Georgia - Day 30 - Chickamauga Battlefield, Red Top Mountain

Red Top Mountain State Park, Cartersville

Thursday, 27 April 2023

It started pouring rain just about the time I wanted to take Dext out for his first walk.  He looked zonked out and didn't respond when I called him - and these walks sure aren't for me - so I postponed it.  Made coffee and fixed breakfast for everybody.  

It was still pouring then, but I put all my outdoor gear on and stood at the steps to go out - and he looked at me and didn't budge.  I'm pretty sure he knows rain when he hears it and, unlike most Labs, he hates getting wet.  The rain eventually lifted enough for us to get in a short walk.

Meanwhile, I wrote drafts of 3 more posts and caught up as far as Mistletoe State Park.  And we got on the road at 9:00.

today's route

On the road

We found thick fog when we got to the state park's entrance.  Remember, we had to use that twisty, winding mountain road to get back to the main highway, and I sure didn't want to deal with thick fog on top of the wet roadway and other road conditions.  Fortunately the fog lifted as we started down, but then came back here and there as we got to lower elevations.  My ears popped twice on the way down.

I wound up putting on my emergency flashers because I was taking those wet bends slowly and was afraid in the fog somebody could run into me before they noticed how slowly I was going.  I even used a lower gear for part of the way because that steep hill I climbed 2 days ago was harder to deal with on the way down.  And closer to the main road, we came to quite a few driveways and mailboxes along the road.  I worried about people suddenly entering and leaving those drives - and also wondered how and why people would want to live in such a remote location.

Despite all that, I made it unscathed to the main road.  I'd originally intended to take back roads this morning, but with the rain and fog continuing, I decided to head for the interstate instead.  And sure enough, I came across a really bad accident at an intersection with many emergency vehicles and traffic tied up in 2 directions (but luckily, not mine).  I saw maybe one mangled car but didn't try to look closely, wanting to avoid being part of an accident of my own.

I passed the town of Tunnel Hill, named for the first tunnel built through the Appalachian Mountains.  It was built in 1849 to allow a railroad train to run from Chattanooga (TN) south to the Chattahoochee River, at a point near today's Atlanta (GA).  During the Civil War, the train was an important part of the supply line, first for the Confederacy and later for the Union.  There's a museum there today.

Soon after Tunnel Hill, I passed a sign for the Sasquatch Museum, aka Expedition Bigfoot Museum.  I didn't actually believe that's what it was, so I looked it up and, yes, that's what it was.  For a mere $8 (adult) I could tour this collection of newspaper articles and various artifacts that the owners believe confirm the existence of Sasquatch.  Those artifacts include handprints, footprints and feces.  Yes, I said feces.  An article for a Blue Ridge Mountains travel guide included a photo of them.  The owner said he doesn't argue with non-believers because "they think they learned everything they need in high school . . . their minds closed down long ago."  Although this opinion is from the person who has put alleged Bigfoot feces on display, but to each his own.

When I rerouted myself from the backroads route to the interstate, I used the AAA map to figure out the new turns, not having internet access.  As I was driving, I hoped I'd read the map right, because otherwise I'd be in Tennessee in no time flat.  You can see from the route map how close I was to the state border.

Along the way I saw a highway sign that said, "Reduce Speed During Wet Conditions."  And I was doing that, though others weren't.

But the directions turned out just right, and I came to Fort Oglethorpe, "Gateway to Chickamauga Battlefield."  At the CVS there, I saw a sign: "April showers bring May flowers."  Too bad I won't be there to see their May flowers.

When I got to the visitor center at the battlefield, it was pouring rain; 2 hours later when I left, it was still pouring rain.  (If you're not interested in Civil War history, you'll want to skip this next section; actually I'm not interested in Civil War history, but this series of events turned out to be one of the turning points in the war.)

Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park

I stopped here because this was a battle I'd heard of and I wanted at least some education about it.  I'd wanted to see their film, because the National Park Service films are usually pretty good, but it had already started when I got there so I looked at their exhibits and then decided I didn't really need a 25-minute film for more information than that.

Actually, the battlefield here relates only to Chickamauga, which as far as I could tell wasn't really supposed to be a battle at all.  The real battle was expected to be a few miles north, in Chattanooga.  Instead, this turned out to be the bloodiest 2-day battle of the Civil War.

