Category Archives: Historical Markers

A Followup

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In October I wrote about the Cassville Affair, which transpired on May 19, 1864. Many of the pictures in that post I had taken in the summer. One historical marker I looked for and missed is marked on this map:

Google maps.

The upper one, entitled “Confederate Line,” is designated as “5” in my previous post. I cruised up and down Mac Johnson Road in search of the second one, and couldn’t find it. I thought that it had been stolen, like the sign for Trahlyta’s Grave. 

But it turns out that all I needed was for the summertime vegetation to die off. Driving on the road again this afternoon I spotted the GHC historical marker, which essentially repeats the information in the “Confederate Line” sign. 

As a bonus there is another marker close by, in the form of a granite block on the ground, with a plaque attesting to the existence of the McKelvey House. Nothing beside remains of this house, although you can tell that there was once something there.

I repeat my statement that if the Cassville Affair is worth so many markers, other things should be entitled to them as well. 

Civil War Galore

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My exploration of the Atlanta Campaign prompted me to take a day trip further north to see some of the other sites in that campaign, in particular Rocky Face Ridge, Resaca, and Rome Cross Roads. But as is usual with such tourism, you always discover other things when you’re out, such as the Chetoogeta Mountain Tunnel and the Monastery of the Glorious Ascension. But there is a lot more Civil War stuff in Georgia too. This post deals with some of it, and how it is memorialized. 

In Catoosa County, almost in Tennessee, one finds the main site for the Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park. I regret to say that I was completely unaware of how massive (and massively deadly) the Battle of Chickamauga was in the course of the Civil War. Fought on September 18-20, 1863, it featured some 60,000 Union troops fighting 65,000 Confederates – producing, respectively, 16,000 and 18,000 casualties. Only Gettysburg had a higher toll. That this was a victory for the Confederacy in a war it ultimately lost, I suppose, puts it outside the narrative, so to speak, so it does not surprise me that Gettysburg is better known. 

In 1890, Congress authorized the foundation of this park, along with parks for the Battles of Gettysburg, Shiloh, and Vicksburg, in the first wave of federal Civil War preservation. To my chagrin the visitors’ center at Chickamauga was closed on account of the virus, but at 5300 acres, the park provides lots of things to see. These include artillery pieces:

Battlefield markers:

Plenty of signs explaining exactly what went on at various points in the battle (in gray for Confederate movements, and blue for Union):

And lots of monuments, contributed by various parties:

Florida.

Illinois

Indiana.

Kentucky, honoring soldiers who fought on both sides.

Gettysburg is like this too, if I recall correctly from a visit there many years ago. It is good to remember. The more monuments and markers, the better.

Today, this park has five other satellite sites, at Orchard Knob (for a battle fought there on Nov. 23, 1863), Lookout Mountain (Nov. 24, 1863), and Missionary Ridge (Nov. 25, 1863) – all commemorating subsequent Union victories in defense of Chattanooga, counting as part of the Chattanooga Campaign – plus Moccasin Bend (an American Indian site) and Signal Point (a Civil War signal station). But Chickamauga is the showpiece, and I’m looking forward to returning some day when the buildings are open, and when the weather is not quite as hot. 

The final battle in the Chattanooga Campaign was the battle of Ringgold Gap (Nov. 27, 1863), which counts as a Confederate victory because Patrick Cleburne held up Union forces, allowing Confederates and their equipment to escape, although the Union troops occupied Ringgold shortly thereafter. Ringgold Gap is not part of the national park, but one can view this GHC marker just outside of Ringgold, Ga. Do I detect a celebratory tone?

Cleburne certainly merits a statue…

…and outside the Ringgold railway depot flies Hardee’s flag. William J. Hardee was not at Ringgold Gap, but elements of his corps were, and Cleburne’s corps used the flag as well (my thanks to Eb Daniels for telling me about this). Thus does Ringgold accurately celebrate its Civil War heritage, while avoiding the Confederate Battle Flag that causes so much offense. 

Cleburne is noted for something else, which is edifying to our current sensibilities. On January 2, 1864, while stationed at Dalton, he offered up a “Proposal to Enlist Slaves and Guarantee Freedom to All Loyal Negroes.” According to an interpretive sign placed recently by Georgia’s Civil War Commission:

He cited that throughout history, slaves had fought beside master in many conflicts, and that the North was only using the slavery issue as “merely a pretense to establish sectional superiority and a more centralized form of government.” Remove slavery as a war factor and the foundations of the North’s argument would crumble. Cleburne also knew that Great Britain and France would likely recognize the South as a sovereign nation once it emancipated its own slaves.

But another marker, placed by the Georgia Historical Society in 2014 outside the Huff House in Dalton, which was serving as Johnston’s winter headquarters, tells that:

almost all the other generals present opposed the idea of black Confederate soldiers because it violated the principles upon which the Confederacy was founded. Gen. Patton Anderson said the proposal “would shake our governments, both state and Confederate, to their very foundations,” and Gen. A.P. Stewart said it was “at war with my social, moral, and political principles.” Considering the proposal treasonous, Gen. W.H.T. Walker informed President Jefferson Davis, who ordered any mention of it to be suppressed.

So despite the opinion of the Irish-born Cleburne, and some thirteen other officers who endorsed his proposal, it looks like the Confederate States of America really was all about slavery. Eventually the CSA did authorize a version of Cleburne’s proposal… on March 13, 1865, less than a month before Lee’s surrender at Appomattox. Bit late for that, I guess!

Ringgold Gap was also where Sherman’s Atlanta Campaign began on May 7, 1864. Here is a WPA marker testifying to this event.

Seven miles away, also on May 7, Union forces seized the Western & Atlantic Railroad Tunnel and its namesake town. A GHC sign tells about it, in the usual stilted style. 

Right beside the western entrance to the railroad tunnel stands the Clisby Austin house, which had served as a railway hotel, then a Confederate hospital, and then as Sherman’s headquarters from May 7 to May 12, 1864. 

Google maps.

