Civil War in the Hill Country, Part Four

In the midst of the Civil War, three generations of the Johnson family came together for a family photograph, outside Richmond, Virginia. The front was moving closer; shortly after the picture was taken, elders, women, and children of the family fled south, back to Georgia. Tom Johnson, the man standing toward the right side of the group, with a beard and hat and holding his wife's hand, stayed behind, to defend the city. He fell in battle a scant few days after the picture was taken, and his body made the journey south, by train. Stories are told of how Tom's wife (and mother of two young children) was returning home on that same train, in another car, and never knew. Only when she returned home did she receive the news. She, and her husband, are both buried in a small family cemetery beside the railroad tracks, a few miles south of Palmetto. Tom's brother, the seated gentleman on the far right in the picture, died before the war was over, in the only major battle fought in Florida, at Olustee. He, too, is buried in this small unkempt graveyard, where several stones are weathered almost smooth, and other graves are marked only by lumps of granite barely protruding from under the cover of oak leaves.

We took our time on this, our last Palmetto Civil War history stop in the middle of a Saturday afternoon. Wandering among the stones, we glimpsed other stories. The graveyard also holds the remains of Hannah Penn, who died in the late 1700s. She was a descendant of William Penn, founder of Pennsylvania; a branch of the family came south, to the Palmetto-Newnan area, eventually marrying into the Johnson family. A displaced Pennsylvanian myself, I paused togratefully recognize the others before me who have uprooted themselves from the Keystone State, to make a new home in the wilds of Georgia.

Civil War in the Hill Country, Part Three

Last Saturday afternoon, after a brief return to Rico Community Center following our morning at Pickett's Mill Battlefield, we visited Civil War sites closer to home. The photo above is, well, basically the heart of downtown Palmetto, Georgia. This was our second stop of the afternoon -- to be nonlinear for a change, I will give it top billing, which probably has not happened before, beyond a couple of local newspaper articles on the occasion of monument dedications, maybe. It is an odd bit of ground for a memorial, situated on a patch of grass next to the unoccupied former train station and the still-busy railroad tracks, bounded on the opposite side by Main Street. The markers here are varied and eclectic. A Daughters of the Confederacy white obelisk from the early 1900s commemorates local units in the "War Between the States"; a roadside sign (shown above) recognizes the Confederate Army of Tennessee, stationed here for a few days shortly after the fall of Atlanta in 1864; a random cannon of no clear vintage (but certainly newer than the Civil War) sits beyond the sign, aimed not-so-menacingly at cars stopped at the traffic light; beyond the cannon is the relocated grave of William Menafee, the man who provided the land where the town now stands (or rather, slumps). I find it fitting, somehow, that the one who gave land to the town got a small plot back, for his own personal and rather long-term use.

The above photograph is of the law office of Jim Barfield in Palmetto, formerly the Stagecoach Inn, circa 1831. Jim proudly notes on his website (http://www.jimbarfield.com/, the source of the lovely out-of-season photograph above) that his office is the oldest commercial building in the whole of Fulton County, though he has only owned it himself for a scant fifteen years. Jim very kindly invited me to allow our Sense of Place Workshop group to tour his office, for which I am very grateful. Our afternoon outing began with a stop here. We admired his fine antiques inside, including a beautiful piece of Creek pottery, shown below. For all that Menafee might have given up his land for the town, it was the Creek's land for far longer than it was his, until McIntosh signed a piece of paper selling the land to the United States -- the Treaty of Indian Springs.But all that was last month -- ancient history. This month is all about how Palmetto became contested terrain a second time, as the Union and Confederacy vied for victory. No major battles were fought here, but the former train station (the one before the one standing there now) was burned by McCook's Federal cavalry, who also tore up and burned the railroad tracks over a two-mile stretch in Palmetto in late June of 1864. Of course, the story of the sacking of the town and destruction of its rail line, connecting Atlanta with Columbus, is a tale told in the absence of evidence, since everywhere was "a scene of fire, of ruin, and devastation" (as quoted in Sherman's Horsemen by David Evans (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, p. 227). So Keith pointed to the current railroad underpasses (the arches with crumbling white plaster) and remarked that the raiders had burned the previous wooden trestles that once stood there, along with the town's original buildings (now gone) and the original rail line (since replaced). All that remains is an anachronistic cannon, like some sort of lawn ornament, a roadside plaque, and local stories.

