My month+ in Georgia

My take on Georgia

where I went
The pink line shows a route Momma and I took
on one of our trips to see my uncle in Orlando. 

I'd pat myself on the back for getting to so much of the state this month, except the time I was touring actually lasted 1 month plus a week of another.  Georgia's pretty big but only ranks 24th in area of the states - thanks to the huge land masses that comprise the western US states.   Speaking of land . . .

Georgia's land

Among the things that surprised me about Georgia were the number of trees and the number of bodies of water I saw.  Georgia can't rival Minnesota in number of lakes, but it sure has more than its fair share.  I saw lakes and ponds and streams and rivers all over the state.

And I hadn't realized Georgia is such a green state.  I guess I'd pictured it as mostly farm land, and it's got plenty of that.  But it also has trees everywhere.  In terms of timberland, Georgia ranks #9 among the US states, and since it's only #24 in size, that makes for a lot of trees.

Of course I've known for years that the Appalachian Trail starts in the south at Springer Mountain in Georgia, so you'd think I'd have realized that meant the Appalachian Mountains themselves must be in Georgia too so the trail could be traveling through them.  But apparently my brain hadn't connected the two.  I heard from many people living in the southern part of the state that, if I wanted to see beautiful country, I needed to go to the northern part.  They all talked about how beautiful the mountains are.  But still I was surprised at encountering the mountains of the Appalachians.  And they are beautiful.

But I wasn't bored by the relatively flat land in the south.  Farming land has its own beauty - and the Okefenokee Swamp is a wonderland all on its own.  And of course, Georgia has its share of ocean-front property that's lovely.

Georgia's people

Another idea I've always had about Georgia is that it's the home of Southern hospitality.  And the people I met were mostly friendly.  Specifically the managers of the KOA in Cordele, where I spent so much time.  They went out of their way to be hospitable.  But sometimes it seemed that those who were most friendly were those who had moved to Georgia from another state.  Not what I expected.

I also expected to find a lot of evidence of very conservative opinions - and my daily posts indicate times I saw Confederate and Trump flags flying.  But politically, Georgia seems to be in transition and maybe that explains why I didn't see more such flags, especially considering the incredible number of Civil War related historical markers and museums I found there.  So chalk up another oddity.

Driving in Georgia

I'm pleased to report that Georgia's roads are in good shape and driving there isn't hard at all - as long as you already know where you're going.  If you haven't been there before and need signs to help you get there, don't count on finding them.  I've been frustrated in other states about a lack of directional signs, but Georgia takes the prize for being worst.  As I mentioned in one of the daily posts, getting lost became a theme for my time here.

Along with the roads being good, so are the drivers.  Although they drive pretty fast, I didn't find them to be particularly aggressive.  Nobody honked at me - in fact, I don't think I heard anybody honk a horn at anybody for any reason while I was here.  I almost never had trouble merging into a lane of travel - people were willing to pull over to let me in, and I certainly appreciated it.

Both of these designs seemed to be the official ones, and I couldn't tell that either was more widely used than the other, or that one was newer than the other.

Georgia has a lot of specialty plates, but these 2 designs seemed the most popular choices.

My conclusion

In general I enjoyed my month+ here.  Georgia is a very attractive state with lots of variety and lots to see.  

But I've also learned that Georgia is a study in contradictions.  Georgia was the 4th state to ratify the US Constitution, which is odd because those loyal to the British crown were both strong and numerous in the Georgia Territory.  Yet, Georgia was faster in signing up than states like those in New England where Revolutionary fervor was said to be strongest.

Still, a mere 73 years later Georgia was the 5th state to join the Confederacy and the last to rejoin the Union.  Actually, it wouldn't have been last except that, after being reinstated, Georgia expelled all its Black members of the state legislature; Congress then expelled Georgia from the Union.  They managed to get themselves reinstated 2 years later, though they'd apparently just learned to talk a good story because in many ways life didn't change materially for Blacks - sharecropping, which the whites assigned them to, being only marginally better than slavery in many ways.

And now, Georgia's making other historic changes.  Despite its history as a solidly red state, Georgia seems to be turning purple.  Five of Georgia's 14 US Congressional representatives are Democrats (they're also all Black).  Georgians have also recently elected Raphael Warnock to a full term in the US Senate - Georgia's first Black senator.  Given the state's history, these events seem remarkable to me.

