Mobile Alabama

So it's been a busy couple of weeks since Knoxville where we left off. John and Rita Carter put up with us for several days but it was actually a very pleasant time. With the exception of a few very humid days, the weather was perfect for exploring the surrounding areas. They drove us up to Kentucky where we had lunch in Berea which is the artisan capital of Kentucky.

John is quite the woodworker. He took the time and effort to make Marilyn a really big cribbage board. Cribbage is a favorite game in the Lanning family. Grandpa Ned taught all the cousins how to play and we have passed it down to our kids too.

This was a really tough one to get right

On another day they drove us to Sweetwater TN to take a look at the flea market where vendors sold all the normal things you'd see at the Mesa Mart or Yuma flea markets.

We said our goodbyes on the 18th and moved on to Chatanooga TN which was only 108 miles west.
We stayed at this RV park.

Here we had the opportunity to visit a few Civil War sites.

The next day we went to Lookout Mountain where there is a wonderful view of the Chatanooga area and a memorial to the great battles that took place here.

Just one of the many plaques explaining the events in November 1863

The entrance to Point Park where the memorials lay

This memorial is a spire topped by a Yankee and a Reb together in friendship signaling the end of the war. Around the perimeter are plaques showing the different states involved

The main battles were in the valleys below where Yankee and Rebel forces fought over a period of three days. One survivor, a Confederate soldier remarked that you could walk across the battlefield on the bodies of the dead without stepping on the grass. There much to be told about this battle. Too much to elaborate in a short time. But if you're interested in more details about it, do a search for the battles of Chattanooga. The views from Lookout Mountain down to the Tennessee River and Georgia on the other side were outstanding.

The Union cannons that the Confederate soldiers faced when they charged

The Confederate cannons that the Union soldiers faced when they charged

A tower erected in 1902 in remembrance of the Lightning Brigade who fought a relentless attack by rebel soldiers

They battlefield below the tower

 

After our time in Chattanooga we drove to Unadilla GA and another RV park. We had planned on going to some places to see more of the area but Marilyn was not feeling well on the day. So I went alone to one more of my bucket list places. It is the Andersonville prison camp run by the infamous Captain Henry Wirz. My brother Steve and I are big fans of a play from the early 70's with William Shatner, Jack Cassidy and Richard Basehart. It is a depiction of the trial Wirz had for war crimes while commandant of the prison. Since the North couldn't try his superiors due to politics, he was singled out and made a scapegoat. Over his period of time as the commandant more that 13000 Union soldiers died in the prison. The North was outraged and politics, being what they are, demanded accountability. The conditions were hellish inside and while the prison was originally designed for 6000 prisoners, at the peak of its population it held 33000 Union soldiers. It was a sobering experience to actually walk on the ground where so much misery and death occurred.

 

The main entrance had two heavy doors. Once inside the alcove the outer door was shut and the inner door opened. "Is this hell?" remarked a soldier who survived.

The stockade walls were cut down from the local trees, hewn by slaves to fit closely together such that no light from the surrounding guard campfires could be seen.

Henry Wirz could see the entire stockade from this vantage point. His headquarters was called Star Fort

The row of white on the right show the placement of the outer wall and the row on the left show the "deadline". If a man crossed over the "deadline" he was shot dead.

The water supply for the prison was only a small stream that entered under the prison wall and ran across the prison yard. It was entirely insufficient. Use your imagination to envision tens of thousands of desperate men lacking food and water.

Reproductions of the shelters the men made. None was provided by the prison so they were on their own.

After the war, a Union soldier who worked at the "hospital" managed to copy the "dead" list and smuggled it out upon his release. With the help of Sarah Barton he was able to identify most of the dead and marked the graves with wooden headstones.

A bronze stature at the entrance to the cemetery dedicated to those who suffered and died at Andersonville

 

The next day Marilyn was feeling better so it was time to honor her bucket list item. We drove to Eatonton GA where Joel Chandler Harris was born. Everyone remembers Brer Rabbit, Brer Bear and the other characters from Disney movies. Harris was more than just a casual writer. Born in 1848 Harris would go on to become one of America's finest writers. From a young age he was surrounded by literature and gained experience while working as a printer's devil at Turnwold Plantation in East Eatonton. During his time at Turnwold he experienced the stories and language of the plantation's slaves. It was these experiences that would shape his famous Uncle Remus stories.

 

 

On the way back to camp we came across a creek with an interesting legend behind it.

 

The following is from a web site. There are several legends but this one seemed to be the best.

 

The year was 1788.  A few years now the war had been won, and the constitution was very recently ratified.  As you can imagine, a very uncomfortable time to be a royalist. The Creek Indians had been allied with the British during the Revolution, and one of their chiefs, Alexander McGillivray, aka Hoboi-Hilo-Miko (a colonel in the British Army, and oddly descended from a Scot), had not forgotten his old friends.  He arranged to have his Tory friend, one Colonel Kirkland of South Carolina (....a relative of the infamous Tory Moses Kirkland perhaps?...), transported safely to Louisiana, then still a Spanish province.
        At that time the land west of the Oconee river was still Indian territory, not even considered part of the fledgling United States.  The state of Georgia was frequently feuding with the Creeks at its border, which had yet to make it this far westward.  McGillivray offered safe passage through his lands to Pensacola, Florida, where Kirkland & co. would be able to obtain a Spanish passport to fabulous LA; McGillivray sent one of his servants to guide them.  So off they went in a southernly direction towards Florida, carrying all their remaining wealth in silver bars in their saddlebags.

