Week in Review: April 14-20, 2013 ~~ Mississippi to Tennessee

 We were awakened Sunday morning the 14^th by a deluge: rain, rain, thunder, lightning and lots of rain. It began at about 2:45 a.m. and continued until about 7:30 a.m. Afterward the air was so fresh and sweet; you could smell the fresh “green” of the trees and grass. Lovely. The temperature rose from 58 degrees when we got up to the low 80s, with a slight breeze. We did a few housekeeping chores, then drove into Port Gibson to access the internet and pick up a few groceries. The rest of the day was spent sitting outside, reading, and enjoying the day. The Grand Gulf Military Park was very quiet, as we were the only ones camped in our section.

Monday…tax day. It’s on all our calendars… Temps were in the low 60s when we got up, but quickly rose to the mid-80s by mid-afternoon. We hopped on our bicycles and rode around Grand Gulf Military Park again, over to Fort Cobun (also in Grand Gulf) and down to the Mississippi River. We noticed how the river had risen and become more virulent from the bit of rain received further upriver, and what we received yesterday.

Later in the day we rode the motorcycle into Port Gibson to get cell phone service. After making a few phone calls to family and friends, we took photos of this historic house that was Ulysses Grant’s headquarters during his siege in the area. Notice the mosaic work in the dormers, which was all around the house. 

The Natchez Trace beckoned, so we rode north on the trace for 40 miles to Rock Springs, then returned to the park to begin packing up for our departure Tuesday.

When we spoke with my brother Rich that morning, we heard that my mom had fallen and was being transported to the hospital to get checked out. She had hit her head, with a bit of bleeding, but seemed to otherwise be okay.

Tuesday we packed up and were on the road within an hour (we’re getting better and faster at this!). We headed north to Big Buck RV Resort just east of Hornsby, Tennessee (pop. 297, 2011 census). Further to the west is the larger town of Bolivar (pop. 5,399, 2011 census), where we found a WalMart for shopping. During our drive we crossed the Tallahatchie River and Bridge (remember the song about Bobby Joe McCallister jumping off the Tallahatchie Bridge?).

Interestingly, in the early days Bolivar, established in 1819, was named Hatchie. In 1824, because of repeated floods, the town was moved about 2 miles south and renamed Bolivar, in honor of the South American liberator and president of Venezuela, Simón Bolívar. (Bolivar, who was in power during the early 1800s, was one of the greatest military leaders, but mostly unknown, in the history of the entire world. For more information on this amazing leader, here’s a link to his biography, if you’re interested: http://www.militaryheritage.com/bolivar.htm.)

Our site at Big Buck

These two photos are of the cabins and fishing ponds
on the property. The ponds are stocked with fish,
but we haven't been fishing...yet...

During season (after Memorial Day) Big Buck RV Resort is a bustling hub of activity, the folks here say. It offers skeet/trap shooting, rifle/pistol target shooting, an archery range, swimming pool, 2 10-acre fish-stocked deep well fed lakes, miles of 4-wheeler and walking trails, 1,200 acres for deer, squirrel and turkey hunting (in season of course), horseshoe pitching, a sandy volleyball court, and a large sandy playground area next to lake for kids. However, now it’s really quiet. We arrived Tuesday, a motor home arrived Wednesday, and a pull-behind arrived Thursday. That’s it!

There’s no cell service in the park (again!), but we have relatively good TV reception and reasonable internet. Thanks to Magic-Jack we were able to make phone calls on the computer. We had received a subsequent message from my niece that my mom had fallen as a result of a broken left hip. She was due to have a partial hip replacement on Wednesday.  

Wednesday by noon the temperatures had reached the high 80s, with humidity just as high. We rode the bikes around the park to familiarize ourselves with everything and take photos. Nothing happening here! We took off on the motorcycle to scout the back roads and see what we could see. The bright yellow of rapeseed fields attack your sense of sight, because of its bright color. Spectacular scenes of hills, farmland, streams, farms and farm animals. Nice.

Mom’s surgery went well. She was alert and talking with family right after surgery, because they gave her an epidural rather than general anesthesia, due to her age. She was scheduled to be up and walking around her room on Thursday. Thank you, God, for answered prayer. 

Thursday we used Magic-Jack to call my brother Rich to check on everyone and everything in Minnesota. Other than an additional 22” of snow, plus more on the way, everything was fine. Spoke with Mom, who was in great spirits and no pain. Rich is continuing to plow snow…hope it melts and warms up by the time we arrive there in mid-May! To date, since February 1, they’ve received over 8 FEET of snow! Definitely a new record!

New folks arrived on Thursday from Mobile, Alabama. They parked just across the road from us, so it was nice to have people nearby. That night we were expecting heavy thunderstorms and wind gust to 40 mph, possibility of hail, and also the possibility of tornadic activity. Thankfully, all we experienced were the thunderstorms and wind. By the next morning it was over, and the sun came out for a spectacular day.

Friday we woke to 50 degree temperatures and a very chilly day. The temps didn’t rise to any higher than 58 degrees. Brrr! Quite a change from just a couple of days ago! We spent most of the day inside, and watched “The Hunger Games,” available on NetFlicks.