Georgia is the state of Jimmy Carter and Lester Maddox.  It gave birth to Martin Luther King, Jr. and, just 2 years ago, to one of the country's most restrictive voting laws.

But although Georgia doesn't even rank in the top 10 among fastest-growing states, its population is still increasing - especially in traditional minority groups.  Interestingly, Georgia has the 3rd lowest percentage of older residents among the 50 states - making Georgia a young state, which may account for its openness to change.

I guess my conclusion is that I ambivalently like Georgia.  It's a very religious state, and it's traditionally a conservative state.  But Georgians seem to be trying to learn and grow, and I applaud that in anyone.  I'm a fan of tradition, but I also believe in leaving the past behind when you learn a better way.  I think that's where Georgia is.

And I will always be grateful for being able to see the fabulous display of wisteria that Georgia provided.

Georgia - Day 33 - Berry College

James "Sloppy" Floyd State Park, Summerville
Sunday, 30 April 2023

When Dext and I went out for the 1st walk it was just starting to sprinkle, and we saw lightning once but it was too far away for thunder.  Soon after we got back the rain came, and by 5:30 it was pouring.  The forecast was for 40% rain, so it seemed like we got a whole lot of 40%.

The slope of this campsite, combined with the framing around the bench seats in the cabin, have created a new exercise program for me: to get in and out of the seat I have to heave myself up the slope and over the framing every time I want to get up - and the critters see to it that I have to get up often. 

The morning sequence goes like this: I give them all food and sit down to have a 1st cup of coffee; Lily eats a few bites and then goes elsewhere; Bucky stops eating from his bowl and comes over to try to eat from Lily's, so I have to get up to protect it; then Bucky goes over to force Jimmy off his food, so I have to get up to protect him and divert Bucky back to his own bowl; Jimmy stops eating from his bowl and goes to check on Bucky's, so I have to get up to protect that bowl too; Lily comes back to her spot and wants me to give her her food back, so I have to get up to do that; she eats only a few more mouthfuls and leaves again, so I have to get back up to protect her bowl; both kittens again decide to eat out of each other's bowls - and by this time you're wondering why I don't just let them.  And that's because up until just recently, Jimmy was eating far more than his share if I didn't supervise - and gaining too much weight.  And I give Lily senior food and the kittens get kitten food (and Dext gets dog food, which he eats too fast for them to get any, though they used to try anyway) so everybody needs to stick to their own diets.

But all this up and down and up and down is happening before I can even finish my first cup of coffee.  If it didn't seem like cruelty, I'd refuse to feed them till after I'd had some coffee in peace.

Anyway, all that up and down happens wherever we are - it's just a lot more strenuous when gravity shoves me against the window and I have to get from there across the bench seat and over the frame to stand up on a sloped floor.  As it does here.  Like I said - an exercise program.

today's route

Luckily the rain lifted as we were leaving the campground.

Just north of the city limits of Rome is Berry College, which is where I was going this morning.  A million years ago, when I was in elementary school and our family lived in Waco, we got to be good friends with the Blackwood family.  Carol was only a year or two younger than me, Patty was exactly David's age (well, actually, 12 hours younger, I think), and Billy was everybody's little brother.  So Patty and Louise were good friends and Carol and I were good friends and their parents were great so we always thought we were lucky.

Then everybody moved away and time moved on too, as it does, and I think Patty and Louise stayed in touch and I know our mothers did, but the families didn't get together very often.  Still, you know how it is with old friends - if they're really friends then they're always friends.

Carol has been working at Berry College for some years now, so seeing her was one of the reasons I came to Rome, and today was the day.  We met at the entrance to the college so she could vouch for me with the security guard, and we spent most of the day either catching up or touring the campus.

But our first stop - the parking lot that had room for my RV - had a sight to see on its own.  Berry College has its own nesting Bald Eagle pair, and here's the sign that explains them:

details enlarged below

Near the top of the tree in the center of this photo is the eagles' nest -
the thing that looks like a big thick blob among the top branches.

Can you see the eagle?  He or she is sitting on a left-side
branch about 1/3 of the way from the top.

Carol told me about the colorful history of Berry College.  In 1902 in rural Georgia, education was hard to come by - especially for farmers' children who were needed to work on their families' farms.  That's the year that Martha Berry convinced some of the area farmers to send their sons to her new Boys Industrial School.  In exchange for a high-quality education including vocational training, the boys would help to supply the school's needs.  Over time she established for the school a dairy where the boys worked, including care for the cows; fields which the boys plowed and planted with vegetables and grains, then cared for the crops and harvested them; a water wheel to run a grist mill to process the grains; a kiln where the boys made the bricks the school's buildings were made with - you get the idea.  Some of those programs still exist at the college.

