Day 3

Day 3 of the road trip found us headed south on 75 from Cordele en route to the furthest southern point on the trip. Tifton.

The Cravey House, built in Inaha, Georgia and moved the Tifton

The destination in Tifton was the Georgia Museum of Agriculture on the campus of Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College. This museum has both indoor and outdoor facilities that tell of Georgia's agricultural past and the cultivation, harvesting and marketing of the major cash crops of the region - cotton, tobacco, timber and turpentine. These stories are told through historic interpreters in various settings including a doctor's office, a blacksmith's forge, a cotton gin, a print shop, the Victorian home of a wealthy man and farms from different eras of Georgia's past.



The Tift House

I was quite impressed with the feisty lady that gave us the tour of the Tift Home, the Victorian mansion of the man for whom Tifton is named. The preserved home is an excellent example of what I call "they don't make things like that any more." The house itself is a work of art. The original furnishings and decor make the home a museum unto itself. I'd have to admit that my favorite part is the lone closet in the house - covered, as it always has been, by a curtain to avoid paying the taxes on the additional door. Sounds like Mr. Tift was a man after my own heart.

And so we learned about forging farm tools, printing newspapers, ginning and baling cotton, raising livestock and crops and making turpentine. That was life in South Georgia around the turn of the last century. It was simpler and yet more complicated leaving me wondering where the tipping point of good thing/bad thing in that scenario is. The work was hard and the comfort level was much lower than we are accustomed to but a lot of the hustle and bustle (i.e. TRAFFIC) was non-existent

The trip back to Cordele carried us through Irwinville to visit one of my disappointments of the trip. In 1865 Jefferson Davis was fleeing to the west to wage a guerrilla war against the occupiers of the South in hopes that Southern Independence could still be a reality. (Incidentally, it was about this same time that Alexander H. Stephens - all 100 pounds of him - was sitting in his parlor at home playing cards when the Union /Army knocked on his door.He asked to see their arrest warrant and then replied, "If y'all had let me know you wanted me I'd have saved you the trip all the way out here. Let's go". But that's another story for another day.)

The Jeff Davis Memorial Marker

Davis met for one last time with his cabinet in Washington, GA and then they went their separate ways. Two units of the Union Army pursued him to a campsite just outside the minuscule town of Irwinville. The adept military professionals actually shot at each other for a spell before they realized that they were on the same team. Davis, realizing the Yankees were on his tail, beat a hasty retreat. But it was too late. And there in a pine thicket in the dead of night the 16th President (from Georgia's perspective) became a prisoner of war.

Some years later, the State of Georgia dedicated a monument and state historic site on the location. A few years ago the operation was turned over to Irwin County. The building is headed toward disrepair, the grounds show signs of neglect. It is a testament to the event it commemorates. The economic system established in the absence of the Southern delegates to Congress does not make for wealthy farmers. Money is for bankers, industrialists and railroad tycoons. Farmers can have money when they get real jobs - like working in a bank, factory or maybe on the railroad. So money is not plentiful in Irwin County. And let's face it, a county full of farmers, service industry workers catering to farmers and the handful of rangers that work at the site just do not have the resources to appropriately maintain such a site.

I'm not sure what led Georgia to the decision to jettison this park. It has added several newer, more elaborate parks in various locations since discarding the Jeff Davis site, so it doesn't appear to be budget related. The site is not far from the interstate so it doesn't appear to be logistical. That brings me to the fact that rural South Georgia gets the short end of the stick from the state on a regular basis and the ever growing evil of political correctness that is constantly trying to sweep clean any remnant of the South's past.

Davis would be held in terrible conditions for two years. During that time he received encouraging gifts from Pope Pius IX, his legal representation was the former governor of Maryland. His official charge was treason but he would never stand trial as the Union knew there was no hope of conviction as he had committed no crimes. He was released on bond which was posted in part by Horace Greely, Cornelius Vanderbilt and Gerrit Smith.

Yankees helped post his bond and Georgia hung his park out to dry. What a shame.

I'll say this before leaving the topic of the politically correct assassination of Southern History - "Remove not the ancient landmark, which thy fathers have set." - Proverbs 22:28.

This verse may or may not be talking about such landmarks but the tone is explicit. Don't destroy memorials. They point to where we came from and therefore teach us where we are and where we are headed. Only an ignorant man would be offended by such a memorial.

All in all, day 3 was a great educational outing filled with the stories of Georgia's identity. It taught us about the work ethic, the ingenuity, the grit that it took to survive in the Georgia of 100 years ago. We learned a little about where we came from and who we are.

That's two presidents for those who are counting....

Day 2 (Part 1)

I knew what awaited. I wasn't sure how I'd handle it but I knew it was there.

But first things first.

There's a certain satisfaction that comes from seeing where your food comes from. I have the utmost respect for farmers and seeing them at work was like viewing art being made.  

Watermelons. I'm not talking about a fruit stand. I'm not talking about a farmer's market. I'm talking about a 40 acre field where you can't see the ground for the watermelons. I'm talking about watermelons laying in the road like dead possums.

