Yesterday was a day filled with dark skies and unending very heavy rain.
LC and I had lunch with my oldest son and his wife while they were briefly in town.
It was good to see them, as it always is.
Good to share conversation and to share a meal and to hear about their lives.
This morning the sky was still very overcast.
Temperatures were cooler but the rain had stopped and the coming week promises still cooler temperatures but also sunshine.
LC, Jamie and I spent some time briefly at a confederate cemetery in Tullahoma before heading to the Cracker Barrel in Manchester for a late breakfast.
The Cracker Barrel is a southern chain restaurant filled with a winning combination of country store, country decorations, and southern cooking.
Food choices are always challenging for a woman not raised on southern cooking, and after I listened to LC order meat loaf and pinto beans and macaroni and cheese and biscuits and some kind of thick white gravy concoction, I ordered bacon and eggs and toast.
Watching a man I love mixing a bowl of mayonnaise into a bowl of pinto beans, and then pouring thick white gravy over biscuits is a stomach churning affair that I tried not to focus on, and although a Cracker Barrel visit is a must for anyone who finds themselves in the south it is not a restaurant I enjoy visiting too often.
All of the long porches of all the Cracker Barrels I have ever eaten at are decorated with rows of rocking chairs and over sized checkers boards balanced on old wooden barrels, and this morning I watched two young boys playing checkers while LC paid the bill..................
After leaving Manchester we headed west on I-24.
Headed for a confederate cemetery about 20 miles away, in the small community of Beech Grove.
A couple of minutes after we pulled off the interstate we found what we were looking for.................
While doing research online I found this link about the cemetery:
This site contains not only many more pictures of the cemetery but also an incredible amount of information about the place and the the history behind it
There is also a series of email communications between visitors, historians, Members of the Sons of Confederate Veterans and others who have additional knowledge about the cemetery.
These additions are not only hugely interesting but also serve to personalize the names on some of the head stones - as well as those stones that contain no names.
Unknown early settlers who called this area home.
And unknown and unnamed soldiers who died in battle in the hills and valleys of this region....................
Click on any of the pictures to enlarge them..............
The repeating rifle was first used in the Battle of Hoovers Gap (which was the principle battle of the Tullahoma Campaign):
Throughout the cemetery there was a combination of many grave stones and burial mounds.
Settlers buried under piles of rocks............
A CONFEDERATE SOLDIER'S PRAYER
Author Unknown
(Attributed to a battle weary C.S.A soldier near the end of the war)
I asked God for strength, that I might achieve;
I was made weak, that I might learn humbly to obey.
I asked for health, that I might do greater things;
I was given infirmity, that I might do better things.
I asked for riches, that I might be happy;
I was given poverty, that I might be wise.
I asked for power, that I might have the praise of men;
I was given weakness, that I might feel the need of God.
I asked for all things, that I might enjoy life;
I was given life, that I might enjoy all things.
I got nothing that I asked for, but everything I hoped for.
Almost despite myself, my unspoken prayers were answered.
I am among all men most richly blessed.
LC and I spent a long time at the cemetery, and as I wandered through the grounds taking pictures and reading the markers and the grave stones and the information boards, a surprising number of random thoughts kept running through my brain faster than the trucks and cars that I could hear speeding by on the interstate highway that was only half a mile away.
Mostly my thoughts were about how much and how little things have actually changed since the time of the 1860's.
Technological advances are still made so that people can more efficiently kill other people.
Young people still die far away from home fighting wars that they do not declare and for reasons that they do not fully understand.
This particular war still fuels conflicted feelings about motivations and righteousness, much as so many wars since that time do.
I looked at a gravestone that was erected to remember the life of some random young man whose name we will never know, and I thought about the young men who have died in the jungles and deserts and in the forests and on the beaches from that time to this.
Thankfully we - mostly - have made enough progress to now know their names when we return them to their families.
It was a good visit and we wandered and walked and read and photographed much longer than we had expected
An interesting place. A sad place. I was thankful to visit a respectful place that remembers and honors..............
THE CIVIL WAR
Author Unknown
In 1860 life was good,
Till its simpleness ceased one day.
The North wished to save the Union.
While the South chose to break away.
America was torn apart
As six hundred thousand died.
Throughout four years of total war,
Women without husbands cried.
The sad fact of the Civil War
Is what was left at its end.
Too many times, men’s evil acts
Destroyed both foe and friend.
The problem was, once it began,
There was no peace or compromise.
Total victory must be proclaimed
Before rage would leave men’s eyes.
Destroy all that helps the enemy,
Was the cry of either side.
Anything to obtain victory,
As death on horseback did ride.
Black men dressed in old uniforms
Became the Union’s reserve.
They fought and died for their freedom
And their rights they earned and deserve.
Lifestyles would forever change
For all who survived the war.
It had ended as it began,
With sadness, misery and more.
Both sides prayed to the same God,
And spoke words from the Bible.
The prayers of both were not answered,
For all involved were liable.
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