Today was one of the best of the trip. We took a tour down to the town of Franklin where arguably the worst battle of the Civil War was fought. On November 30, 1864, 20,000 Union soldiers fought 20,000 Confederate soldiers in a horrific hand to hand combat for 5 hours from 4-9 pm (in the dark obviously) which resulted in 10,000 casualties (2,000 dead, 7,000 injured and 1,000 missing). This battle was fought just outside the town of Franklin which had 750 people at the time. Every possible building in the area was turned into a field hospital and some of the soldiers were there for 7 months. The tour first stopped at the Carter House which was right in the center of the fighting. The Carter family hid in the basement along with their neighbors. There were 28 people hiding in one room for many hours including many young children and some slaves. The house and outbuilding walls still have the bullet and canon ball holes. Then we went to the Lotz House across the street. This house took several direct hits by canon balls and you can see the patches in the floor. Lotz was a German wood craftsman who had built the house himself and he knew a wood building would suffer great damage in the battle so he took his family to his neighbors, the Carters, to hide in their stone basement. And finally we went to the Carnton Plantation which is a magnificent house a mile south of town that was not in the midst of the fighting, but was turned into a Confederate field hospital for about 300 soldiers. After the war Mr. McGavock, the owner, donated 2 acres to be used as a Confederate cemetery. About 1,500 bodies were exhumed from their hurried shallow burial spots and buried properly here. At least one third of them were never identified. In all 3 of these homes you can still see the blood stains in the wood floors especially near the windows, where the surgeons operated, and near the fireplaces where the wounded gathered for warmth. The guides were excellent telling the stories of these 3 families and what that day was like for them. On the drive back the driver showed a video documentary about the remains of a Civil War soldier which were found in Franklin in 2009 during a construction project. The town got together and arranged a full military funeral in the style of the day and buried the unknown soldier in the town cemetery. They don't know whether he was from the North or the South, but that didn't matter. Each of these stories was very touching and the guides really put a human face on the terrible events of that day.
We also learned a lot about life in those days. A couple of things stand out. First the expression "sleep tight, don't let the bedbugs bite" refers to the ropes that held up the mattresses and had to be tightened periodically with a special tool. And secondly, at that time young boys in portraits often had long hair, sometimes with curls, and even wore dresses. You could tell it was a boy because the hair would be parted on the side whereas girls' hair was parted in the middle. Boys didn't get to wear long pants, or "britches", until about age 10 or so.
We didn't get home from the tour until about 5:00 pm so we just went to the Kroger and bought a roasted chicken and salads for dinner.
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