Libraries, Trains and our TOAD

(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

More pics on FACEBOOK