I made this map to show some of the places significant to the opening days of the Atlanta Campaign. After Ringgold and Tunnel Hill, the next major encounter was at Rocky Face Ridge. The underlined “Rocky Face” on the map in fact denotes Mill Creek Gap, which the Confederates had spent the previous winter fortifying, including by damming Mill Creek. Turns out that this operation was quite effective at keeping Union troops at bay.

According to another sign, Mill Creek Gap earned the nickname “Buzzard’s Roost,” on account of one soldier’s observation that “buzzards are roosting up there, waiting for us to die.” 

But in what became a common occurrence during the Atlanta campaign, Sherman simply used his superior numbers to outflank Confederate defenses. Dug Gap (marked with a blue star on the map) and Snake Creek Gap (marked with a red star) turned out to be just as useful for getting through Rocky Face Ridge. 

Thus did Johnston abandon Dalton and retreat to Resaca, where the pattern repeated itself. An attempt by Union troops against the Confederate line was unsuccessful, so Sherman ordered a flanking movement to the  south, crossing the Oostanaula River with Cumberland pontoon bridges and forcing another Confederate retreat. 

Of the four GHC markers at Resaca, this one is the most lucid.

But the NPS marker is more clear…

…and the WPA marker actually illustrates what happened.

The Battle of Resaca may have been inconclusive, but it produced some 2800 casualties for the Confederacy, many of whom were hastily buried, or not buried at all. When the local Green family returned to their home in 1866, they were shocked by this sight, and Mary Jane Green, who had served as matron in hospital in Macon during the war, decided to do something about it. Through newspaper advertisements across the South she raised $2000, and got her father to grant her 2.5 acres of land, on which she and her family painstakingly reinterred the Confederate war dead, identifying those they could, and placing those they could not around a large granite cross inscribed “For the Unknown Dead.” The dedication of the Resaca Confederate Cemetery took place on October 25, 1866, and is tied with a cemetery in Winchester, Virginia as the first such cemetery in the country. 

The project put Miss Green $500 in debt, so she petitioned the legislature for a grant to cover it – the first woman known to have addressed that body. Not only did they cover the $500, they gave her a further $3500 to rebury the dead of Chickamauga. She died in 1924 and is buried in Oakland Cemetery in Atlanta. 

The next action in the campaign took place at Adairsville on May 17, 1864 – for which see a previous post, and the marker below, which I discovered at the intersection of Cassville Rd. NW and US-41 in Cassville. It gives further details about why Johnston’s attempted ambush of Union troops failed, but gives the credit to Edward McCook (not Daniel Butterfield) for spoiling it. I believe that Spring Place Road on the map is now Cedar Creek Road. 

Old Highway 41, along which most of the Atlanta Campaign markers may be found, had been part of the Dixie Highway, which at one point was the only way to drive from Chicago or Detroit to Florida for the winter. Thus did everyone along the route try to cash in on this traffic, by providing food or accommodation, or some roadside attraction or other reason to stop. See Down the Dixie Highway (56-minute video) for more. The WPA markers seem to be part of this: they are in fact located in “pocket parks” along the route – small parks enclosed by short walls, which would have provided a nice place for a break or a picnic. 

Cassville.

Resaca.

Mill Creek Gap.

It is interesting to see the different “layers” presented at these sites, although nothing quite matches the variety of memorials found at New Hope Church in Dallas. I appreciated the clarity (and neutrality) of the WPA/NPS markers in the pocket parks – it would have been nice if they had built one at Adairsville. The GHC markers are more common, but can also be for pretty obscure things, not written all that well, and occasionally biased towards the CSA. Markers put up by local history societies or the Georgia Historical Society are pretty good, although they’re much less common – and perhaps a bit biased in the other direction.* Best of all are the interpretive signs sponsored by the Georgia Civil War Commission and put up by Georgia Civil War Heritage Trails, Inc., I believe during the sesquicentennial years of 2011-2015. By that point technology allowed the integration of text and colored graphics, and the signs are informative and apparently well-researched, with no marked bias that I could ascertain. I hope that whatever material they are made of ends up surviving the elements.

Two observations in conclusion. When dealing with warfare, one is reminded that “history” is often simply an artificial order imposed on the past to try to make some sense of it. There is a formal list of the battles of the Atlanta campaign, but there were a lot of skirmishes and “demonstrations” that are not included in that list – and you just know that there were all sorts of things that happened that did not make it into the official record at all, given the sheer numbers of men involved and the fact that so many of them did not actually survive. This leads to the second observation: War really is Hell. As peaceful as these battlefields and cemeteries might be today, one cannot help but realize that huge numbers of young men died or were permanently disfigured in particularly gruesome (and often quite avoidable) ways during the Civil War. It is good to remember this, if only so that we can avoid it as much as possible in the future. 

* Note how the Carter center marker claims that Sherman’s troops “only destroyed property used for waging war,” but in the next sentence claims that they “lived off the land, destroying food they could not consume,” as if Southern civilians did not need food. One does not need to be Lost Causer to object to that. 

The Western and Atlantic Railroad

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Google maps. The purple dots delineate the course of the W&A. 

The Western & Atlantic Railroad, or simply the “State Road,” connecting “Terminus” (Atlanta) and “Ross’s Landing” (Chattanooga), was chartered in 1836 and completed by 1850. It has been referenced several times on this blog; much more information is available in Ken Wheeler’s forthcoming book Modern Cronies. The final piece in the W&A puzzle was the construction of a tunnel (largely by slave labor, it must be acknowledged) beneath Chetoogeta Mountain in Whitfield County, marked with a black star on the map. This project gave rise to the nearby settlement of Tunnelsville, later renamed Tunnel Hill. A wider, parallel tunnel was constructed in 1928, leaving the disused original tunnel to serve as a footpath through the mountain. Motion-sensing lights turn on as you walk through, and the ambient temperature is nice and cool, which is a relief on a hot day.

A photo of the entrance to the original tunnel; you can barely see the light at the end of it. To the left, the date “1928” can be seen through the chainlink fence over the newer tunnel (the actual entrance being obscured by kudzu). 

