(Think
yellow brick roads and Munchkins as you sing…) ‘We’re off to see the library,
the wonderful library of East Chattanooga, Tennessee!’
But when we
got there, there was no library to be seen! Instead, lo and behold, it was the
Library of Railroad Historiana inside the Tennessee Historic Railroad
Association building, located at their very own railroad yards and museum! Fancy that.
So sorry
Mona! Just wait a minute or two while I
run in and play amongst the trains! So 30 minutes later we were off once more,
this time to the Rossville, GA, library (the TN & GA state border is right
between Rossville and Chattanooga). And
this time we struck books. And we struck
(found, really) the original home of the Primary Chief of the Cherokee at the
time of the Removal Act which forced all 18,000 of them to walk or ride the ‘Trail
of Tears’ we have been following elsewhere.
The Ross
home is not on the Trail of Tears. It is
however, the starting point for the Ross family on their own trail. They were wealthy plantation owners, as their
1797 two story log home attests. They
had black slaves, a couple of which went west with them. But this home and their land was forfeit when
they were herded, like all the Cherokee, west. And Mrs. Ross would die, along
with possibly 8,000 others of those 18,000, and is buried in an unmarked grave somewhere
in
Tennessee.
Later the
home, which sat (till moved a couple of blocks off the now very busy highway),
below the Rossville Gap on the
Chickamauga Road in Missionary Ridge. It was in both Confederate and Union
hands as fights took place around that gap several times. Finally, as the “Rock of Chickamauga”, Union
General Thomas, guarded the withdrawal (run, actually) of Rosecrans Army of the
Cumberland back from Chickamauga to Chattanooga he held off Rebel Cavalry under
Nathan Bedford Forrest at this gap from his own headquarters in this home.
Another,
less conspicuous, home of a ‘removed’ Cherokee family (this one nameless to
history) was purchased by the Walker family in 1878 and in it the famous
Chattanooga area author and naturalist, Robert S Walker was born. At his death in the sixties he deeded it and
all of his property around it, once owned by that nameless Cherokee family, to
create an Audubon Society Nature Park.
Also on the
site has been found the location of a 300 year old Creek Indian village along the
banks of the South Chickamauga Creek.
The Creeks left this site and probably moved west into Alabama on their
own before the Cherokee arrived. They
were hunter-gatherers, unlike the Americanized farming Cherokee. In any case, they were herded west to Indian
Territory well before the Cherokee were, out of Alabama and Mississippi.
We visited
several other libraries and did a little grocery shopping but also visited the
final Civil War site I wanted to see in the Chattanooga area: Missionary Ridge.
 |
| Looking down from the center of Missionary Ridge |
After
Rosecrans came THIS close to losing his army he settled back into his former
defenses in Chattanooga. But now Confederate
General Bragg had his Army of the Tennessee surrounding him, looking down from
Missionary Ridge all along Rosecrans’ eastern and southern lines. So Lincoln fired Rosecrans and hired US Grant
to get the job done.
 |
| The Crest Road that is the only way to see the battle lines with the entire ridge built up |
Grant
ordered a full frontal attack all along the miles of Missionary Ridge. He believed that the heavily wooded sides of
the ridge would allow his men to get right into the rebel lines with less than
normal casualties.
And he
believed that the very steep sides of the ridge would keep the rebel cannon mounted
on its crest from being effectively used on the climbing Federals. Their
barrels could not be depressed enough to fire down into them. 
And such was
the case in both instances as the Federals not only rolled up and over and
around the Rebels, but caused them to fully leave the field and head not just back
south to Ringold or Lafayette, whence they had come, but on their hard road all
the way ultimately to Atlanta.
Tomorrow
church at Graysville UMC is at 9:30 am so we’ll be awakened by an alarm for
sure! Then… it’s OFF to the laundry! Now
there’s a fun way to spend a Sunday afternoon!
-Ken
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