Lake Charles, Then Home

Stayed in a real hotel and slept in a real bed at L’Auberge du Lac in Lake Charles, Louisiana.  This was a special stop to see Jen Kober’s Homegrown Comedy Show.  Jen is an up-and-coming comic to keep your eye on.  If she comes to your town, or anywhere close, make a point to go see her.  Check her website jenkober.com for her schedule.  No, she did not pay me to post this, but yes, we are acquainted.

Drove home the next day and put WindDancer to bed. 

 

There is a lot to reflect on after this trip.  It was proved to me over and over again that people are really, really nice.  Our country is filled with wondrous sights and it would take more than a lifetime to see it all.  Our history is rich with heroes and villains.  Politics aside, Americans just want to do what’s right and be left alone. 

And there’s no place like home.

Vicksburg

Another ancestor - my third great-grandfather - died in the civil war, this time at Vicksburg.  This was a 46-day siege for control of the Mississippi River and ended with a Union victory, essentially severing the Confederacy and it's supply routes.

There is a 16-mile driving tour through the battlefield with many stops along the way explaining what happened at that particular spot.  The tour takes almost two hours but is well worth the time.  The visitor center has several exhibits plus a film introducing the battle.

This was the last historical stop on my vacation.  Just a few more days and I will be back home, trying to digest all I have seen, learned and experienced these past several weeks.

Forts and Prisons

The things we can learn when we least expect it!  I visited Fort Pulaski this week which was built as part of a coastal fortification system after the War of 1812.  It contained 25 million bricks and was considered invincible.  After Georgia seceded from the Union at the beginning of the Civil War, the state transferred the fort to the Confederate States of America.  Eventually the Federals attacked the fort.  What was once invincible was now falling to the Union which was using new technology in their cannons that ate through the fort’s seven-foot-thick walls like no artillery could ever do before.  Within 30 hours the Confederates surrendered the fort to the Union.

Fort Frederica, down the coast from Fort Pulaski, was an early Georgia settlement when England was still colonizing America more than 250 years ago.  Settlers from England set up the fort as a military town to defend against the Spanish, who also laid claim to the land between St. Augustine and Charleston.  The town was populated not only with soldiers, but tradesmen of all kinds;  literally butchers, bakers and candlestick makers.  The Spanish advanced to within sight of the fort, but were beaten back by the British.  Within a week the Spanish evacuated the area.  Born of war, the fort expired with the coming of peace.  Without the money brought in by several hundred soldiers, the shopkeepers, tradespeople and the town could not prosper.  It had outlived its purpose and stands today as a reminder of the grim struggle for empire in the southeast during colonial times.

I did not know, until doing my genealogical research in Tennessee several weeks ago, that someone in my family had been kept prisoner at the infamous Andersonville Prison during the Civil War.  Until then I had no idea I had any Union ancestors at all.  So I was even more interested than I had been before, having read the novel by MacKinlay Kantor twice.  I arrived just in time for a ranger-led tour of the prison grounds accompanied by a very informative talk.  The ranger told us about the unbearable conditions suffered by the prisoners in the relatively short time the prison was in operation.  After watching an interesting film about the life of Andersonville prisoners, I asked about finding more information regarding my relative and was told there was a computer station in the visitor center that could help.  I entered the name and up popped information about him!  His rank, regiment, cause of death and location of his remains!  I was thrilled.  A helpful ranger showed me the layout of the Andersonville Cemetery and I went looking for Private Philip Conaster.  I found his resting place easily and spent a few minutes reflecting on history and family.  I placed a coin on his headstone and wondered if he, or his widow, would have had any idea that someone would be paying respects to him and shedding a tear five generations later.

The battlefield at Kennesaw Mountain was also the site of the demise of one of my ancestors, although I did not have the success in tracing him as I did at Andersonville.  I was able to merely verify he had been there, but I got the name and email address of the historian who may be able to help me.

One more Civil War site to visit, a few more stops along the way, then I will be headed home.  With the assistance of local Starbucks stores in the absence of decent internet at campsites, posts will continue as adventures warrant.

Not to Worry

A series of lousy internet connections has prevented me from posting.  I will catch up soon.

Fort Sumter

After running errands this morning I went to Fort Sumter.

This is where the first shot of the Civil War was fired that started the whole shebang.

On the way back to the campsite, just as I was turning in to the driveway, a familiar 'clunk' came from my brakes.  Not willing to put up with this nonsense any more, I called a tech recommended by the folks in the office who will come out tomorrow and fix things once and for all.  I'd rather lose a day of travel than lose my life or take someone else's.

Congaree National Park

I must have been very tired because I slept almost twelve hours last night.  Woke up and the sun was getting so warm the air conditioner in WindDancer had kicked on.  Hope this means there will be no rain for a while;  it was getting tiresome.

Continuing the National Park theme, Congaree was on the list today.  This park is 26,000 acres of old-growth bottomland hardwood forest in a wetland system of the Congaree and Wateree rivers.  This time of year is Mosquito Central, and my four-mile hike in the park was accompanied by much buzzing in and around my ears.  I was enchanted by the trees, though, and I was pretty much by myself on the hike so I could hear the sounds of nature too.  As you can see, it's really a swamp - some of the trail was flooded due to the recent heavy rains.

Interesting tree trunk, isn't it?

There was wildlife, too.  Birds, frogs, lizards and of course mosquitoes!  One of the signs on the trail stated there were alligators, too, but all I saw in the lake was this snake and these turtles on a log:

It was quite hot and very humid, so I was ready to get to a campground where I could clean up and rest for the evening.  I followed a sign on the interstate that said there was a campground just a mile and a half away.  Followed the sign for three miles, and no campground.  So between the internet service on my cell phone and the GPS on the dashboard I found a lovely spot where I'll spend the next few days.

Speaking of the GPS, I fear I have been traveling alone too long:  I apologized to the GPS after I accidentally knocked it off the dashboard after stopping for gas.  Fortunately it did not answer me.

Revolutionary Ideas

Today I visited the only two Revolutionary War National Military Parks:  Cowpens and Kings Mountain, both in South Carolina.  I was unaware of Cowpens until I saw the National Parks Service sign on the highway and decided to investigate.  The battle took place in January of 1781 when Continentals and militia from Virginia, Georgia and the Carolinas won a decisive victory over the British.  It was after this battle that British Gen. Cornwallis abandoned South Carolina to the Patriots and marched north to his eventual surrender at Yorktown.  The visitor center had a film created by the History Channel in addition to the exhibits.

Kings Mountain was another matter.  I was familiar with this battle, as my 5^th great-grandfather was involved in it.  Robert Bean fought under General Elijah Clarke with the Patriots in October of 1780 to decimate American Loyalists to “turn the tide” of the American Revolution, according to Thomas Jefferson.  Yes, it was a battle of Americans against Americans.  No British were involved.  The visitor center here had a full 30-minute History Channel film about the battle and the exhibits were the best I’ve seen yet on my trip.  I left feeling very proud of my ancestor.