2023 July 7, Day trip to Savannah and Shiloh, Tennessee

 We started our day at the Tennessee River Museum in Savannah. 

A true air-breathing MOSASAUR

The City of Florence, a St. Louis and Tennessee River Packet Company boat, was named to honor the fast-growing city at the foot of Muscle Shoals. Upbound near Coffee Landing on February 8, 1913, she got out of control and was lying cross-stream when the towboat Tomahawk, down-bound and loaded with crossties, rammed and sank her. One member of the crew and a young passenger lost their lives in the accident.

The picture below shows a ship with two girls.

12-year-old Ruth Tarbet (left) was one of two casualties of the sinking ship. The daughter of a prominent Saltillo merchant, Ruth, and her daughter had boarded the doomed steamer for the short trip to visit relatives in Savannah.

We saw this picture in the Tennessee River Museum in Savannah.

US GRANT HDGS

We stopped to take pictures of the cannons and cannonballs before crossing the Tennessee River and heading to Shiloh. 

HAGY'S CATFISH HOTEL 

We ate fried catfish, coleslaw, hush puppies, and grilled veggies. Ava ate fried chicken fingers and fries. She said those were the best chicken fingers she had ever eaten, and she told our waitress she rated the food at 100. She ate every bite. We took several pictures at the restaurant and near the Tennessee River. 

Garfield's Cabin 

The History of Garfield 
Garfield's Cabin 
If the cabin walls could talk, they would reveal the intriguing story of Garfield Luster, an extraordinary yet excellent resident for many years.
The story begins on a hot summer day around 1920 when Mr. Narvin Hagy, a local traveling salesman, gives Garfield a ride.
During this time, Garfield worked for a family that had mistreated him for many years. He fled this harsh environment and met Mr. Norvin Hagy on an old gravel road. 
Mr. Hagy lived on a large farm, bonding with the Shiloh National Military. His parents were Frank and Mary Hagy. Frank, who had grown up on the farm, was 13 when the "Battle of Shiloh" took place around their home in April 1862.
Garfield eventually established a close bond with the Hagy family and settled in with them.
During the many decades he lived with the Hagy family, he helped care for four generations.

He not only cooked but also did laundry and performed other basic household chores, and he helped raise the youngsters—a duty he enjoyed the most. He nurtured the young family of Norvin and Dorothy Hagy, showering them with devotion and care as if they were his own children. 
But Garfield did more than comfort, console, and, when necessary, scold the children; he could also entertain them. 

Many years before the fables of Uncle Remus were popularized by Hollywood, Garfield charmed the young Hagys with his folktales of Brer Rabbit and Brer Fox. Another of his talents was acting. He could dress up as a comical character called "Aunt Emiley" and play her so convincingly that the children would momentarily forget they were watching Garfield in disguise.


One of Garfield's favorite stories was about how he got his name. He always chuckled when he recounted how it was bestowed upon him following the assassination of President Garfield.

Like his namesake, Garfield experienced hard times. He refused to dwell on the past, occasionally recalling his unhappy childhood. Garfield was born and raised in the small rural community of Red Bay, North Alabama, likely the son of a former slave.
Garfield was deprived of a formal education, although he was brilliant and could have excelled in school if given the opportunity.

Even though he was not articulate, his speech was peppered with homespun, folksy southern colloquialism, slow as molasses, dead as a doornail, hot a blue blazes, sharp as a tack, strong as an ox, to quote a few.

King Kong 911 1h
Garfield lived a long and happy life in Shiloh with the Hagy family.
However, he suffered much bereavement at the death of Norvin Hagy in 1960, never fully recovering from the loss of a man who had provided a sanctuary for the more significant part of his life. 

Shortly after Mr. Hagy died in 1961, Garfield was diagnosed with prostate cancer. During the last weeks of his life, Norvin Hagy Jr and his wife, Teke, took Garfield home for a final visit with his relatives, who, at the time, were living in Mississippi.
After his funeral at his church, Saint Rest in Guys, Tennessee, attended by the Hagy Family, Garfield was laid to rest in a small grove of trees. 
The Hagys will always remember Garfield with great love and gratitude as a person who enriched their lives.