A Georgia Historic Marker gives more detail. I’m glad to note that by the 1990s, the makers of these signs realized that you could fit more text on them if you just decreased its font size, and that they are more appealing when written in standard English. However, according to Bradley Putnam, a local historian with whom had the pleasure of speaking, the first number should be 1477 (not 1447) – he has measured the tunnel’s length himself. 

A museum on the premises gives more information about the W&A. The display in the foreground is of some rails recovered from a local creek in 2011. They are placed over a pile of ties to illustrate how one can do irreparable damage to a railroad if one is interested in doing so during time of war. The sign explains that the ties would be set on fire, and the heat would melt the rails and cause them to droop under their own weight – you can see that this has in fact happened to one of them. If circumstances permitted, for added destructiveness the heated rails could be twisted around a tree – thus acquiring the nickname “Sherman’s Neckties.”

Across the tracks, the old railroad depot still stands…

…and is, indeed, being rehabilitated for a new purpose. 

Further up the tracks in Ringgold, Georgia, stands another railway depot. It is marked with a blue star on the map above. 

This one took some damage during the Civli War and had to be restored, thus its present piebald appearance.

The historical marker tells more, although the building hasn’t been in continuous use as a railway depot necessarily. It is now an event venue available for weddings or other functions.

Wikipedia.

And, of course, one cannot talk about the W&A without mentioning the Great Locomotive Chase of April 12, 1862, “one of the most colorful exploits of the Civil War,” as the first sign says above. 

North of Ringgold the W&A runs parallel to Highway 151, and about two miles out of town (marked with a red star on the map), one encounters a monument at the place where Andrews’ Raiders abandoned their hijacked locomotive The General, having run out of fuel for it.

An artist’s interpretation of this event may be found on Wikipedia. The backwards-running Texas may be seen on the left. All the raiders were captured; spare a thought for the eight who were executed as spies and “unlawful combatants.” 

Allatoona Pass

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The creation of Lake Allatoona in 1950 necessitated a shift in the Western & Atlantic Railroad slightly to the west in places. The abandoned pilings on the Etowah River are one indication of this; the abandoned Allatoona Pass, further to the south, is another. 

Google Maps.

You can see the location of the current track, rendered as a faint horizontal line just below Old Allatoona Road SE. The darker dotted line to the north mostly follows the track as it was in the nineteenth century.

I’m not sure why the railroad ever took this route in the first place, because it necessitated the creation of a deep cutting. But these days it provides a nice setting for a walk. Andrews’ Raiders would have driven the stolen General through here. 

I love the use of little flags as “emojis.”

But the place is far more significant historically for the Battle of Allatoona, fought on October 5, 1864. This took place after Sherman occupied Kingston (in May), after the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain (June-July), and after the Battle of Atlanta (which fell September 2) – all engagements in the Atlanta Campaign. (Sherman, who had worked as a young army lieutenant in the region, knew about Allatoona Pass and that it would be “very strong, and hard to force, and resolved not even to attempt it.” So he simply went around it on his way to Atlanta. The Confederates retreated, and the Union troops took Allatoona unopposed on June 1.)

Nineteenth century photograph of Allatoona Pass, from an interpretive sign at Allatoona Pass Battlefield.

The real fighting took place as part of the Franklin-Nashville Campaign, an attempt by the Confederacy to disrupt Union supply lines. Lt. Gen. John Bell Hood abandoned Atlanta to Sherman and retreated to Lovejoy’s Station south of the city. Near the end of September, he moved his troops to Palmetto, Ga. where he met with CSA President Jefferson Davis to devise strategy. They decided that they would retrace the steps of the the Atlanta Campaign, but in reverse – Hood would move his troops north along the Western & Atlantic Railroad, wrecking property now held by the Union and hoping to entice Sherman to follow him, and to force an open battle on ground favorable to the Confederates. As the historical marker makes clear, on Oct. 3, Lt. Gen. Alexander Stewart seized Big Shanty (i.e. Kennesaw) and Acworth, and on Oct. 4 Samuel French moved towards the Union garrison at Allatoona. Unlike Sherman, French was not prepared to outflank it. 

From an interpretive sign at Allatoona Pass Battlefield. Underlining added. 

Union troops occupied positions on the tops of the hills on either side of the cutting. These are “Rowett’s Redoubt” and “Eastern Redoubt” on the map. To the east of Rowett’s Redoubt is the so-called “Star Fort” that Union troops retreated to. To the west of the Eastern Reboubt is “Headquarters – Fourth Minnesota,” a wood-frame “dog-trot” cabin where Lt. Col. John Eaton Tourtellotte stationed himself. The two sides of the railway cutting were connected by a footbridge. 

Contrary to Confederate hopes, Sherman did not give chase to Hood, but did order Gen. John M. Corse to move his troops from Rome, Ga. and to assume command of the defense of Allatoona. Corse and his men arrived by rail just hours before the Confederate bombardment began in the early morning of Oct. 5. After two hours of this, French declared a truce and sent a message to Corse: 

I have the forces under my command and in such positions that you are surrounded and, in order to avoid a needless effusion of blood, I call upon you to surrender your forces at once, and unconditionally. Five minutes will be allotted you to decide. Should you accede to this , you will be treated in the most honorable manner as prisoners of war.

According to Sherman’s memoirs, Corse replied:

Your communication demanding surrender of my command I acknowledge receipt of, and respectfully reply that we are prepared for the “needless effusion of blood” whenever it is agreeable to you.

Such a response is rhetorically edifying, no doubt, which might cause one to suspect whether it actually happened. Certainly, the interpretive sign claims that Corse gave no response, and after fifteen minutes French called off the truce and began a ground assault. 

From an interpretive sign at Allatoona Pass Battlefield.

This map gives a general sense of what happened next. French ordered Francis Cockrell and William Young, commanding troops from Missouri and Texas, to attack from the west, and Claudius Sears, commanding troops from Mississippi, to attack from the north. Troops under Richard Rowett defended the hill on the western side of the cutting, while Tourtellotte’s troops defended the hill on the eastern side.

