally financed this entire project little by little. Our only goal was truth and to be a good steward for those whose footsteps we follow... We're not perfect but at least we tried...
  We hope other educational, corporate institutions or individuals will help support verifiable content to counteract the many self-serve encyclopedias, new search engines and dictionaries where anyone can post misleading material which for the most part is unverifiable or to use them as proxy's to mount attacks on intellectual rights which we have suffered far in excess than a site like ours should be. eSpd® is open to any school or scholars who wants to use it as a portal of knowledge. Contact Us