By: the Hagy Family
Dr Don Hagy/Dean Hagy

Next, we stopped at Shiloh Battlefield. The museum was closed for repairs, but you could watch a film there. We did not stay to watch the movie. We heard gunfire and went to investigate.  

Young Park Ranger giving a demonstration. 

A young man (Park Ranger) was doing a reenactment and was finishing up when we arrived. But he did show Ave the bullet and let her feel the weight of the gun ( I think he said it weighed 10 lbs). When we stopped at the Tennessee River Museum, there was a gun ball behind glass that you could put your hand through to see if you could pick it up with one hand, weighing 7 lbs. So, she compared the two. 

Park Ranger talking to Ava about being a nurse in the Civil War

We stopped at the Book Museum, where we bought her a book about not being a Nurse in the Civil War. We walked to the National Cemetery, where a young woman was giving a talk about the battles between the North and South at Pittsburg Landing.

Ava had read several pages about the Civil War in her book and was asking several questions about the War.

The Park Ranger finished her talk, but Ava kept asking her questions. It began to sprinkle, so we hurried back to the car. We rode around the park, stopping for a few pictures. 

Shiloh Log Church 

We stopped at the old log cabin church to take a few pictures.

We started for home, and the sky got darker and darker, and it began to rain. The closer we got to Alabama, the harder it rained.

Our last stop was at Wendy's for a Strawberry Frosty. That's what Ava wanted, and I had never tried one. We all ordered a Strawberry Frosty, and it was good. Ava and I played a game all the way home in our Imaginary worlds.

Catastrophic Events

The sermon today was about taking the path less traveled.  

Our minister quoted the last line in the Robert Frost poem. 

THE ROAD NOT TAKEN

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry, I could not travel to both
And be one traveler, long I stood
I looked down as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;	5
Then, took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and I wanted to wear it;
As for the passing, there
Had worn them really about the same,	10
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves, no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted whether I should ever come back.	15
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

It got me thinking about the places we had visited over the last few weeks and the strange events that have happened and are about to happen.
We ran across such things as the Black Patch Tobacco War of West Kentucky & Tennessee, Edgar Casey's "The Sleeping Prophet," The Sinkhole @ Corvette Museum Bowling Green, Earthquakes that created Reelfoot Lake Union City, Ky., Total Eclipse Hopkinsville, Ky., and Sighting of Little Green Men Kelly, Ky IMPACT CRATER Cape Charles, Va.

http://www.lrc.ky.gov/record/Moments13RS/web/legislative%20moment%2016.pdf
Black Patch Tobacco War 1904-1909
Before the Civil War, Kentucky was one of the wealthiest states in the union; after the war, it was one of the poorest. Big business came to Kentucky, eliminating competition, manipulating prices, and undermining control. The cost for dark tobacco was driven by extremely depressed prices for tobacco crops.

Night Riders destroyed tobacco plant beds, barns, and equipment, as well as whipped and sometimes murdered the opposition farmers. 
Night Riders also attacked agents and destroyed the property of the ATC, setting fire to tobacco warehouses in Trenton, Princeton, and Hopkinsville. 
Not even a dispatch of troops by Gov. A.E. Willson was able to subdue the acts of violent intimidation.

