During our trip down South, I took hundreds of pictures. Once home, I started going through them and unfortunately I didn’t have many that needed to be deleted. I am at a loss of how I am going to organize them for a scrapbook and just including a couple for the blog is tougher yet. Tuesday (day 2) I believe is the hardest day of all to write about. This is the day I saw my first Civil War battlefield, saw strategic positions the North fought hard for, and saw the area one of my ancestors died in during a battle. But here I go giving it a try.
The Battle of Chickamauga in the West happened September 19-20, 1863 just a couple months after Gettysburg in the East. The location is right near the Georgia, Tennessee border. The South won the battle driving the North back to Chattanooga, Tennessee. In the two days, 34,000 Soldiers died. We browsed the tourist center where I took a picture of my favorite generals.
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| General U.S. Grant and General William T. Sherman |
The entire experience at Chickamauga was overwhelming and exhausting for me. Our first stop, there were a number of monuments, cannons, and plaques. I took pictures of all of them, pretty simple until the next stop. I took about ten pictures when Jerry finally explained to me the battle line extended for a mile and a half with all these items extending the entire distance. I would venture a guess of 100 or more monuments and plaques.
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| A few memorials. |
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Many monuments pictured the acorn to
repressent the units toughness. |
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| Jerry checking out the position. |
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| My favorite monument. |
Civilians were affected by the battle. The Brotherton family took cover with other families from the area a mile from their home to escape the fighting with no food or shelter. The youngest daughter came back in search of food to find four cows hadn’t been taken. She planned to give the milk to the families, but instead shared it with the wounded soldiers surrounding her home, Adaline’s journey to holiness.
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| Brotherton Home |
Here is where Hans Heg was mortally wounded. I would like to find out more about him. He led the Scandinavian immigrants into battle. In this area of the battlefield, the ground was covered with the dead, dying, and wounded. A person could not cross this field without stepping on bodies.
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| Site of COL Heg's fall. |
An area Jerry and I would both like to study is the “Lightning Brigade.” This monument to them is a tower. We of course went to the top.
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| View from Lookout Mountain |
Missionary Ridge holds family history for me. One of my ancestors (a great, great, great uncle died in these woods. The city has grown up around the woods. We tried to find where he might have been, but this is not an area that has been saved for tourists like Chickamauga; thus, I had to take a picture from the car.
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| Small section of Missionary Ridge |
After being in Chattanooga, we wanted to explore General Sherman’s march down to Atlanta. Unfortunately, the sun began to set. Another time we will have to go back to do this. It was nice to see how wooded the terrain is that the armies had to travel through. All those men who sacrificed on both sides for what they thought right is amazing. Looking back, it is easy to see the side of good, but I imagine God worked hard to support both sides because they were all His children.
Blessings to you all.
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