On the western side the fighting was intense. Union troops made effective use of their Henry Repeating rifles and Napoleon gun, but the Confederates would not quit, and despite taking enormous casualties, they eventually reached Rowett’s Redoubt. Soon “fierce hand-to-hand fighting with clubbed muskets, fists, swords, and even rocks” forced the Union troops to retreat to the Star Fort dragging their Napoleon with them. The fighting continued, even injuring Gen. Corse, who lost a cheek bone and one ear. Despite receiving some supplies and men over the footbridge, by the early afternoon Union troops in the Star Fort were pinned down, out of water, and almost out of ammunition.

(Events unfolded a bit better for the Union on the eastern side of the cutting. From their trenches, Union troops managed to repulse two Confederate regiments and deliver enfilading fire against a third. Some Confederate troops took refuge in a gulley where they could neither attack nor be attacked; they surrendered and were taken prisoner after the battle.)

What brought the battle to a close was not a decisive military maneuver on either side, but the receipt of a piece of intelligence by French, which stated that Union troops were on the march from Big Shanty. Fearing that he would either be overwhelmed by this force or cut off from the rest of the Confederate army encamped at Dallas, Ga., and in need of more troops and supplies for a final assault on the Star Fort, French reluctantly ordered a withdrawal around 2:00 PM. Thus is the Battle of Allatoona considered a Union victory – they held the position, and prevented over one million rations stored there from being taken or destroyed by the Confederates. 

But this victory came at an immense cost. Of Corse’s 2000 men, some 700 (an astonishing 35%) were casualties of the battle. Numbers on the Confederate side were not much better: of 3300 men, 900 were casualties, for a rate of 27%. The Battle of Allatoona was “one of the most deadly and stubbornly contested of the war.” Private Harvey M. Trimble of the 93rd Illinois wrote that:

The scene in that ravine after the battle was ended, was beyond all powers of description. All the languages of the earth combined are inadequate to tell half its horrors. Mangled and torn in every conceivable manner, the dead and wounded were everywhere, in heaps and windrows. Enemies though they were, their conquerors, only a few minutes removed from the heat and passion of battle, sickened and turned away, or remaining, looked only with great compassion, and through tears, upon that field of blood and carnage and death, upon that wreck of high hopes and splendid courage, that hecatomb of human life.

French did get his surviving troops back to Dallas, but the rest of the Franklin-Nashville campaign went about as well as the Battle of Allatoona did for the Confederates. Hood ended up resigning his commission in early 1865, having been chased to Tupelo, Mississippi after a major defeat at the Battle of Nashville (Dec. 15-16, 1864). Sherman, for his part, did not really bother with Hood – he began his March to the Sea on November 15 and took Savannah on December 20. By this point in the war, there was little doubt which side would eventually win it. 

One final detail about this battle deserves mentioning. Communication was possible between Sherman and Allatoona on account of the Crow’s Nest, a signal tower atop a Georgia pine, which could send and receive messages from Kennesaw Mountain (with, presumably, further relays to stations southwards). 

From an interpretive sign at Allatoona Pass Battlefield.

Popular legend has it that either prior to or during the battle General Sherman signaled “Hold the fort, I am coming,” which stiffened Corse’s resolve and dissuaded him from surrendering. Again, this information did not make it onto the interpretive sign, perhaps because no contemporary record or such communication can be found (note the “citation needed” comments at Wikiquote). Apparently, though, this quotation inspired Chicago evangelist Philip Bliss to compose a hymn. I had never heard “Hold the Fort” before, perhaps because such explicitly militaristic hymns are no longer in fashion:

Ho, my comrades, see the signal, waving in the sky!
Reinforcements now appearing, victory is nigh.

Refrain:
“Hold the fort, for I am coming,” Jesus signals still;
Wave the answer back to Heaven, “By Thy grace we will.”

See the mighty host advancing, Satan leading on;
Mighty ones around us falling, courage almost gone!

See the glorious banner waving! Hear the trumpet blow!
In our Leader’s Name we triumph over every foe.

Fierce and long the battle rages, but our help is near;
Onward comes our great Commander, cheer, my comrades, cheer!

Remains of the Star Fort.

Remains of the Eastern Redoubt.

Allatoona is much more tranquil today, of course. It is reforested, and the trenches are faint – and unfortunately iPhone photos do them even less justice. But it is good to be able to see what remains, and remember why they were constructed in the first place. 

The information above has been gleaned from Wikipedia and from the numerous interpretive signs throughout the battlefield. We commend Georgia State Parks and Historic Sites for its historically accurate flag graphic on these signs.

The U.S. flag has 35 stars, for the number of states claimed at the time, the most recent being West Virginia (1863; flag updated July 4 of that year). The CSA flag is its second national flag, which debuted in 1863. They’ve even got the proportions right!

Alas, the canton of the “Stainless Banner” features the ever-controversial battle flag, prompting its effacement on some of the signs. But objecting to its presence in such a neutral and didactic context is just dumb. 

Fortunately, vandalism has not yet been visited upon the Memorial Ground, which features monuments for all the states of the soldiers at the Battle of Allatoona – five Union and six Confederate. Interestingly, Georgia is not represented among them. 

I reproduce photos of some of the monuments below. If I had better software I would edit out my reflection as it appears. (As an aside: isn’t it interesting how Americans love the shapes of their states?) 

Another monument, the Grave of the Unknown Hero, may be found at a location marked by the blue star on the map.

Google maps.

An interpretive sign at the red star on the map gives further information:

Local families once recalled that a few days after the battle, a wooden box addressed “Allatoona, Georgia” arrived at the station with no information as to its origin. Six local women found a deceased Confederate soldier in the box and buried him alongside the railroad in a location lost to history. Local historians believe that the burial on this spot is not the soldier the ladies buried, but Private Andrew Jackson Houston of Mississippi, who died here in the battle and was buried where he fell.

Forgotten to time for several yers, in 1880 this site was marked with an iron fence and a marble headstone inscribed “AN UNKNOWN HERO, He died for the Cause He thought was right.” Railroad employees maintained the grave for many years and later moved the grave to its present site when the rail line was relocated.