https://www.edgarcayce.org/edgar-cayce/his-life/
Edgar Casey "The Sleeping Prophet" 1877-1945 
Born 1877 in Christian County, Hopkinsville, Ky
Died 194,5 Virginia Beach, VA
The majority of Casey's readings deal with holistic health and the treatment of illness. 
Casey dealt with these five categories: Health-related information, Philosophy and reincarnation, dreams and dream interpretation, ESP and psychic Phenomena, Spiritual Growth, Meditation, and prayer.
Casey was a very spiritual man, and he vowed to read the Bible every year of his life. When he died in 1945, he had accomplished this task.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/sinkhole-swallow-eight-cars-in-national-corvette-museum-in-kentucky/
The Sinkhole at Corvette Museum, Bowling GFebruary, 10bruary 10, 2016
Eight vintage Corvettes dropped into the abyss, six owned by the Museum.
Two on loan(1993 ZR-1 Spyder and a 2009 ZR1 Blue Devil)
The other damaged cars were a 1962 black Corvette, a 1984 PPG Pace Car, a 1992 White 1 Millionth Corvette, a 1993 Ruby Red 40th Anniversary Corvette, a 2001 Mallett Hammer Z06 Corvette, and a 2009 white 1.5 Millionth Corvette.

Bowling Green sits amid the state's largest karst region - the Western Pennyroyal area, where many of Kentucky's longest and deepest caves run underground. Karst displays distinctive surface features, including sinkholes.

https://rootsrated.com/stories/the-fascinating-story-behind-reelfoot-lake
Earthquakes that created Reelfoot Lake, Union City, Ky, 1811-1812
When earthquakes shook across the American Southeast in late 1811 and the spring of 1812, the landscape along the New Madrid Fault (which runs parallel to the Mississippi River Valley) changed dramatically. These tremors could be felt as far away as Washington, D.C., and even, according to some reports, Quebec City—nearly 1,400 miles away. This area of western Tennessee was still the frontier, so few settlers lived there to serve as eyewitnesses to the change of scenery.
What we do know, though, is that vast swaths of land slid, and rivers literally changed course as a result of the seismic activity. Fallen trees formed massive logjams, sandbars shifted, and islands were created and subsequently demolished. Among the more significant changes, the quakes opened a great hole in the ground that would be the basin of Reelfoot Lake. After the earthquakes, the Mississippi River backed up on itself, filling in Reelfoot Lake and flooding the once-dense stands of bald cypress trees.

https://www.greatamericaneclipse.com/kentucky/

Total solar eclipse over KAugust 21August 21, 2017

Kentucky experiences the longest eclipse duration, just over 2 minutes and 41 seconds. The civic boosters in the Hopkinsville area are advertising this spot as the very best place in America to see the eclipse. On August 21st, the town of Hopkinsville whimsically celebrates a purported alien encounter with a Little Green Men festival, so the world of solar eclipses and alien encounters will conflate in Hopkinsville on this day.

THE POINT WHERE THE SUN, MOON, AND EARTH LINE UP MOST PERFECTLY DURING THE ECLIPSE IS NEAR HOPKINSVILLE. THIS IS CALLED "THE POINT OF GREATEST ECLIPSE," AND THE ECLIPSE DURATION HERE IS WITHIN 0.2 SECONDS OF THE MAXIMUM IN ILLINOIS.

Siege of 'Little Green Men: The 1955 Kelly, Kentucky, August 21August 21, 1955

The Sutton farmhouse family encountered humanoid-like creatures. 

At about seven PM, Bill Ray Taylor(visiting the Sutton family) was drawing water from the well when he saw a bright streak in the sky that disappeared beyond the tree line. About an hour later, Taylor reported seeing a flying saucer. 

The family spotted a creature, ran inside, grabbed the shotgun, and started firing it at the beast. They shot one creature that was on the roof and one in a tree, and both floated to the ground. 

Either the creatures were impervious to gun blasts, or the men's aim was poor, since no creature was killed. The family piled into the car and drove to town, but no sign of the creatures or spaceship was found. 

The next day, the U.S. Air Force was involved, and the case was listed as unidentified (Clark 1998)

This being said, we are safe in no place on this earth. The path less taken will be the path I take.

The path of least resistance is generally the one taken.

Chesapeake Bay impact crater

The Chesapeake Bay impact crater was formed by a bolide that impacted the eastern shore of North America about 35.5 ± 0.3 million years ago, in the late Eocene epoch. It is one of the best-preserved "wet-target" or marine impact craters and the largest known impact crater in the U.S.

