Blogs from Shiloh Battlefield National Park, Tennessee, United States, North America

Thursday was our day to visit Shilo and after a restful night, we got up early, and started out. The GPS in the car routed us a back road to the battlefield. I don’t mean a state route instead of an interstate; no, it took us on back gravel roads that looked like Gen. Johnston could have travelled on 150 years ago! Interesting ride past sod farms, dirt paths to the river, and swamps with roads barely above the water. I have been reading a lot on the Civil War. We’ve visited most of the major battlefields in the East. Shilo was the first BIG battle in the west. In 1862 Grant started south and after defeating the Confederates at Forts Donelson and Henry, brought his armies up the Tennessee to Pittsburgh Landing, just 20 miles ... read more

As you drive northward from Corinth MS, you pass through rolling, low-lying hills, through lanes and roads of mostly neat lawns and gardens surrounding small nondescript houses or mobile homes. The landscape is dotted with small churches with names like Mt. Moriah and Bethel and Calgary. But it was another church we sought, a small wooden meeting house with the name of Shiloh, which incongruously means "place of peace". We came because this small church has lent its name to the site of a Civil War battle and battlefield that shocked America, and still stands as one of the most gruesome chapters in America's history, a battle that was the most hard-fought in the western theater of the Civil War and set a new standard for carnage. Today, the battlefield drowses in the early autumn afternoon, ... read more

DAY ELEVEN: MAY 2, 2013 I had to drive about fifty miles east from Oakland, TN on Hwy 64 this morning before I found an eating place for breakfast. It was called Joe’s Restaurant. Do not go there. The country ham was so salty it left a bad taste in my mouth for two hours. The red eye gravy was just salty pan drippings with no thickening and no red eye. The eggs, potatoes and biscuits were okay though. This evening after a drive of 184.4 miles I have pulled up at Lawrenceburg, TN. Already I have solved tomorrow’s breakfast problem. I had Pizza Whut for supper and have enough left over for a fine cold pizza breakfast. Adamsville Sheriff Buford Pusser lived here. He was the badge-heavy redneck sheriff of McNairy ... read more

Travel and change of place impart new vigor to the mind. - Seneca WEB SITES click on the blue letters tp learn more Fort Donelson National Battlefield Shiloh National Military Park Fort Donelson National Battlefield. Tennessee November 1, 2009, Sunday Just a bit of history…“The morning of February 14, 1862 dawned cold and quiet. Early in the afternoon a furious roar broke the stillness, and the earth began to shake. Andrew H. Foote's Union gunboat fleet, consisting of the ironclads St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Louisville, and Corondolet, and the timberclads Conestoga and Tyler, had arrived from Fort Henry via the Tennessee and Ohio Rivers and were exchanging "iron valentines" with the ele... read more

The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page. --Augustine (354-430) February 16,2005 Wednesday This will probably be our last day of sightseeing. We were up early and the first stop was Mt. Woodall, the highest point in Mississippi, 806 feet. It is located at the northeast corner of MS. It was a drive up point, so no hiking was necessary. After breakfast we were on our way to Shiloh, a National Monument Park, in southwest Tennessee. At the Visitor’s center we watched a video describing the bloody battle that took place here during the Civil War. The surrounding National Cemetery holds the remains of the union soldiers that lost their lives here. The monument of Meriwether Lewis was our last stop. Lewis ended his own life, he bravely ... read more