It is interesting that nothing Confederate currently decorates the grave of the Unknown Hero – despite that he was originally designated as Confederate by the people who buried him. By the early twentieth century the idea was that he could have been on either side, as expressed in this poem by Georgia Governor Joseph M. Brown – a seeming attempt at “reconciliation.”

From an interpretive sign at Allatoona Pass Battlefield.

But I guess he was ultimately “Unionized.” I assume there’s a lesson of some sort here. 

Most of the other victims of the battle were buried where they died in unmarked graves, although some Union soldiers were eventually reinterred in the Marietta National Cemetery.

The railroad, as my students are fond of saying about various historical things, is “still in use today.”

The Atlanta Campaign

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From May through September 1864 northwestern Georgia witnessed a major event in the American Civil War: the Atlanta Campaign, whereby General William Tecumseh Sherman, recently appointed Union commander of the Western Theater, marched his troops towards Atlanta in order to strike at the Confederates in their heartland and destroy their capacity to wage war. In this project he was opposed first by CSA General Joseph E. Johnston, and then by Gen. John Bell Hood. Both occasionally impeded the advance but they never succeeded in stopping it, and certainly not reversing it. 

Wikipedia.

One can follow the Atlanta Campaign Heritage Trail from Chattanooga to Atlanta, but this post will be restricted to examining some engagements around the middle of the map – i.e. the ones closest to Reinhardt – which took place in late May and early June of 1864. I have noticed that there is a certain fractal quality to military history, whereby one can “zoom in” on a particular episode and examine it in terms of the units and personalities involved and on an almost hour-to-hour basis. I have nothing but respect for people who can do this, but I confess that I have never had the patience to master it. Instead, this post will be more about how these places are signified today.

• Adairsville, in northeastern Bartow County, saw some action on May 17, 1864. According to Wikipedia (and every other website that copies it), the battle consisted of skirmishing between entrenched units of CSA Gen. William J. Hardee’s corps and Union Gen. Oliver Otis Howard’s IV Corps, and included an unsuccessful assault by regiments under Union Lt. Gen. Arthur MacArthur against a division commanded by CSA Gen. Benjamin F. Cheatham. Unfortunately for Johnston, Adairsville did not provide the terrain for the staging of a more forceful defense, and so on May 18 the Confederates continued their retreat southwards. Johnston then devised a plan: he hoped to entice Sherman into dividing his troops into two groups, one of which would take the road to Cassville, the other the road to Kingston. Johnston would then concentrate his attack on one of the weakened columns. This is more or less what happened: on May 19, Sherman ordered James B. McPherson and George Henry Thomas to Kingston, and John Schofield to Cassville. CSA Gen. Leonidas Polk was to meet Schofield’s troops head-on on the Cassville-Adairsville Road, while Hood was to attack them from the east. It might have worked, except that Union Gen. Daniel Butterfield somehow discovered Hood’s troops, blowing their cover, forcing them to retreat, and ruining their plan to attack Schofield. Shortly thereafter, Johnston took his army across the Etowah River, in the hopes of finding a better place to make a stand against Sherman. Apparently such cautiousness was not very good for morale and was one reason why Johnston was eventually relieved of his command. 

Adairsville Cemetery may be found on Poplar Springs Road, just off US-41, and just south of GA-140. I assume some of the Confederate graves therein are for the victims of the Battle of Adairsville, although there is no separate Confederate plot as one finds at Kingston or Cassville. At the corner of the cemetery, three Georgia state historical markers give information about Adairsville’s role in the Atlanta Campaign.

Wikipedia claims that the cemetery is a “site of the part of the battlefield” but the map on the page indicates that the battle took place further to the north. Perhaps this explains why no sign in the cemetery addresses the events of May 17 (although if they’re going to be talking about Mosteller’s Mills, five miles out of town, then why not talk about the actual Battle of Adairsville too?). Instead, the markers just talk about troop movements on May 18 – the Confederate retreat, and the Union chase – in as bloodless a manner as possible! I realize that these markers have a limited amount of space, but it’s a shame that this fact, plus an apparent desire to record the precise units involved, leads to such stilted prose. (The Georgia Historical Commission could have at least taken a cue from the Bartow County Cultural Arts Alliance and utilized both sides of the sign.)

UPDATE: The Georgia Historical Society’s online catalogue of historical markers reveals that there is a marker to the north of town, on US 41 in front of the Adairsville Church of God, entitled “Original Site Adairsville 1830s,” but continuing:

May 17, 1864, Johnston’s forces [CSA] retreated S. From Reseca and paused here on an E. – W. line, the intention being to make a stand against the Federals in close pursuit.

Finding the position untenable due to width of Oothcaloga Valley, Johnston withdrew at midnight. Hardee’s Corps [CSA] was astride the road at this point.

In rear-guard action, detachments from Hardee’s Corps held the stone residence of Robert C. Saxon, 0.2 mi. N. of the County Line, until midnight.

So I guess that describes the Battle of Adairsville, such as it was. I would have given it a different title though.

• A few days later, in order to avoid attacking Allatoona, and in the hopes of outflanking Johnston, Sherman sent his troops in a wide arc to the west. But Johnston anticipated this move, and sent some of his own troops to check them. 

On May 25, near Dallas, Georgia, Sherman’s troops met the Confederates well entrenched at New Hope Church (and unentrenched across the road in the New Hope Cemetery – the troops were not willing to dig among the graves, instead using the headstones for cover). The GHC historic marker tells what happened next.

An Atlanta Campaign Heritage Trail marker gives more detail. The subtitle “A Costly Failure” just about sums it up. Sherman did not believe that the Confederates had gotten so many troops to New Hope in time, and ordered his subordinates to attack. The Confederates successfully repulsed them, causing some 1650 casualties while suffering only 450 of their own. 

New Hope Church still exists, and may be found at the intersection of the Dallas-Acworth Highway and Bobo Road in Dallas, Georgia. If its website is any indication, the church is far more interested in knowing Christ and making Him known than in maintaining the legacy of its eponymous battle. Yet immediately to the south of the parking lot is a little park quite full of monuments. 