Continued slumping of sediments over the rubble of the crater has helped shape the Chesapeake Bay.

Until 1983, no one suspected the existence of a large impact crater buried beneath the lower part of the Chesapeake Bay and its surrounding peninsulas. The first hint was a 20 cm (8 in)-thick layer of ejecta that turned up in a drilling core taken off Atlantic City, New Jersey, far to the north. The layer contained fused glass beads called tektites and shocked quartz grains that are unmistakable signs of a bolide impact.

In 1993, data from oil exploration revealed the extent of the crater.

🎂🎂🎂 2017 February 20, Celebrating Washington's Birthday Montevallo, Alabama

Hubby and I celebrated Washington's Birthday in Montevallo at the American Village.
George Washington came out of Washington Hall at 12:00 P.M. and gave a speech, and everyone sang Happy Birthday to him.
People lined up to receive a free cupcake, but there were not enough cupcakes to go around.

Celebrating Washington's Birthday

The exterior of the hall is inspired by George Washington's beloved Mount Vernon. It has beveled-edge block walls. When mixed with paint and sand, it gives the appearance of stone masonry, a process called "rustication".

The unique open-air colonnade walkways to the dependency buildings were personally designed by Washington. The four-columned portico is reminiscent of the piazza on the back of Mount Vernon, which overlooks the Potomac. The large Palladian window in The Mount Vernon Room is defined by the arched window, 

Greatest Miniature Museum 

Hall of Presidents and First Ladies

Founders Hall

We visited Colonial Chap, where we listened to a story about a slave who wrote poetry. 

We strolled through the Liberty Bell Garden

The Liberty Bell 

The Liberty Bell was commissioned on November 1, 1751, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of William Penn's Charter of Privileges for his Pennsylvania colony. The radical charter granted religious liberty to persecuted faiths, including Quakers, Jews, Catholics, and others, thus establishing America's tradition of religious freedom. Bell cracked when first tested. 

Two local foundrymen recast The Bell, and it began service in 1753, tooling special events. In the Revolutionary War, the Bell tolled to announce the Battle of Lexington and Concord, and the first public reading of The Declaration of Independence took place on July 8, 1776.

It cracked again on July 8, 1835, during the funeral procession of Chief Justice John Marshall. It was repaired but cracked again in 1846 when it rang for George Washington's birthday. It has not been rung since. It was not called "The Liberty Bell" until 1839, when William Lloyd Garrison's anti-slavery publication, "The Liberator," published a poem about the Bell. This use by advocates of the anti-slavery movement made The Bell a new symbol of freedom.

We strolled through the fields of Tulips, selecting a few to take home.

We visited the Oval Office, located in the West Wing of the White House, where the last 45 presidents have spent many hours working. We saw a bust of Abraham Lincoln and & Ronald Reagan. Pictures of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, a group of Ford, Carter, Bush, Nixon, and Reagan. Books are written by various presidents. 

The Resolute desk is a large, nineteenth-century partners' desk that is primarily chosen by presidents of the United States for use in the White House Oval Office. It was a gift from Queen Victoria to President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1880, built from the English oak timbers of the British Arctic exploration ship Resolute. 

We saw two little girls sharing a seat at Independence Hall.

 Montevallo University ranked 13th best public university in the South in its division, according to U.S. News & World Report.
College of Distinction
2012*2013*2014*2015*2016

Helping Hands 
The Becoming Sculpture was created by Ted Metz, a University of Montevallo art professor. The sculpture, 16 feet tall and made of bronze, was unveiled on February 15, 2003. The pedestal underneath the sculpture is made of limestone and red bricks. The statue depicts two hands: a young hand representing university students reaching out toward the future, and an older hand representing the university itself, guiding the student to that future. The separation between the hands represents the student's graduation. The older hand was modeled after Metz's own, while the younger hand was modeled after one of his students' hands. The sculpture was created on campus by about 40 university students under the direction of Metz and took 22 months to complete. Approximately 90 individual molds were cast using 5000 pounds of bronze. The sculpture stands near Main Hall and Wills Hall.