In 1909 Miss Berry overcame the reluctance of parents who agreed to send their girls for a similar education bargain.  In 1926, the 2 schools became a junior college - then a senior college that graduated its first class in 1932.  Which goes to prove there's more than one way to skin a cat - which is a dreadful metaphor and I don't want to know where it came from.

Some of these are the original bricks made by an early class of boys.
As you can see, they were well-made, being still in use 100 years later.

In the 1930s, Miss Berry's unflagging fundraising efforts paid off quite handsomely (literally) in a gift from Henry and Clara Ford - a gift that built a substantial complex of buildings still being used today.

If the buildings below look familiar, it may be because Remember the Titans was partly filmed here.

Sort of a medieval castle look about these buildings.

Another angle of those buildings - though
you can see that here, too, there are hills to deal with.

In fact, all these Ford buildings sit up on a hilltop overlooking the main campus.

I took this hoping the original pane windows would show - really lovely.

Carol pointed out this building to show there's a courtyard
and further buildings beyond just the ones visible from the front.
But see details from this photo below. 

This is detail from above the arched doorway.

And this is even further detail from the photo above,
showing Miss Berry's motto:
"Not to be ministered unto but to minister."

This is what the inside of that arched area looks like -
in attention to details, they tiled the ceilings.

We went downtown to a Mellow Mushroom Pizza place.  The chain was founded in Atlanta and I've seen them all over, it seems.  They're mostly in the South, but they have branches as far west as Arizona, and north to Ohio and Kansas.  Anyway, I learned today that they make good pizza and I took home half of mine - premade supper.

There are quite a few historic-type markers on downtown buildings like this one.

For some reason this image fascinated me - in 21 years this location went
from a grocery to a photography studio to a cigar maker to the Chamber of Commerce.

And I found this one that was fascinating for its very different history.

The original building was burned on Sherman's March to the Sea.
As you see, Yankees were Masons too and helped rebuild the temple.

This is the front door -
you can see the plaque to the right of it.

And this is the whole building.  I took it because the cornerstone (the white thing below and right of the blue sign) says the building belonged to the Masonic Lodge.
The lodge entrance is just visible (the black awning) beyond the maroon awning.

This brick building is in the Gothic Revival style - not what I call a graceful style but certainly impressive.  And yes, the building really does slope - you can tell by looking at the sidewalk it fronts on.

In 1886, Rome experienced its worst flood, which crested at 40.3'.  (Along with its 7 hills, Rome has 3 rivers running through or near it.)  The Masonic building got swamped with 7' of water.  Not really something I'd think about in downtown Rome, GA, but it happened.

From town we went back to the school to its historic water mill.

And here's the mill itself:

It was overhauled and rebuilt in 1985 and
is still used to grind corn meal on special occasions.

We did a lot of walking around the campus today, so Dext was the beneficiary - getting more exercise than usual.

On another visit I'll go to Oak Hill and the Martha Berry Museum in the home where she used to live, sitting across the road from the campus.  Miss Berry's home is the fancy "plantation" house Reese Witherspoon's character says she grew up in in the movie Sweet Home Alabama.

Later, Carol and I sat around talking for a long time - very nice - and it was after 4:00 when I finally decided I'd better get us back to the campground.  It was a half-hour drive away and I usually feed the critters before 4:30.

Later I took Dext around the campground again, but this time I took what I thought would be a shortcut - the Blueberry Thicket Trail that cut through the thick trees and bushes from one side of the campground to the other.  I wanted to avoid the very steep hill a walk around the whole campground included - but it turned out to be a sort of out-of-the frying-pan situation.  I hadn't looked at the campground map very closely and missed the fact that the trail was actually pretty long and not a shortcut at all.  It was pleasant enough and Dext enjoyed it, but after a while it seemed to go on and on (because I'd mistakenly thought it was short).  Still, Dext definitely got his exercise quota today - and so did I.