What do you do with that many watermelons? You cut the top off a school bus, pull out all the seats, stack the watermelons up to what would have been the bottoms of the windows and haul 'em off. A bus load of watermelons is a beautiful thing. A convoy of five such buses...I don't have the words...

And then there's just something about getting off the Interstate. You haven't really experienced Georgia until you've seen towns like Irwinville, DeSoto and Buena Vista. Many of these places have lost their luster. Some may have never had it. But if you really want to understand the South, you have to look in these places.

And such towns lead the way to the brick columns that I had been dreading, but knew I had to confront.

Andersonville.

Just hearing the word makes my stomach quiver just a little. Seeing this in person is a must...even if you don't study war...especially if you hate war.

One of the many exhibits in the museum.

The traditional visitor's center at Andersonville is anything but. This facility is the National POW Museum. It covers the history of American POWs from the Revolution  to the present. It serves as a witness to the cruelty of war and the way it impacts captives, captors and the families involved. While Andersonville is specifically covered, there are also accounts from Union prisons such as Rock Island, IL, where similar atrocities were carried out on the Confederates unlucky enough to find themselves there. There are also memorials from POW experiences from every other American war.

And then I walked outside. 

The POW Memorial Courtyard

A bas relief on brick and a bronze sculpture stands as a visual of the misery at Andersonville. A water feature symbolizes Sweetwater Creek, a name that almost evokes it own cruelty when it identifies the poison stream that eked its way through the middle of the camp.

The camp has much in common with the war. It seemed good at first - reports of plentiful food in the area, far from the fighting, railroad depot downtown and a creek that would be a source of clean water and wash away waste...until they built the stockade across it...on both sides.

And then it got worse. The blockade and the truth of the area's food supply began to send the

The view from the gate of the stockade.

situation downward. Then the Union realized that their superior numbers made cessation of prisoner exchanges to be to their advantage (this assessment is part of the official audio tour offered by the park and not just Southern propaganda) so they just stopped. The situation deteriorated further. A band of prisoners began terrorizing other prisoners. This bunch was eventually brought down with the help of other prisoners that had enough of their violence and thievery. The six "raiders", as they were called, were hung, 149 years, to the day, prior to our visit.

As food and medication became more scarce in the South, so went supplies in the camp. The guards consisted of men too old, too young or too sick to be on the lines trying to hold off Sherman's advance. And no matter how remorseful anyone felt about it, if there wasn't enough supplies for the citizens and soldiers in the area, there sure wasn't enough for enemy prisoners.

Wirz's view of the camp.

Sitting on the hill overlooking the camp was the man given charge of the place. Henry Wirz, the Swiss-born Confederate captain was witness to it all. Looking at the verdant field and the quiet creek in the midst, it is hard to imagine the din of over 30,000 human beings, some merely talking, others moaning or crying out. The residents of Americus, some ten miles away complained of the foul stench wafting from the camp - the smell of body odor and human waste festering in the Georgia summer.

The stones in the cemetery stand in memory to the horrors of the camp. The dead were buried shoulder-to-shoulder in trench graves. The Federal Government later placed stones over each prisoner using the meticulous records of the Confederate Surgeons Corps. And the number of stones - rows and rows of white stones - gives the eye perspective as to just how bad the situation got.

The Georgia Monument

I could explain that the Union had similar prisons - Rock Island, Camp Douglas, "Helmira", just to name a few. I could point out that the abundant supplies were withheld from those prisoners for spite and to be maliciously cruel. I could point out that at Camp Douglas that the dead were piled into a common hole and buried without the dignity of a grave. I could mention that, in spite of the northern camps, after the sham trial by military tribunal and a mis-tied knot that 250 paying spectators at Washington's Old Capitol Prison watched Wirz swing and writhe as he slowly suffocated while the crowd chanted "Remember Andersonville" - an event that is widely believed by historians and the National Parks Service to be the murder of a scapegoat.

And every bit of that is true. But none of that would change what happened at Andersonville. To try to deflect or deny what went on at Andersonville would not change one second of the tragedy that was the Confederate Military Prison at Camp Sumter. And to deny this place would be to insult the honor of the prisoners and custodians of this horrible place. Even as a Georgian and one that leans heavily toward the gray, I cannot look at such a place and not feel pity for the people imprisoned there. It was terrible, period.

What I took from it all was all the terror of war, crammed into a compact package. To think of lives lost, of irreversible damage from illness and disease, the images that a mind just never forgets and the horrible cruelty of it all, no matter what lengths are taken to prevent or alleviate it - war is a terrible tragedy. For all the glory we attach to it, it can never be made anything other than tragic, even when it is necessary. That being said, we should never enter in to it brashly or flippantly. Such cruelty must never be celebrated or enjoyed.

And so that brought us to midday and time for a change in venue. I'll pick up the afternoon section of this day in the next update. I promise that it will be a much happier entry....