We visited the Alabama National Cemetery in Montevallo. 
Initial construction began in November 2008 and created space for 1,000 casket burials and 1,000 in-ground cremations. Except for minor irrigation work, construction was completed in early June 2009. The grounds were consecrated on June 18, 2009, one week before the burials.

Ate a Nacho Supreme for dinner

It was a great day for traveling.
We were home by 6:30 P.M.

Last LETTERS HOME

Letter home can be seen at Town Point Park Norfolk Virginia 

http://www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=3475

Andrew Allard's letter was written Feb 11, 1777, REVELATIONAL WAR

February 11, 1777

Loving Wife,

My regards to you and our children, hoping

These few lines will find you all in good

Health as through the goodness of God...

As for news, I have nothing strange to

Inform you at present, only that I went

Out a scout one day this week along with

Lt. Willson, eleven more, and we all

Had a chance to come across the Light

Horse. I am a little distance from the

The rest of our men had liked to have been

Taken by them, but through the goodness

Of God, I got to the rest of our party and

We made a stand and we kept them back

None hurt upon our side. We lie in four

Miles, of the Hessian lines, and we use

They every other day. My love to all my

Friends, so I remain your loving Andrew Allard.

Andrew Allard

d. August 23, 1777 

Sullivan Ballou wrote on July 14, 1861, about CIVIL WAR

Civil War Union Army Officer 

He served as a Major in the 2nd Rhode Island Volunteer Infantry. On July 14, 1861, Ballou wrote an eloquent letter to his wife predicting his death. He was wounded at the First Battle of Bull Run on July 21 and died from his injuries a week later. His sentiments in the letter became famous and were quoted in Ken Burns' "Civil War" documentary. 

July 14, 1861

My Dear Wife,

The indications are very strong that we shall move in a few days, perhaps tomorrow, and lest I should not be able to write you again I feel impelled to write a few lines that may fall under your eye when I am no more...I have no misgivings about or lack of confidence in the cause in which I amen gaged, and my courage does not halt or falter... Sarah, my love for you is deathless. It seems to bind me with mighty cables that nothing but Omnipotence can break and yet my love of country comes over me like a strong wind and bears me irresistible with all those chains to the battlefield. The memories of all the blissful moments I have enjoyed with you come crowding over me, and I feel most deeply grateful to God and you that I have enjoyed them for so long... If I do not return, my dear Sarah, never forget how much I loved you...

Sullivan Ballou

July 21, 1861

Robert A. Baun wrote on April 3, 1943, about WWII

April 3, 1943 

... A guy gets in some serious 

thinking out here... Sometimes when I 

happen to be walking along alone, say for 

 instance at night, I stop and say, "Well,

Bob, you are in a heck of a fix. What are

you doing here? Do you remember how 

you laughed at the idea of ever bearing

arms...? It's the fellows that have gone

before us who make us willingly bear

our burdens. Dear God, spare our lives.

for we are young and love life so much.

This is just a short incident in a fellow's 

life, I tell myself, and soon it will be

behind me and I will have forgotten it,

and settle down among you all again.

....This is one game I'm going to beat,

I know. When I played baseball I never

wanted to sit on the bench, always

wanted to play the whole game. And here

too, I'm going out every time, and while

too, I

I'm playing this game, I'm going to play

hard, and win.