Back to Jim Barfield's law office. Lots of antiques, but nothing original to the mid-nineteenth century, besides the building itself, with its pine floors with incredibly wide floorboards, the kind that are very hard to come-by nowadays. Upstairs, most of the walls in the two rooms were never painted, and I have read that former occupants of the original tavern left their names on the wood, though I have never seen any. Downstairs, a swinging half-door with chipped gray paint once led to the Confederate post-office, operated out of the building during the war. Mostly what remains are stories. Supposedly, a very important meeting took place in the building, between General Hood and his staff and President Jefferson Davis, who also visited the town after the Battle of Atlanta. In that fateful meeting, which could well have happened there (it was, after all, one of the few available spaces when McCook got through with Palmetto's downtown) or could have happened in a military tent, or possibly elsewhere -- it was at that meeting that General Hood proposed to move north, to cut off Sherman's own rail lines supplying Atlanta. Jefferson Davis, gaunt and weary, approved. A grim miscalucation, to which Sherman responded by burning Atlanta and marching southeast, to the sea.

Leaving Jim Barfield's office, we paused along the brick walkway to notice the sunken stones that were once used by visitors to the stagecoach stop to mount and dismount from their coaches. Slowly, the stones are slipping away, subsiding into the ground. They are apt metaphors for Palmetto history -- so much is hidden, kept in attics or elder residents' memories, and slipping away. Or it is overlooked, intentionally forgotten, like accounts of horrible lynchings that occurred in Palmetto at the turn of the last century, decades after the war had ended -- but that, too, is another story, one difficult to tell.

Civil War in the Hill Country, Part Two

The sky was Confederate gray when we set out on the drive to Pickett's Mill State Historic Site, located on the road to Etowah, near Dallas, Georgia. Eleven of us carpooled from Rico Community Center to the battlefield, where we met up with Dr. Keith Bohannon. I had known that the site had been, until the 1970s, privately owned woods and fields (in fact, it was heavily logged in the 1960s). But I was unprepared for the discovery that not only are there no military monuments there, but there also aren't any roads. The closest to a road was an old track, right beside where we stood, above. That track had been there when the battle was fought, back on May 27th of 1864. In the photo above, the Ravine Overlook is a vantage point for viewing where most of the carnage occurred: the Federal troops occupied the ravine, while the Confederate forces fired down on them with rifles and cannon from this very place. The Confederates held the high ground, and won the battle, though the victory was short-lived; Atlanta fell a few months later.
Our path led along the old roadway, past red flags standing in patches like strange out-of-season flowers. We passed a couple of college students, surveying. Archaeology is ongoing there, particularly near where Pickett's Mill once stood. Archaeologists are hoping to locate the home of the farm family that owned the land, and operated the mill, back in 1864. Their fate is unknown, though it is assumed that they abandoned the area before the battle began. The mill itself was burned down after the battle. All that remains is the well, boarded over and fenced off, and a pair of large square stones on opposite banks of Pumpkinvine Creek. The stones were part of either the mill or, more likely, the mill dam. Such a tranquil place now, but it must have been horrible to be standing there during the battle, when Confederate forces held the high ground on the far side of the creek, pummelling the Federals below with cannon and rifle fire. I cannot imagine the horrors of that battle, or the Civil War in general. The only writer I have found that evokes what I suspect the experience was like is Ambrose Bierce, in short stories such as "Chickamauga". Bierce was present in this battle, too, and he wrote a short essay about the experience, though it did not inspire him to craft a story, the way the Battle of Chickamauga did.

The stream was so peaceful, flowing over boulders of gneiss, the weathered skin of Georgia's upper Piedmont. We admired the way the water splashed over pebbles, flowing through the valley where so much blood must have flowed from fallen soldiers. Later, Keith would explain to us how often it was not possible to tell whether a dead soldier belonged to the Union or the Confederacy; in death, all were brothers.

Our path continued along the stream a short distance, then up the ravine, following the route that Hazen's Brigade of Federal infantry had taken, all the while being fired at from the top of the ravine by dismounted Confederate cavalry. We walked along the edge of a field, which had been planted in wheat at the time of the battle. A terrible place to get caught in crossfire -- sometimes it is not so wonderful to be out standing in one's field.

Continuing upslope, we came to a place where a pair of low ridges with a narrow gully between could be seen under a blanket of oak leaves. Amazingly enough, these earthworks were dug hastily by the federal troops positioned there when the battle began. Over 140 years ago now, yet the land remembers. Could there be a finer monument to the fallen dead than these gentle furrows in the ground?

We made our way back to the visitor center, watching the ravine beside us get deeper and deeper, more and more narrow and rugged. Our band of eleven found the way tough going, and we were not lugging guns and packs. One of us found the uphill route too difficult, and the park service dispatched a small vehicle to pick her up and bring her back. Such a sorrowful place, haunted, in my imagining, by the bodies of so many hundreds dead. I was ready to go home.