Georgia - Day 32 - traveling through Rome

James H. "Sloppy" Floyd State Park, Summerville

Saturday, 29 April 2023

I didn't wake up until 4:00, putting me already an hour behind.  I got up to find that Jimmy had pooped a lot in their crate - in the crate, not on the absorbent pads I put in the crate specifically for this purpose.  On the plus side (not always easy to find), both kitties had managed to stay away from it so the mess wasn't as bad as it could have been (and has been before).  Still, not the best thing to wake up to.

today's route

Thanks to running late, we didn't get on the road until 9:30.  You can see it was a short drive from the campground to Rome, and in 2 hours we'd already stopped at a Tractor Supply (propane) and a Kroger (I got lost trying to find it so it took extra time) and were driving in the very hilly old part of Rome, looking for the "historic" Clock Tower.

The town of Rome is, like its namesake in Italy, built on 7 hills - and its topography inspired the founders to give it its name.  The clock tower was built at the top of one of them and is visible all over the city.

Clock Tower

That same brick wall, looking along the street.

Apparently it's considered "historic" because of its age: the tower was built in 1871 to house a water tower; the clock and bell were added in 1872.  I thought it would be a good place to stop and walk around with Dexter, but the parking lot at the tower was miniscule, and the street was so narrow and steep I didn't think parking the RV there was a good idea.

I thought I was turning into a parking area designated for the clock tower.  That's the green arrow on the left.

Out of sight on the right is an entrance to a parking garage - of course, off limits to me.  The green arrow on the right shows the access to an area that's raised from the space on the left, where I thought I might be able to park out of people's way.  What I didn't realize is that it was exceptionally raised.  The ramp to get there was so incredibly steep - and short - that I just couldn't get up it.  

So I tried to reverse back down - and my rear bumper got stuck on the lower level.  When I tried to go forward up the hill to loosen it, the tires just spun out and the smell of rubber was serious.  I tried that a couple of times, and then tried turning the tires in a different direction to see if that helped find traction - and it did.  I managed to scrape my rear bumper off the asphalt and turned to continue down the hilly street to find somewhere else.  

Going down that steep street was actually nerve-wracking itself because I wasn't sure how much tread I had left or what condition my brakes were in, because it was really a very steep hill.  Rivals the hills of San Francisco.  We managed to get down to the next cross street and found a parking place that didn't block a driveway and didn't scrape on the trees.  And I stopped, and turned off the engine, and just sat there shaking.  It was all really scary.

But Dexter still wanted a walk, so eventually I pulled myself together and we trudged back up the hill to the clock tower.  Good thing we've been staying in hilly campgrounds lately or we'd never have made it up there.

That spire is the
1st Baptist Church.

A better view of the tower.

As we were climbing the hill, it turned noon and the bell in the clock tower began chiming, along with bells in several neighboring churches, including the Baptists.  Actually, it sounded like the various churches had coordinated so they played their tunes and chimes separately from each other, which makes a lot of sense (which seems in short supply sometimes).  It was a nice accompaniment to our climb.

The tower is 104' tall and now houses a museum, which I didn't try to go in because of Dext.  We climbed even farther up to the tower's ground level, finding nicer garden areas as we climbed.

The garden at the parking level.
Sign enlarged below right.

Sign from above left.

I was curious whether there were any gardens outside Georgia on this butterfly trail, so I looked it up and learned that yes, there are a whole lot of them all over the country.  And you too can plant such a garden and then register it on the map.  Here's the website   https://rosalynncarterbutterflytrail.org  where you can find lists of locations of both public and private gardens (the private ones are only shown by state, not by address).  Also the kind of habitat butterflies need and how to provide that for both container and in-ground gardens.  There are gardens as far away as Alaska and Maine and Canadian provinces.

Speaking of gardens, as we came back down the hill to the RV, we passed a house that had figured out what to do with a front yard that was very visible and very not usable.

closer view below right

The house next door had actually tried to make a normal front yard out of this slope - and it looked okay but I sure wouldn't have wanted to cut that grass or weed those flower beds.  This one seemed much more sensible and just as attractive.

I'd intended to run some more errands before leaving town, but that little episode in the non-parking area really left me shaken.  Instead I just made one stop - at a post office to get my ballot postmarked before mailing it.  In Texas, I get an absentee ballot because I'm old but it's counted only if it arrives on or before the election (May 6th) or is postmarked before and arrives no later than May 8th.  I ended up paying for 2-day delivery just to be sure it got there.  These days even school board elections matter a lot.