It seems that everyone wants a piece of this battle. Not only are there markers from the Georgia Historical Commission and the Atlanta Civil War Heritage Trail, but also from the Sons of Confederate Veterans, the National Parks Service, and even the Works Progress Administration. 

In other words, Confederate sympathizers want to claim the victory, while others want to make sure that “both sides” are remembered – or at least prove their magnanimity as the ultimate winners of the Civil War. 

Across Bobo Rd. one finds the original New Hope church building, now in use as a church hall.

To the south of this parking lot stands another monument to the battle (a “Confederate Victory”), erected by the SCV at the sesquicentennial in 2014…

…and a well-defined and prominently-labeled Confederate trench. 

Across Dallas-Acworth Highway to the north is New Hope Cemetery, also the site of fighting on May 25 (and on May 26, as the GHC marker indicates). 

Just to make sure that everyone knows who won this one, someone has hoisted a Bonnie Blue flag over the sign. 

There is also a Confederate plot elsewhere in the cemetery, with standard-issue tombstones and a large Battle Flag (apparently flying upside-down, although nineteenth-century Confederates were not particularly fastidious about the orientation of the stars). 

By early June, Union troops abandoned their positions and retreated eastwards, with the Confederates moving parallel to them. 

• On May 27 another battle took place at Pickett’s Mill, to the east of New Hope Church. Union General Oliver O. Howard faced off against Confederate General Patrick Cleburne, with similar results: Howard’s men were repulsed suffering 1600 casualties, as opposed to Cleburne’s 500. Interestingly, there are no monuments here that I noticed, although an account of the battle by author Ambrose Bierce can tell you more about it. The whole battleground is a state park maintained by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources. The hiking trails are wonderful but as a historic site it leaves something to be desired. You encounter little signs with numbers on the trails, but they are not marked or explained on the map that you get. Otherwise, there is a dearth interpretive signage. This was one of only three that I found. 

And its map is badly oriented. North is actually behind the reader! Why not align the map with reality?

Presumably the visitor center can tell you more, but it is only open on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, and I was there on a Tuesday. Sad!

• The Battle of Marietta comprised a series of military operations from June 9 through July 3. One of the more significant of these occurred on June 14, when Lt. Gen. Leonidas Polk was killed atop Pine Mountain (which is not to be confused with Bartow County’s Pine Mountain). 

Living Hope Church, at the corner of Stilesboro Rd. and Mack Dobbs Rd. in Kennesaw, has an undeveloped back yard in which one may see the remains of the Union trenches that shelled Pine Mountain.

A mile and a quarter away, atop Pine Mountain, one sees a historic marker detailing the fateful day. It’s true, Leonidas Polk was killed by a shell – not by a shell fragment, but by a direct hit from an actual shell, which essentially cut him in two. It was an extremely lucky shot.

Just off the road, on private property, one sees a monument to Gen. Polk. It was put up in 1902 by the property owners, who consulted with veteran witnesses to ensure that it was placed on the precise spot where Polk was killed. It is one of the most interesting Confederate monuments I think I’ve ever seen. The south-facing side reads:

It continues, in the usual elevated style:

Folding his arms across his breast, he stood gazing on the scenes below, turning himself around as if to take a farewell view.

Thus standing a cannon shot from the enemy’s guns crashed through his breast and opened a wide door through which his spirit took its flight to join his comrades on the other shore.

Surely the earth never opened her arms to allow the head of a braver man to rest upon her bosom.

Surely the light never pushed the darkness back to make brighter the road that leads to the lamb.

And surely the gates of heaven never opened wider to allow a more manly spirit to enter therein.

This is rather a different view of Polk than one that his contemporaries might have held. Polk was noted for his willfulness, his violent disagreements with fellow officers, and for his general lack of success in battle, including “one of the great blunders of the Civil War,” when he marched his troops to Columbus, Kentucky in September 1861, thereby prompting the state to abandon its declared neutrality by requesting Federal aid and thus becoming a de facto member of the Union for the remainder of the war. Yet he was popular with his troops, and his death was a great blow for morale. (Military historian Steven E. Woodworth claimed that it was bad for the Union too, as Polk’s incompetence meant that he was much more valuable alive than dead!)

As the Episcopal bishop of Louisiana and the main force behind the establishment of the University of the South at Sewanee, Tenn., Polk also has a built-in audience from other quarters. Perhaps this explains the items left at the base of the monument: magazines in plastic bags, laminated sheets in praise of Polk, and numerous examples of “Polk’s flag” (i.e. that of First Corps, Army of Tennessee). 

The north-facing side of the monument simply reads:

North

Veni, vidi, vici

With 5 to 1

This is remarkable. I’ve never seen a Confederate monument run down the opposing side like this – or offer a reason why it won (apparently the North cheated by having a numerical advantage, although it was not quite 5 to 1). 

My thanks to Don Bergwall and Melvin Dishong for showing me around this one. 

Marietta Cemeteries

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I never realized that there are two Civil-War-era cemeteries in Marietta – one Confederate, and one Union (I thought there was just one, for both). What turns out to have been the Confederate one I had seen before, but I could not get in this time, because it was closed. The cemetery’s website claims that this is for the sake of maintenance, but the police officer stationed near the main entrance told me that there had been some recent vandalism in the cemetery, which suggests that the closure as much for prevention of damage as for repair of it. So these photos are the best I can do.

I’ll take the liberty of reposting Wikipedia’s photo of the historical marker.

Wikipedia

Note how the cannon was returned in 1910. Apparently the Arch of Tribute in the second photo above was put up in 1911. Two data points in the first blip.  

Google maps.

Marietta National Cemetery, by contrast, is open – and better maintained by the Department of Veterans’ Affairs. You can find it about a half mile to the northeast of the Confederate Cemetery. 

A marker tells where it came from. 

More on Henry Green Cole, “the most dangerous man in Georgia,” can be read at Marietta Patch. Cole is lucky not to have shared the fate of James J. Andrews of the eponymous raid. 

One interesting feature of this cemetery is the appearance of an older design for the headstones featuring a shield, which is different from today’s. (The slightly bluer-colored headstones to the left in the photo are examples of the newer format.)