        Here is where the story begins to sound like a distasteful, non-PC joke.  Kirkland & co. happened to cross paths with a multi-ethnic gang of three men: 1) a vicious, murderous Hillabee Indian who had earned the name Istillicha or the "Man-slayer," for having killed so many men, 2) a 'desperate' white man, who, having fled from his crime of murder took up with the Indians and carried on with such a ferocious demeanor that the Indians had nicknamed him "Cat", and 3) a blood-thirsty negro, Bob.

        Kirkland &co., apparently unconcerned at having just recently encountered a gang of ruffians, elected to camp at the very next creek, for it was late and they were tired.  Istillicha, Cat, and Bob, being unlawful, evil denizens of the dark, required no sleep, and thus took it upon themselves to raid Kirkland's camp in the middle of the night.  They stole their guns and silver and left none alive, save three negros (one of which being the servant to the chief McGillivray), who promptly ran off to tattle.  Upon hearing the news, McGillivray, enraged, sent out a search party.  Only Cat was captured.  In order to best serve justice, it was ordered that the prisoner be returned to the location of the crime, that lonely creek, where he would suffer his punishment of hanging until death.

        Cat was strung up from the very same tree which bore the bloody stains of the massacre of his victims.  As he hung there, twisting in the agony of his death-throes, some random Frenchman (not making this up, it is as Mr. Pickett describes) shot him with a pistol.

You never know what you'll find when traveling the back roads of America.

 

 

 

We managed to squeeze in some geocaching on Sunday after the service at the local Methodist church. There were several along the Tennessee River.

 

There was one located somewhere around this boat ramp but we couldn't find it

View of the Tennessee River from the boat ramp

We thought this one was really clever. It was called "Be ready"

The cache was an Altoids tin with a magnet attached to the back of the letter "R"

 

 

The final one was located near an old abandoned dam. Hales Bar dam was constructed in 1905 as a hydroelectric station but it has a dark past.

The following story is from "Haunting America"

 

Hales Bar Dam was built on land that was originally Cherokee territory.  When the white man came though, they started to take their holdings and their lands dwindled down to almost nothing.  During the Treaty of Sycamore Shoals on March 17, 1775 Cherokee leaders Attakullakulla, Oconastota, Willanawaw, Doublehead and Dragging Canoe cursed the land, vowing to turn the land “dark and bloody” if anyone attempted to settle there.  Construction of the Dam began in 1905 when the Chattanooga and Tennessee River Power Company began to build this hydroelectric dam which was completed in 1913.  The dam was to be one of first multipurpose dams built in the U.S..  When the dam was built it flooded everything which once stood below the dam.  Although the extent of the structures which were flooded is unclear, there is a known graveyard standing under the water from which none of the graves were relocated before the flood.    Ironically if you consider the curse, leaks began to show up almost immediately after the dam was built and it was in constant repair status.  Tennessee Valley Authority took over the dam in 1939, but after spending 20 years repairing leaks and damages they decided it was just too expensive to continue to repair the failing dam.  They decided to replace the dam and built Nickajack Dam 6 miles downstream in 1968.  Today, the Dam sits empty and abandoned but is available for tours and used as a marina.

 

An old photo of the dam

We left Undilla on Wednesday the 24 and on the way to Columbus GA we stopped at FDR's little white house in Warm Springs GA. When FDR was still a young man he contracted polio. He had heard about the therapeutic benefits of the naturally warm springs there. This is before Dr. Jonas Salk had perfected the polio vaccine so in those days this seemed to be the answer to the outbreak of polio that was ravaging the country. FDR decided to build purchase some property there and when he became president in 1932 he built a home. During his presidency he visited this site many times and while the waters did not cure his disease, they did provide some relief and gave him the ability to exercise his leg muscles. He died here of a massive stroke while sitting for a portrait in 1945 just a few months before the Japanese surrendered.

FDR was given 112 canes as gifts

Some of the campaign items he received while on the stump

He used this carriage to visit people in Warm Springs

This carving was made from one solid piece of wood

This pot belly stove heated the house

Living room of the servants quarters

The guest room

The bed where FDR finally died

Dining room

The original "unfinished portrait" of FDR



Elizabeth Shoumatoff had begun working on the portrait of the president around noon on April 12, 1945. Roosevelt was being served lunch when he said "I have a terrific pain in the back of my head." He then slumped forward in his chair, unconscious, and was carried into his bedroom. The president's attending cardiologist, Dr. Howard Bruenn, diagnosed a massive cerebral hemorrhage (stroke). Roosevelt never regained consciousness and died at 3:35 p.m. that day. Shoumatoff never finished the portrait.

While in the Columbus area I had an opportunity to visit with John Laney K4BAI a ham radio operator known by many in this hobby. John and his wife Weesie met us for dinner at a seafood restaurant and later returned to his home. He and I chatted about our shared interest in the hobby and the ladies about family. We really enjoyed our time together and John seemed genuinely glad we took the time to visit him.

John is a meticulous filer of QSL cards and found the one I sent to him back in 2002

So here we are in Robertsville Alabama at an RV park called Azalea Acres which is between Pensacola FL and Mobile AL. I know this post was really long but there was so much to see and do I wanted to share as much as I could without boring you to death.