Robert A. Baun d. April 1943

Bertram Arnold Bunting letter written Jan 17, 1968

BERTRAM ARNOLD BUNTING MAJ - O4 - Army - Regular 20 th Eng Bde Length of service 10 years tour began on Jul 9, 1967Casualty was on Feb 12, 1968In, SOUTH VIETNAMHostile, died of wounds, GROUND CASUALTY GUN, SMALL ARMS FIREBody was recovered Panel 39E - Line 2

January 17, 1968

My darling wife-

As this day draws to a close, I can only

think of you. Possibly I'm just emerging from

the R&R haze in which I've been enveloped for 

these past weeks. Until now the detail of our

the meeting was all so clear: I could still hear your 

of your absence is upon me; I know all too well

this feeling: I lived with it for the many months

before December. My only hope is that I can

survive this attack of my imagination upon my

sanity.

When we met again I can promise you that

there will be no wasted moments. Every minute

spent with you will be nothing less than a gift,

to be cherished. I have found that it isn't

necessary to always do: talking, eating

walking, dance, and swimming. There are many

times when I want only to know your presence:

to hear you moving around, to see you next to 

me. There are many ways of living-perhaps 

the simplest is the most satisfying.

Bertram Arnold Bunting

d. February 12, 1968

John Chilto letter written in 1777

John Chilton was Captain of the Third Virginia Infantry Regiment in the Revolutionary War. He was mortally wounded in 1777 at the Battle of Brandywine but refused to be carried off the field until the battle was over so as not to discourage his men.

My dear Friends, 

....We are on our guard and our men seem resolutely bent to give them a warm reception at the meeting... There were three ships and a tender lying opposite the enemy's camp about a mile below our lowest lines, within these two days two more and a tender have joined them. What or when we shall be ever ready to receive their attacks as men fighting for Liberty should do...

.... We had between 50 and 100 killed and wounded; the enemy about 300... On one side of the field of battle is a steep, rocky, precipice, where we imagine they threw many of their dead as the buzzards and ravens resort to that place constantly. 

.... I begin to think that mankind when engaged in warfare are as wary and timorous of each other as deer are of men and the boldness of one party increase as they find the other fearful.

John Chilton

d. Sept. 11, 1777

Meyer Davis, Jr. Letter written 1943 WWII

Meyer Davis Jr was the son of well-known orchestra leaders and was himself a violinist. He enlisted in the Navy immediately after the attack on Pearl Harbor. A petty officer second class, Davis was listed as missing in action after the sinking of the destroyer BUICK in 1943 off Salerno, Italy just before his 21st birthday.

....We got a submarine today!! There is almost no chance that we missed, and the crew is already cutting notches in their belts...

....In effect, it is just another rehearsal with the addition of sound effects. The fact that men die below us doesn't really come into the mind, they just happened to have the misfortune to be inside the sub when it went down. Essentially, we are killing submarines, not men- - if they want to have the bad judgment to be in the vicinity that's their hard luck. 

Perhaps the foregoing is only a rationalization of an uncomfortable feeling that today I helped kill some men that had wives and sweethearts, mothers and children.... but I have to try to be quite ruthless or I won't be much use in this war.

Meyer Davis, Jr.

d. October 9, 1943

KIA Gulf WarOn February 27, 1991, John Wesley Hutto died during Operation Desert Storm in Iraq at the age of 19. He was a(n) Private First Class for the United States Army. John was born on August 03, 1971, and was from Andalusia, Alabama.

January 31, 1991

Mom,

....I really do love you and miss you a 

whole lot. Can't wait till this war is over so's I

can come home. May not get to write you for a

while, but rest assured of three things. (1)I'll 

be home soon as possible. (2) I will write you

every chance I get to let you know that I'm still

kicking you know what. and (3) I love you more

than words, at least the ones I know, can say.

The Army ain't the life for me you can bet your

bottom dollar on that one too...You know

something else all of my dreams are about

some time after the war. And I believe that that

is a sign that I will survive. 'Cause other people

have dreamed about the war and seldom dream

of home or life after this war, which are the only

two things I dream about. The only two things, I 

remember were another dream I had where I got off

the plane at Hunter and you, B., and D. C. were

real not to come true, too real.

Gotta go for now.

John Wesley Hutto 

d. February 27,1991

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=vcsr&GSvcid=404590