Marietta National Cemetery is full and has no more space for interments. Since 2006, military burials have taken place in the Georgia National Cemetery in Canton, of which there have already been several thousand. I stopped by for the first time earlier this summer. The current format of the headstones allows for the discreet expression of some individual identity at the top. Most have a Christian cross. I guess there is no longer any need for the Confederate emblem, but if you’re not Christian, or a particular type of Christian, or not religious at all, plenty of other options are available from the VA. Spotting them as they appear in the cemetery is fun. Some examples:

Native American Church of North America.

Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod.

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

The Community of Christ (formerly the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints).

Sufism Reoriented (founded by Meher Baba).

Pine Log and White

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More local exploration:

Google Maps.

The Rydal post office is located at the intersection of GA-140 and US-411 in northeastern Bartow County, thus is everyone in the surrounding area denoted as living in “Rydal.” But the community to the northwest of the intersection is generally known to the locals as Pine Log, and the red star on the map indicates the location of Pine Log Methodist Church. 

Here is how the church appears as you cross under the railroad tracks. It gets its own historical marker, which states:

Historic Pine Log Methodist church, cemetery, tabernacle, and camp grounds, established in 1834. The oldest church in continuous use in Cass/Bartow County. This Church area is on the national register for historic district.

Another marker elaborates:

The church, built 1842; campground and tabernacle, 1888; and cemetery, begun in 1850, were listed in the National Register of Historic Places September 9, 1988. The Methodist organization was founded on this site by Stephen Elliot about 1834 in a community of recent settlers from Eastern Georgia and Pendleton District, S.C. The original meeting house was a log structure which doubled as a school. Many descendants of the first members still attend services here. Camp meetings are held for one week each August.

The size of the cemetery indicates that Pine Log Methodist has indeed been around for some time. And yes, there is a large “tabernacle” (i.e. a roofed but otherwise open building for preaching) behind the church, surrounded by a number of cabins.

I have never seen such a thing on a church grounds. Dr. Wheeler explains:

In the nineteenth century people pitched tents, but over time, families built the cabins, which they stay in during revival week. Holcomb Campground in eastern Cherokee County is this way, too. Basically a holdover from a time before people went on vacations.

Interesting stuff!

If you travel south of Pine Log on Olive Vine Road, you come to Olive Vine Baptist Church, marked with a blue star on the map. It too merits a historic marker. 

This historic church was founded for the glory of God and the furthering of the gospel on Oct 31, 1880 on land donated by Rev. Henry Green Berry Turner. In the original deed, Rev. Turner, who pastored the church for many years, stipulated that “two or more of the said members shall keep up the ordinance and the example of feet washing that belong to the house of God as described in the articles of faith and covenants entered into which the said church was organized.”

Over the years, the white wooden building has remained unchanged externally. The rafters are the original hewn logs.

According to church records, Rev. H.G.B. Turner preached in this building as late as May 7, 1921 when he was in his mid-80s. He died at his home on Feb. 15, 1923. His funeral was conducted in this church on Feb 19, 1923. At his request, he was given a Masonic burial on these grounds.

This Mr. Turner seems quite the fellow. I’m glad that Primitive Baptists were allowed to join the Freemasons. His own grave merits another historic marker, which reads in part:

Rev. Henry Green Berry Turner was born Jan. 5, 1836 near Spartanburg, South Carolina and moved to Cherokee County, Georgia with his father when he was 10 years old.

At age 35, he was ordained a minister of the gospel, and for more than 50 years served as pastor of from two to four churches. He was commissioned as tax receiver in neighboring Pickens County, Georgia on Jan. 18, 1873. He moved to Bartow County and settled in Pine Log in 1876.

He was a founder of Olive Vine Baptist Church in 1880 and was an influential minister here for many years. He was known as a strict disciplinarian….

Rev. Turner died on Feb. 15, 1923 at age 87. According to his obituary printed in both the Bartow Tribune and the Cherokee Tribune, “too much could not be said about the great work that he accomplished while working among the people of Bartow County.” In his eulogy, Rev. H.H. Popham said that “the life of Mr. Turner has been one well spent and worthy of emulation by everyone; a life that was full of good works, and about which there were no regrets.”

He certainly left a large brood (twelve children, according to the sign), whose descendants regularly gather at Olive Vine Church for family reunions. 

A little further to the south, on Old Tennessee Road, is Vaughan Cemetery, which is marked with an orange star on the map.

The cemetery does not seem to have been associated with a church, but was simply the Vaughan family plot – if the names on many of the headstones are any indication.

As you can see, some of the Vaughans fought for the Confederacy, hence the government-issued grave marker of the sort noticed at Silverdale. 

Then, further to the south, one encounters the embarrassingly-named City of White. It too has a post office, so many people in the area, beyond the city itself, are designated as living in White. As one of those people, I have had to endure innumerable jibes over the years suggesting that my town is racist. 

But it’s really just named after its first postmaster, James Alexander White, who was exercising this function by 1890 and whose portrait used to hang in the White post office. (I took this photo a few years ago with my first digital camera, which wasn’t very good and which I didn’t quite know how to use, thus the poor quality of the image.)

According to the Etowah Valley Historical Society, mining operations to the south at Aubrey (manganese and iron ore) plus the completion of the Etowah Cartersville New Line Railroad in 1906 allowed the place to thrive. It was incorporated in 1919, with one Dr. W.B. Vaughan appointed mayor by the Georgia General Assembly (surprisingly, he does not seem to be buried in the Vaughan Cemetery, unless he is William J. “Guinea Will” Vaughan, 1863-1928). Not long afterwards, in 1925, a fire broke out in Harry Woodall’s store, which quickly spread and destroyed most of the business district. But White rebuilt, and this is reflected in the city emblem.

Note the town on fire on one side, the resurrected town on the other (complete with power lines and part of an automobile!), all under a symbolic phoenix rising from the ashes. Plus two rolls of toilet paper. 

At the corner of Old Tennessee St. and Richards Road. I believe this building is the only memento of the original business district.