From there I drove out to the state park, which was farther from town than I'd expected.  Some of the houses we passed had what you might call a backwoods appearance to them.  And I'm afraid I expect to find very conservative opinions in the residents of such houses, so I was surprised to see this sign in front of one of them: "Flood The Polls - Vote Abortion." 

We were in our campsite by 2:30.  Dext and I walked around the campground, only to learn that it too was bigger than I'd expected from looking at the map.  Lots of walking and yet more hills.  I keep forgetting that the Appalachians extend down into Georgia - a fact I should have remembered from actually driving in them coming across the state from east to west.

Lots and lots of trees, apparently a very popular park because I saw large groups of people picnicking in the day use area as well as the campground being full.

It was named for a state legislator who represented this area for many years.  James Floyd was given the nickname "Sloppy" in high school - he was unusually thin and his football jersey (this is the South so of course he played football) flopped around his body and his coach thought he looked sloppy.  "Sloppy" is on his tombstone.

In 1964, Julian Bond was one of 5 Black people elected to the state house - the first since 1907.  Bond publicly supported those who were protesting the Vietnam War.  "Sloppy" Floyd led the charge to stop Bond from being seated in the house, claiming it was because his opposition to the war would prevent him from swearing to uphold the US Constitution.  But because so many Americans opposed the war that, about 10 years later, even Pres. Nixon agreed to end it, it's hard to escape the idea that Floyd's and others' opposition to Bond was because he was too uppity to tolerate.

Apparently he should have picked a different basis for his opposition to Bond, because the US Supreme Court eventually ruled that the state Leg. was violating Bond's right to free speech and ordered that he be seated.  The case was titled Bond v. Floyd.

There's always something in the South.

Georgia - Day 31 - in the campground

Red Top Mountain State Park, Cartersville

Friday, 28 April 2023

We had to change campsites today (and I was still anxious about whether I even had a site for tonight), so I decided to go to the campground's welcome center in hopes I could pick up an internet signal there.

It wasn't a very strong signal, but it was a signal.  I used it to locate and get directions for various stops I wanted to make in Rome tomorrow: grocery store, laundromat, propane dealer, liquor store and post office.  

I'd found on the campground's handouts that there was a trail that started and ended at the welcome center, and this trail wasn't very long and was ADA accessible, which sounded like just the ticket for Dext and me after all the steep hills we'd been climbing in our part of the campground.  The trail was called Lakeside Trail, and it was a very pleasant walk.

I guess it was a campaign to promote children's literacy - but whatever prompted it, there were signs all along the trail that looked like they'd been taken straight out of a children's book.  I've now learned that that's exactly what they were - the book is called Moth & Butterfly: Ta Da!, written by Dev Petty.  It's a really good book (probably going to get banned somewhere for some weird reason) about the similarities and differences between the 2 types of insects and how a moth and a butterfly managed to retain a friendship throughout their respective metamorphoses.  I eagerly looked forward to each page as we walked and sometimes forgot to look at the pretty lake and trees around us.  (Dext was not similarly distracted.)  I think kids who finished reading those pages could register somewhere for a free book.  Nice idea.

The sun came out today, which gave me a much more optimistic view on things and made our walk actually possible.

We went back to the campground, where the guy who checked me in today was as nice as the woman yesterday was grumpy - what a relief.  And nobody was occupying my site - my reservation was good - another relief.  And the new campsite was relatively level and on fairly level ground (not down in a hole like yesterday's).  And just altogether, things looked up today.  Just as Scarlett promised.

After we checked in but before I went to our site, I parked at the building with the laundry and showers so I wouldn't have to haul all my clothes a quarter mile from my campsite.  Everything was going well until it came to getting my clothes dry.  The dryers were new and didn't work well at all, so instead of producing high heat, it felt more like low or no heat.  It took me a LOT more time and money to get them dry.  I should have waited for the laundromat tomorrow.  

But even there I was lucky, though, because a nice young woman was doing lots of laundry and let me play through, so to speak.  There were only 2 washers and she let me have one, and she's the one who told me what was going on with the dryers.  She and her husband and young daughter are living full time in their 5th wheel in this state park, she said.  They have both a landscaping business and an RV rental business locally (she said the sheets and towels she was washing were used for the rented RVs).  She said they prefer living in the RV to living in a house.  Interesting woman - I wished she had more time for me to talk to her.

Dext and I saw those 5 deer again this morning, and we saw a wild turkey on our last walk before bed at night.

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."