"Un-"

Rows of gravestones lie silent in the Confederate section of Myrtle Hill Cemetery. They're not all Confederate markers. This is one of those rare locations where soldiers from both sides are buried together, their final resting places as tightly mingled as their dying breaths.

Standing amongst the rows is a hardwood tree (an oak, if my memory serves me correctly) that is gradually consuming one of the tombstones. At present, the only part of the inscription that remains visible is "UN". Now, to the casual passerby, this inscription might suggest that the occupant might have been named Unther or that he hailed from Unadilla, GA or maybe even that he served in the Union Army. But to people familiar with military cemeteries and history "UN" is the beginning of only one word. "UNKNOWN".

How ironic. Lying in a historic section of a NRHP registered cemetery is a fallen soldier, known only to God, whose lone memorial is being consumed with the passage of time.

Who was this man? Union or Confederate? Artillery, infantry or cavalry? Officer or enlisted? Race? Religion? Level of education? Who were his parents? did he have a wife or children? How did he meet his awful fate? How old was he? Any identifier, other than to suggest that he's not identifiable, has been consumed by the constant growth of the tree.

And time progresses.

Why is the consumption of a 150 year old grave important? Without getting into cliches about repeating forgotten histories let me say it's very important. This grave is a microcosm of our time. History is disappearing with time. There are many trees eating many headstones but one tree concerns me more than the others.

The tree of political correctness is eating our history at an alarming rate. The removal of Confederate flags from the Confederate Memorial Park and Chapel on Richmond, VA, the changing of the mascot at the University of Mississippi, the discontinuance of "Dixie" by marching bands throughout the South and even the planned renaming of Memphis' Forrest Park - including the exhumation of General Forrest and his wife - are the bark on the progressing trunk. And as history continues to be removed from public view, we will forget and then...well...I promised no clichés.

Why is this happening? What kind of person would do this?

Much of it is ignorance. 150 years of the victor's history has led people to have deplorable knowledge of factual history. Most people today have no knowledge of Nathan Bedford Forrest outside of a comical mention in the opening scenes of Forrest Gump. If you think 1)that he started the KKK or 2) that the Klan was his major contribution to society, then a trip to the library is recommended. NEITHER of these are true.

That being said, there is good and bad on both sides of history. Forrest was not exactly a Girl Scout. But also, as bad as Barack Obama has been, he made it to his second term without razing a single American city. The same cannot be said for the saintly Mr. Lincoln.

Good and bad. Give and take. Shades of gray reenact the entire, stinky, bloody drama that culminated in 600,000 dead combatants and who knows how many civilians. Staggering levels of property damage. Orphans. Widows.

Who were the good guys? Who were the bad guys? The only quick answer to these questions can be "yes" because an honest answer depends on too many other questions. Questions that are gradually being obscured by apathy and ignorance.

Who was he? Who knows? Who cares?

So I come to this. The story of our unknown friend hinges on us. He's already forgotten to history. One day the las speck of stone will slip into the bark, forever obscured and then even this inadequate reminder of someone's son will be gone.

I leave you a borrowed line that I think is appropriate. Another "UN" word. This time it's "UNLESS". Because, as Dr. Seuss told us in the Lorax, "Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot,

Nothing is going to get better. It's not.”

It's not.

Who was he? I don't know. I might never know. But you can bet your next paycheck that I care.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers

Heard a story this week.

My eldest son and I had the pleasure of attending a symposium on local heroes from the War Between the States downtown at the local library.

One of the stories was especially touching. Pictured with this entry is the headstone of Bayard Hand. Yes, he died in 1859, two years before the war but this US sailor had a role in the biggest conflict in American History up to that time.

In 1864 William Sherman and his army paid a visit to Rome. After a time of planning and organizing torches lit the fire of the first of many towns burned in the "March to the Sea". As the US Army left with the flames reaching for the sky, their knapsacks clinked with the pilfered jewelry, silverware and other valuables they decided to help themselves to. But material goods were not all the Yankees stole. They also stole the body of Lt. Bayard Hand

Apparently, after seeing the US Naval emblem on the tombstone, the Federal soldiers decided that such a man should not be buried in Rome, Georgia. So, in spite of his family's protests, they exhumed his body and sent it to Arlington, Virginia to be buried at the new cemetery established on the estate that the same US Army stole from the wife of General Robert E. Lee.

This family, without doubt, lost material possessions to the invading army. Perhaps they lost their home and certainly their hometown to Sherman's torches. But the thought of the Union Army marching away with their disinterred son and then to hear of his burial at Arlington. It's hard for me to imagine.

But a father's love runs deep.

Bayard's step-father travelled to Virginia in 1866. At a personal cost of $300 (a large sum in that day) he had his son re-exhumed and transported back to Rome. Bayard Hand was then reinterred in his own grave.

Sitting there with my son it was hard to imagine what that dad went through, what he dealt with or the ease with which I can only guess he parted with a large sum of money to right such a wrong and get his son back, even 6 years after Bayard's death.

Being a dad, I understand.