With a reprieve from the forecasted rain, we drove to the Georgia border to the Chickamauga & Chattanooga National Military Park: the oldest and first national military park. It was dedicated in 1895 and is the sight of the second most deadly battle of the Civil War with 35,000 casualties!
It is a sobering experience to walk (and drive) where so many young men died. Col. John T. Wilder’s “Lightning Brigade” and their Spencer repeating rifles played a decisive role in the outcome of the battle. Armed with firearms that could get off 14 rounds per minutes compared with the 2-3 rounds of the conventional rifle, the death toll was staggering. In a article about the battle it was said, “The carnage caused by the rifles shocked even the Union men wielding them. After the battle, Wilder wrote ‘It actually seemed a pity to kill men so. They fell in heaps; and I had it in my heart to order the firing to cease, to end the awful sight.’ ”
It seemed like everywhere you went in the park there was some kind of memorial…
While I was there I also bought a book called Seen the Glory about a man named Mark Thrash. He was a former slave who was born in 1820 and died in 1943 (just a few days short of his 123rd birthday). He helped bury the dead at Chickamauga and said that, “you could walk a mile on dead bodies and never put your foot on the ground." He went on to work at the park until he was 101 years old! It was a fascinating story that I highly recommend!