Background

Thomas Jefferson, in 1820

The opinion of SC Senator John C. Calhoun.

There's a right of revolution in the Constitution?
They fought because of something they thought would happen,
not something that had actually happened.

Campaign for Chattanooga: Death Knell of the Confederacy?:

According to the park service, Lincoln thought taking Chattanooga was as important as taking Richmond, because 4 major railroads converged there.  Capturing Chattanooga would cripple the CSA supply lines.  Here's from the NPS brochure:

In the summer of 1863, Confederate Gen. Braxton Bragg and his Army of Tennessee controlled Chattanooga.  But Union Gen. William Rosecrans skillfully moved his Army of the Cumberland south, across the Tennessee River and over Sand Mountain and Lookout Mountain, threatening the Confederates from behind.  By early September, Bragg realized he had been outmaneuvered.  The Confederate Army had no choice but to abandon the city and its remaining residents.

Rosecrans thought the Confederates were retreating toward Atlanta, prompting him and his army to pursue the gray-clad soldiers into Georgia.  However, the Confederates had a surprise of their own.  Bragg, now heavily reinforced, was not going to give up Chattanooga without a fight.  At the Battle of Chickamauga, little went as planned and thousands of men lost their lives, Yet, it would be late November before the city's fate would be decided - and perhaps that of the Confederacy. 

 

 

Setting the battle scene:

The battles:

The lead-up to the battle:

September 19 - Day 1 of the battle:

September 20 - Day 2 of the battle:

Casualties at Chickamauga cost each side 28% of their forces.  Eighteen particularly hard-hit Confederate regiments had casualties of 45%.  The number of casualties includes the killed, wounded and missing for the armies: Confederates: 18,454; Union: 16,170.  All this destruction occurred on September 19th and 20th, 1863.

The battle in Chattanooga:

For some reason, the visitor center included no exhibits about the all-important battle in Chattanooga.  I'll transcribe here what they've put into their brochure about the events following Sept. 20th.

Siege of the City Begins

Rosecrans's army withdraws into Chattanooga while Confederates occupy key ground surrounding the city, including Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge.  The stage is set to starve the Union Army into submission.  They and the remaining residents endure a hungry month before General Ulysses S. Grant and reinforcements arrive to help open a supply line into the city.

Breaking the Siege

In late October, the Union uses darkness [on the Tennessee River] to silently float past Confederates on Lookout Mountain.  Then, in a rare night battle near Wauhatchie, they win control of Lookout Valley and secure their new supply route, the "Cracker Line."  Chattanooga is still up for grabs.

November 23

Thousands of Union soldiers march out of Chattanooga.  Like a great blue wave, they crash around Confederate-held Orchard Knob, a small hill between the city and Missionary Ridge.  The Southerners flee, providing General Grant a strategic view of his next goal, the ridge.  During the night Bragg reinforces his line on Missionary Ridge.

November 24

The Union intends to take Missionary Ridge but mistakenly assaults a hill to the north.  They discover their mistake too late to attack the ridge that day.  Their diversionary tactic - attacking fog-enshrouded Lookout Mountain - becomes the famous "Battle Above the Clouds" that sweeps the Confederates off the mountain and toward Missionary Ridge.

November 25

Confederates successfully defend both ends of Missionary Ridge.  Grant orders an attack against entrenchments centered at the base of the ridge.  Finding little resistance there, and without orders, the recently defeated Army of the Cumberland continues charging up the rocky slopes and forces Bragg's army from the summit.  Confederate troops retreat south into Georgia.

The War Continues

The rivers, rails, and roads of Chattanooga are firmly in Union hands.  The city is transformed into a supply and communications base of Gen. William T. Sherman's 1864 Atlanta Campaign, which will begin in the spring.  Disheartened Confederates wonder: Is the fall of Chattanooga truly "the death knell of the Confederacy?"

Legacy of war:

My take on all this:

Once South Carolina seceded from the Union in December 1860, followed by its attack on the Union troops in Fort Sumter (an unprovoked attack), the Union really had no choice but to come to the war.  The southern states seceded over their right to own human beings as slave labor.  The northern states fought those secessions because this is not a Union that can end in divorce: once in, in forever.  Having worked so hard and so long to join the states together into the Union, the Founding Fathers made no provision in the Constitution for them to leave once they'd joined. 