But equally destructive was the Great Depression and the closing of the mines at Aubrey. The construction of US-411 in the 1930s caused the business district to shift from the west side of the tracks (where it used to line Old Tennessee Rd.) to the east side, but the construction of I-75 in 1977 means that the major north-south traffic artery now bypasses White entirely. 

Yet the city abides. It is currently the home of White Elementary School, Cass High School, J’s Simply Soul, Wes-Man’s (both of which I recommend), several churches, the Toyo Tire factory, the North Georgia Mercantile, and Old Car City. Of course, as with many small towns, the police can be somewhat corrupt on occasion, but that problem seems to have been put behind us for now.

Out and About in Bartow County

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Sometimes you can find interesting things in your own backyard.

• Not far from where I live is Rowland Springs Baptist Church. Nearby is the Rowland Springs Estates subdivision. Both of these take their names from a nineteenth-century resort located between them, a historical marker for which I discovered this week on Simpson Circle just before it gets to Harvey Knight Road (marked with a red star on the map). A chapter devoted to the resort and the personal connections made there appears in Ken Wheeler’s forthcoming book, which also deals with the fact that Rowland Springs was largely constructed by slaves, something ignored by the sign.

Google Maps.

Curious about whether anything remained of Rowland Springs resort, I went exploring around the pond, which is indeed approximately one third of a mile east of the historical marker. But I’m afraid that I didn’t find much.

“Rowland Spring,” marked on the southeast of the pond on the map, has had something built around it.  

It appears that the pond is man-made; on the south end of it is a wall, with a spillway over it.

The only evidence of actual buildings may be found on the northwest side of the pond. But I have no idea if these are remains of the resort, or if so, what buildings they might have been. 

Seems an ignominious end to the “most exclusive resort in Georgia”!

• The town of Euharlee may be found about nine miles to the west of Cartersville, in the shadow of Plant Bowen. Euharlee is famous for its wooden bridge, built in 1886 by Washington King, son of freedman Horace King. 

A view of the interior reveals the wooden “town lattice” design. Of course, no vehicular traffic traverses the bridge anymore – the newer car-bearing concrete bridge crosses Euharlee Creek a little further downstream, allowing this bridge to remain as a memento of yesteryear.

More information on the bridge can be read on these two signs. Actually, much of Euharlee is quaint and historic, with plenty of signs like the one above explaining such things as the Lowry Grist Mill, the Lowry Family Homestead, the Granary and Commissary, the Mercantile and Blacksmith shop, and the Black Pioneers’ Cemetery. It’s worth a stop if you’re every passing through. 

• Bartow County’s Confederate memorial still stands on the front lawn of the county courthouse. It has not yet been toppled or even defaced by vandals, although Cartersville has had some pro-BLM protests. It is fairly typical of the sort of Confederate monument one finds in small towns across the South, and includes the usual helping of gaseous nineteenth-century “elevated” diction:

I am no fan of the Confederacy and I do not agree with any Lost Cause idealization of it, but I am still not in favor of taking down this monument. It’s fairly unobtrusive – you don’t even realize it’s a Confederate monument until you get up close to it – and it’s just sitting there; it is not in continuous use to represent Bartow County (unlike, say, Mississippi’s flag or the star of the Order of St. Michael and St. George, both of which have become politically unpalatable). Like other monuments, it does not accurately represent the Confederacy, but it does reflect the era when people wanted to uplift Confederates. In that way, it certainly is “historic.”

Wikipedia.

As you can see, a great surge of monument building took place in the first decade of the twentieth century, I suppose as a result of Confederate veterans dying off. (Jim Crow had been well established by then and I don’t think it was under threat by the federal government – unlike in the the 1950s and -60s, which produced the second blip.) 

However, I would not be against the installation of a plaque explaining this historical context, and suggesting that such lines as “there were men whom power could not corrupt” or “the state has preserved the priceless treasure of her memories” are not to be taken seriously. 

I have stated before that I am in favor of leaving monuments alone, and constructing more monuments to things that we currently approve of. I have not changed this opinion, and I am pleased to note that Cartersville agrees with me in its way. Not far away from the county courthouse is the city hall, and since 2018 its front lawn has featured this sculpture, entitled Pathways to Freedom: A Story in Every Stitch, by artist Przemyslaw Kordys. The nine squares represent different quilt patterns which held coded meanings for slaves traveling to freedom along the Underground Railroad. A nearby plaque explains them. For instance, the square at the top is designated the North Star (“prepare to journey north to freedom”), the square on the far left is called Crossroads (“referring specifically to Cleveland, Ohio, code named Station Hope”), and the square on the bottom is Wagon Wheel (“pack provisions for traveling by wagon”). More information on the African American Quilt Documentation Project of Bartow County, which sponsored this monument, may be read on the website of the Etowah Valley Historical Society. 

I am glad that the Underground Railway existed, and we all ought to know more about it, but this monument proves, in its way, that we are no less prone to mythologizing than ex-Confederates were c. 1910. The idea that quilts were ever used to give coded instructions to runaway slaves, while inspirational, seems to date from the 1990s at the earliest. I am not in favor of taking down this monument either, but we should probably not condescend to the past if we too are going to indulge in expressing things that we want to be true but whose existence is not supported by primary source evidence. I’m pleased to note that even the plaque for this sculpture states that “The patterns in the quilt motif are believed to have been used by enslaved Africans in their escape to freedom. Legend holds the quilt patterns were given code meanings to aid slaves” (emphasis added).

• This ruin, located just north of Kingston, serves as a silent witness to the existence of the Howard Hydraulic Cement Company, which employed fifty men around the turn of the twentieth century. It even provided the name of the local town: Cement, whose charter was repealed in 1995.

• Actually, I wonder, given the spirit of the times, if “Bartow” won’t soon revert to “Cass” – or be named after some other person (or better, thing), given that it was named after Lewis Cass in the first place because, as Andrew Jackson’s Secretary of War, he was in charge of implementing Cherokee removal. (He also turned out to be staunch a Unionist, thus the name change in 1861.)