Civil War in the Hill Country, Part One

Last Thursday, February 7th, Dr. Keith Bohannon, Professor of History at the University of West Georgia, gave participants an overview of the Civil War history of the region, including the events leading up to and following shortly after Sherman's Atlanta campaign. Amazing, to think that Confederate President Jefferson Davis actually visited Palmetto to speak to the troops! Even more astounding, to think that one of the major events toward the end of the Civil War, a meeting between General Hood, his staff, and Jefferson Davis, may have taken place in a building that we will tour during our outing this coming Saturday! It was that meeting that led to the fateful strategic decision on the part of the Confederacy that ultimately led to Sherman's March. (Or, in this case, Sherman's February?)

Prehistory of the Hill Country, Part Three

Saturday's outing did not end at Etowah. Due to some fuzziness in my geographical knowledge of West-Central Georgia, when I originally planned the day, I had done so based upon the absurd notion that Carrollton and Etowah were much closer than they are. Therefore, I reasoned, viewing the cultural remains of the Mississippian peoples (ancestors to the Creek Indians) at Etowah might be followed, quite easily, by a visit to McIntosh Reserve in Whitesburg, south of Carrollton. McIntosh Reserve was formerly the residence (or rather, one of several of the residences) of a Creek Indian leader, who signed a treaty giving up Creek lands, hastening the exile of his people, which took place several years before the Cherokees had their Trail of Tears. Anyway, the distances between the two sites is quite respectable, and another hour-and-a-half of driving ensued, including an inevitable wrong turn on US 78 in Douglasville. At last, McIntosh Reserve, and the welcome sight of Carole Harper, local historian, waiting to greet us.

After all the visitor conveniences of Etowah Indian Mounds (museum, gift shop -- and yes, I bought another book there, videos, interpretive brochure), McIntosh Reserve is a bit of a shock. The main feature of the park is the grave of Chief William McIntosh: a stone that looks like a turtle when viewed from the right angle, and like a granite boulder covered with colorful lichens when viewed from every other angle; a small gravestone, a later addition, with his name, dates of birth and death, and military rank; and a state historic marker. After signing the Treaty of Indian Springs (identified in a smaller historic marker sign across the road), McIntosh retired to his "Reserve", a square mile set aside for him for the rest of his life, the smallest fragment of the expanse of Creek territory that he relinquished to the whites. He received, too, a large sum of money, but he did not enjoy the money or the Reserve very long, before he was assassinated (or justly executed?) by a band of Creeks opposed to the treaty (which was practically everyone else in the tribe). When he was killed, his home and all his outbuildings were burned, but the money he received as part of the treaty was never recovered. Legends have it that it may be buried somewhere in a parish in Louisiana....

Here, then, is McIntosh's gravestone, in two views. If you squint just right at the lower picture, you might imagine the carapace of a turtle.

Across the road stands a dogtrot home, about the same age as, and similar in appearance to, the house McIntosh lived in. This one was moved from somewhere in Alabama and rebuilt at the Reserve about ten years ago. Several of the rooms are open, but unfurnished apart from an out-of-place ugly upholstered chair. Beyond the house, the land drops away sharply, toward the floodplains of the Chattahoochee River. It was there that the Creek Indians would have their Green Corn dances. But on the day of our visit, the space was in use, instead, by a couple of people flying their remote-controlled model airplanes.

After a short visit to the floodplain (where Carole regaled us with accounts of her family's settlement of the area, and spoke of how many of her Lassiter relatives are buried in a cemetery that is now surrounded by private land), we started on our way out of the park. On the way, we stopped at an old graveyard that had been next to a church once, a ways back. The graveyard supposedly contains the graves of McIntosh's wife, Senoia, and one of his three wives. We scrutinized the gravestones, but most were too worn to be legible. All around us, in the woods, were lines of rock, pretty pink gneisses and yellow-brown chunks of quartite, probably marking out family burial plots. Carole speculated that hundreds of people might in fact be buried there. A peaceful spot.

I think I was more intent on the rocks than the graves, though. My wife Valerie found a weathered piece of gneiss containing red-brown lumps that were likely garnets. I almost carried it away with me, but could not bring myself to desecrate a cemetery by removing it. The rock colors were enchanting, though. Valerie captured the soft tones of the rock (justaposed by the green-gray of a shield lichen) in the photograph below:

On the way home, I felt the thrill of realizing how many places I still did not know about, and stories I had not yet encountered, in and around the Chattahoochee Hill Country. We passed another unkempt graveyard along Highway 70 -- a few stones among the trees at the side of the road. I imagined projects, perhaps with Montessori school students, of clearing off the stones, doing rubbings, perhaps even researching the people that were buried there....

The Hill Country landscape, full of fragments of memory in metal, stone, and wood, beckons to me, calling me closer.