Under these circumstance, the war seems inevitable.  I believe, and have believed for years, that if Lincoln had not been assassinated, he would have come up with a reconstruction plan that had a chance of actually reuniting the states.  Instead, we got Johnson who was anything but a statesman.  Reconstruction was a disaster in many ways and achieved almost nothing but hard feelings and no long-term establishment of civil rights for Black Americans.

In that sense, I see the Civil War as having been futile: sure it put the states back together, which was what Lincoln mostly wanted - and that's a good thing.  But here we are, 162 years later, and we're still arguing about the same issues.  Although I guess it's an improvement that the "states right" that's being argued today isn't the right to own other human beings.  But I still see all this as truly sad and tend to get depressed when I contemplate it for any length of time.

Americans have many wonderful, truly admirable qualities - but our stubbornness isn't always a positive trait.

Back on the road

We crossed the Oostanaula River.  And we passed a huge Mohawk carpet facility.  I saw a tall billboard with 8 or 10 birds perched on top with their wings outstretched, drying them out.

Near Cartersville, we passed the Tellus Science Museum, which is affiliated with the Smithsonian, and offers a wide variety of science-related exhibits.  And they have a sense of humor: in October they'll have an exhibit called "The Treasures of NOAA's Ark."

We passed the turn for the Etowah Mounds, which I'd wanted to see but ran out of time and energy for.  The site, occupied from 1000 to 1550 and including 6 mounds, is the most intact Mississippian Culture site in the southeast US.

Arrival at tonight's campground was so yucky as to verge on traumatic.  First, Google got me only to the beginning of the park, and I turned where the mileage indicated.  The first turn resulted in a day use/boat launch area.  The second turn got me to a picnic/playground area.  Turning around in both those areas was difficult.  

I finally found the campground entrance and got to the office, but the woman working the desk was abrupt, unhelpful, irritated when I asked her to show me where my campsite was on the map (and she never did), kept answering each of my questions by saying the campground was a half mile down the road but wouldn't show me on the map which road to go down but then showed me a direction that turned out to be the wrong one . . . maybe she didn't know how to read maps?  Maybe she just found out her husband's having an affair?  Whatever was wrong with her wasn't my fault, but I sure got the brunt of it.

I'd had to cobble together 2 separate reservations in 2 sites to get the 2 nights here, so I asked if I could check in today for both nights.  She said the site I told her was mine tomorrow was registered to someone else and refused to help me with it.  I figured out later that she'd probably misunderstood me and thought I wanted to have tomorrow's site for both nights, but in the meantime I spent half the evening worried about what I'd do tomorrow if I didn't have a space reserved.

I wanted to dump my waste tanks before going to my campsite, but I took the wrong turn for the dump station, and in trying to turn around I ended on a long loop.  I finally got my tanks dumped, but while I was doing that a big Class A parked in the pass-through lane I needed to turn around for my campsite.  I was left to do some backing and forthing to turn around, and while I was doing that the camp host, who was talking to the Class A guy, yelled at me to stop and go down the road that I already knew led to that long loop.  I really wanted to tell him that if he'd quit chitchatting with the Class A guy and tell him to move out of the way, I could avoid the whole thing, but instead I just ignored him and kept backing and forthing.

Then when I got to my site, I found not only that it wasn't where it was shown on the campground map, but also it was at a dead end at the bottom of a very steep hill which Dext and I would have to climb to walk anywhere.

I was still trying to find a level place on that site (only partly successful) and getting plugged in when it started raining.  For reasons I can't fathom, someone had dragged the heavy picnic table for the site to immediately in front of the electrical plug-ins.  The wood in the table was wet, making it even heavier, and I had to move it to the other side of the campsite to leave enough room for my RV to get into the normal location.

Though it was raining, I had to take Dext out, and we saw 5 deer that obviously wanted to cross the road we were walking on.  I managed to get Dext away from them, leaving them enough time to cross the road before we had to go back that way to the campsite.

Because there was no internet access, I wasn't able to locate a grocery store or a liquor store and had to improvise my supper.  It was all just yucky.  But we're in Georgia and, as Scarlett said, "Tomorrow is another day."