Our new neighbors invited us over for chili that night; I made brownies. We sat outside around their fire pit, eating chili, and talking for a few hours. We learned that he works in the oil fields, currently in Angola, Africa, and is home for 28 days every other month. It was interesting to hear him relate stories of life in other parts of the world, including Kazakhstan where he’s also worked. They plan to leave for Kentucky on Sunday.

Saturday was another spectacular cloudless day, with little wind...a perfect day to hop on the motorcycle and explore the Shiloh National Military Park, just 35 miles from our location. Very interesting, and for any Civil War buffs, a must see. 

Shiloh National Military Park Visitors Center

Shiloh National Military Park was established to honor those who perished in the Civil War Battle of Shiloh, April 6-7, 1862. This battle is noted for being the most bloody and devastating carnage on American soil ever in the history of this country: 23,746 soldiers were killed, wounded or missing out of the 109,784 men engaged in battle. 

The Shiloh Meeting House, the log Methodist church
around which many of the skirmishes took place, and
which gave the battle its name.

Memorials, exhibits and maps indicate the troop movements, both Union and Confederate, during this 2-day battle, and take you over the 6,000 acres of battlefield. 

Throughout the park, every direction you looked (even in the woods)
were memorials and monuments, innumerable cannons, and signs
indicating headquarters, camps, troop positions, etc.
This park covers over 6,000 acres of woodlands and fields.

One of the many Indiana memorials

One of many Iowa memorials

One of the many Tennessee memorials.

Monuments such as this indicated where headquarters
had been established for the many military leaders
during this battle.

Memorials such as these lined the paved roads
leading you through the park, to battlefields,
encampments, and headquarters locations.

“The Union Army barely held its position on April 6, 1862. The South had to win this battle, or it would be increasingly certain the out-manned Confederate Army was doomed to lose the Civil War. The Union took a beating on Day 1, losing 3,000 more men than the South. Union reinforcements, on the way from the Nashville area, were delayed by flooding rivers and washed-out bridges. Would they arrive in time to help Gen. Ulysses S. Grant and his Union soldiers put down the secessionist Rebels?

When the smoke cleared, the dead and wounded were strewn across the muddy, wooded battlefield, which sprawled over 6,000 acres on the west bank of the Tennessee River less than 10 river miles south of Savannah, Tenn. The site is now Shiloh National Military Park, 110 miles east of Memphis, which was the scene of carnage intended to settle the war between the states. 

The blood of the fallen men—and horses—had turned a freshwater pond into what became known as "Bloody Pond," a symbol of the most gruesome battle the nation had seen.

It pitted North against South, but also neighbor against neighbor, brother against brother and classmate against classmate. The leading generals at Shiloh all were graduates of West Point, armed with the same tactics.

Casualties of war—killed, wounded and missing—are an inexact science, but some historians contend that in two days, the Battle of Shiloh cost more men than all previous U.S. wars combined. Grant said later, "In numbers engaged, no such contest ever took place on this continent." More than 23,000 men were killed, wounded or missing.

Gate to the Shiloh National Military Park Cemetary.

Grave marker of an unknown U.S. soldier,
marked only with a number.

Row after row of unmarked graves indicate the final resting place for
hundreds of Union soldiers. Many are marked with simply a square
block of granite engraved with a number. (The Confederate
soldiers are buried in five known mass graves in other areas of the park.

Note the small square grave markers, where so many soldiers
are buried without identification.

Located just a few hundred feet inside the gates to the cemetery.

In February 1862, Grant and his men had captured two Confederate forts—Fort Henry and Fort Donelson—about 15 miles south of the Kentucky border. It meant Grant could safely send gunboats and steamboats south along the Cumberland and Tennessee rivers. He was preparing for a fresh assault deeper into the Confederacy. His goal was the rail lines intersecting in Corinth, Miss. The Memphis & Charleston went all the way from Corinth to the East Coast. It was the "vertebra of the Confederacy," as one secretary of war called it.

As Grant planned his attack at Shiloh, the Confederacy got the jump on him—a surprise attack before dawn on April 6. In the actual battle, the Union had the heaviest toll—more than 13,000 casualties. The South lost 10,000. But outnumbered Confederate forces were forced to retreat 22 miles south to Corinth, enlisting more men to rise again. It was the fierceness of the battle at Shiloh that has attracted many war buffs to the (park).

"It was just a great big fistfight with two big mobs slugging away at each other," the late historian Shelby Foote said when he attended a re-enactment of the battle in 1987.

"It turns into this grinding, slowly moving bloodbath," says Chris Mekow, historian and National Park Service ranger at Shiloh National Military Park. Historian Bruce Catton said, "Now the war had come down to uninstructed murderous battle in the smoky woodland, where men who had never been shown how to fight stayed in defiance of all logical expectation and fought for two nightmarish days. And because they had done this the hope for an easy war and a cheap victory was gone forever."  (excerpted, The Commercial Appeal, April 1, 2012)

For more information on the Battle of Shiloh, see http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/shiloh.htm Expect to be changed. To know that you’re walking over ground that has seen such massacre, where so many lost their lives, is so discomforting.

We hope this finds you well. Here's the map of our travels since leaving Rockport, TX.

A = Rockport, TX

B = Beaumont, TX

C = Grand Gulf Military Park, MS

D = Big Buck RV Resort, TN

We’re continuing our trek northward, heading out Tuesday morning for Carterville, Illinois, to visit with friends whom we met in Texas. 

Blessings and hugs,

RJ and Gail