Prehistory of the Hill Country, Part Two

On the day before our first Sense of Place Workshop Series Saturday outing, to Etowah Indian Mounds State Historic Site and to McIntosh Reserve Park (Carroll County), I noticed with alarm that my little blue square on my computer, to one with the temperature on it, was red and flashing. There was a National Weather Service winter weather advisory for sleet and possibly even snow that evening. Would we be able to take our first trip after all? A much-beloved elder community member had passed away, too, and I received an email from one of the participants, explaining that he had to attend the funeral and would not be able to join us. I awoke the next morning (Saturday, January 26th) to gray skies and a slightly damp but definitely not snowy lawn. The photographer in our group called to cancel, but my wife kindly agreed to join our trip and take the pictures you see here.

My wife and I arrived at Rico Community Center ten minutes late, at 8:40 am. Only two cars were idling there. Two participants from Serenbe, Margaret and Martha, were there in their gray Prius to match my blue one; and Heather, parent of two Montessori elementary students, was also there. She rode with us, and the Prius caravan was on its way. Though small in number, our group made up for it in enthusiasm about the day ahead.

Reaching Etowah an hour and a half later, we were greeted cordially by Ken Akins, site manager, who informed us that he was at our disposal. I told him about the talk Dr. Crass had given us, and he suggested sharing with us a slide show on the most recent site archaeology -- images using magnetometers and ground-penetrating radar to read the traces of walls and structures that had once stood at Etowah. Many of the images, with traces interpreted by Dr. Adam King, chief archaologist on the project, are available online here. Below is a photograph of Ken sharing some images with us from his laptop.

One of the recent additions to the visitor center at Etowah is a model of what the village looked like at its peak, between 900 and 1550 AD:

After watching a video about the Southeastern Indians, viewing the museum exhibits, and watching a slide show on the recent archaeological work, it was time to brave the numbing January cold to explore the mounds themselves. Ken happily agreed to lead us on our walk among the mounds. We crossed the moat, now dry, that once encircled the village, probably for both defense and drainage, then traversed an extensive flat area to a slight rise that marked the edge of the original village plaza. For there, it was only a few steps to the many steps leading to the top of Mound A, the Great Temple Mound: at sixty feet high, it is the second largest prehistoric earthen mound in the country, after Monks' Mound at Cahokia in Illinois. Here are two of our group atop Mound A, looking down on Mound C, a burial mound that was excavated many years ago, and subsequently reconstructed:

Below is our group, with Ken leading us, at the base of Mound B. While the chief had a residence atop Mound A, Mound B was likely inhabited by a sub-chief (the next in line to power).

Finally, we made our way toward the Etowah River. By the river bank, we paused to view a large canoe that has been taking shape over the past couple years, a large tree trunk being hollowed out by fire. Someday, Ken hopes, the boat will take its maiden voyage down the Etowah....

Before returning to our cars and the opportunity for a quick lunch, we paused to gaze upstream, at a fishing weir that remains from the time Etowah was inhabited many hundreds of years ago, though it probably traps more canoes than fish nowadays. Looking at the weir now, I am reminded of a flock of geese, migrating south in the springtime. Or maybe that is just an effect of staying up well past midnight, working on this blog....

The Shape of Feldspar

On the next day following the State Archaeologist's visit, I finally met Dr. Julie Bartley, professor of Geology at the University of West Georgia in Carrollton. Dr. Bartley will be leading the March workshop on Geology in the Hill Country, and was visiting the area to scope out possible outcrops to visit. It was great to get to "talk geology" with someone again, swapping rock types, mineralogical compositions, and geological mapping strategies. After looking over an old and less than reliable geologic map of the area (the only one in print), we settled on exploring at Cochran Mill Park. Three Montessori students joined Dr. Bartley and myself for a ride out to Cochran Mill Nature Center.

Our first stop was right at the entrance to the nature center, where we checked out some enormous granite boulders. Dr. Bartley explained how granites weather into soil, as we scanned the rock face for white feldspar crystals and gray-green lichens (best saved for another day). The photo on the top was taken there; I will save an image of the boulders themselves for our March trip, since this will undoubtedly be one of the places we visit then.

We hiked down the trail from the nature center to the granite outcrops along Bear Creek. On the way, Dr. Bartley showed us how angular the sand grains were along the trail, angular because that is the shape of the feldspar crystals contained in the granite. Then, onto the outcrop (photo on the bottom), scanning the rock for mineral composition, looking at jointing structures (cracks) in the rock, and then searching for a contact with the adjacent rock, a metamorphic gneiss. We found the contact at last, down by the water's edge. The creek flows along the place where the granitic magma intruded into the country rock (no allusions to a former Chatt Hills mayoral candidate intended), a gneiss or perhaps a schist. We found evidence of the other rock type on the other side of the stream, but the water was too fast flowing and deep to allow us to cross. The contact was entirely hands-off. Investigation of those rocks will have to await another day, perhaps a weekend in February, if Dr. Bartley's schedule permits. Considering that the rock is already a few hundred million years old, I suspect it will still be there when we return.