| Submitted by: Evelyn C. LeeperUnited States |
| Submission Date: 15 February 2005 |
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(Why is the plural of 'hoof' 'hooves,' but the plural of 'roof' 'roofs'?) It also took us through Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia, Tennessee, and Georgia again. In the first Tennessee stretch there were a lot of fireworks stores.
Arriving at Chickamauga National Military Park, we found the television set there running Gettysburg. (Well, no one's made Chickamauga yet.)
We attended a 'Living History' demonstration, where a volunteer portraying a Confederate soldier explained his uniform, his experiences in the Army, and his weapon, as well as firing a Civil War rifle. This involved many steps: hold the rifle, take a paper cartridge, bite off the end, insert it in the barrel, use the ramrod to set it in place, return the ramrod to its holding slot, set the rifle at half-cock, insert the bullet, aim, and fire.
This person was also a re-enactor, so he was quite experienced, and he didn't try to stay in character (which I find very artificial). He would say 'my uniform is' but 'during a battle it would be unbelievably noisy.' One thing he claimed was that the Southern troops were actually pretty well supplied with uniforms and shoes by the end of the war, but because soldiers without shoes often didn't have to fight, many would throw away their shoes before a battle, and then get new shoes afterwards.
Chickamauga was the second bloodiest battle of the Civil War. (Antietam was the first.) This was also one of the few battles where the Confederates outnumbered the Union troops. It was the second biggest humiliation to the Union forces (after First Manassas). Among the deaths at Chickamauga was Abraham Lincoln's brother-in-law, Brigadier General Benjamin Hardin Helm-of the Confederate States of America.
We rented the audiotaped tour of Chickamauga. This was $3 to rent (with a player) or $7.50 to buy. This is considerably more than at Vicksburg, but then Vicksburg has an admission fee. Here there is a highway running right through the park, so charging an admission fee is impractical. In order to raise funds for maintenance, they have to charge more. (They also charge an admission fee for their multi-media presentation.) This is annoying to people who have bought Golden Eagle Passports, because what should be admission fees and hence covered by the annual pass become 'usage fees,' which aren't covered.
This was also where General Thomas earned the name 'The Rock of Chickamauga' when dispatches declared that he was 'standing like a rock.' And who wrote those dispatches? James Garfield, the future President.
For further details of the battle, see Mark's log or history books.
We ate lunch at a local restaurant called My Place which had a very good berry cobbler. Afterward, we drove up to Lookout Mountain, and arrived at 4:40 PM only to discover that the Visitors Center there closes at 4:45 PM. So we did not get to see the presentation or the painting 'The Battle Above the Clouds.'
We did tour the grounds at the top of Lookout Mountain, then drove on to Calhoun, Georgia.
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We continued on to Kennesaw. We happened to get off the interstate an exit too soon for Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park, and so discovered the Kennesaw Civil War Museum (http://www.ngeorgia.com/history/kcwm.html). This was home to 'The General,' a locomotive which on April 12, 1862, was stolen in Kennesaw (then called Big Shanty) by James J. Andrews and his band of twenty-one followers.
We saw a videotape which explained the entire raid. (A train went by outside during the tape, sort of a multi-media experience.)
Andrews and his group (mostly Union soldiers, but in civilian clothing) boarded the train as passengers, then seized the train during a breakfast stop at Big Shanty. Heading north, it is believed their plan was to burn the railroad bridges to Chattanooga to prevent the Confederates from using them. When the train left Big Shanty, it was pursued by William A. Fuller (the conductor of The General) and Andrew Murphy, first on foot and then with a handcar they found. Heading north, they found the locomotive Yonah on a siding and switched to it, with Jeff Cain Kane and Pete Bracken joining in the chase. They then switched to the Texas with Henry Haney. Because there was no time to turn it around, the originally southbound Texas pursued in reverse!
It was raining, so both The General couldn't find more dry wood for fuel and couldn't successfully burn any bridges behind it. So the band uncoupled boxcars to try to stop their pursuers. However, the Texas was able to push them aside (and pick up Edward Henderson to help) and eventually caught up with The General north of Ringgold.
James J. Andrews and his followers caught, tried as spies, and sentenced to death. Andrews was hanged on June 7, 1862; seven others were hanged June 18, 1862. Fearing for their lives, the other fourteen escaped. Six were recaptured and eventually exchanged: the other eight made it back to Union lines.
The band were the first recipients of the Medal of Honor, except for Andrews and one other who were civilians, two who were missing, and one who had enlisted under a false name.
On September 1, 1864, The General was in Atlanta when the city was burned. In August of 1865 it was repaired and used for another year. In 1891 it was found at Vinings, Georgia, and moved to Chattanooga.
Buster Keaton not allowed to use the locomotive for his film The General, because the raiders' relatives and other objected to a comedy being made about something that ended in so many hangings, but it was used in 1956 for Disney's film The Great Locomotive Chase with Fess Parker. The engine was returned briefly to Big Shanty/Kennesaw for the centennial on April 12, 1962, but only after a long court battle ultimately decided by the United States Supreme Court in November 1971 did it return permanently.
We talked for a while to the proprietor Harper Harris, also a re-enactor, about films he was in (or not in-he wasn't in Gettysburg because they wanted people to work for free). Many of them he didn't like because they focused more on racial issues. The example he gave was Paris Trout, but the racial angle was the main point of that film-the re-enactors were needed only as a group marching in a parade.
After this we drove to Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park, a rather spread-out park. Near the Visitors Center is the top of Big Kennesaw, and we took the bus up to the top. (On weekends it is closed to cars and there is a shuttle bus.) This is a site that I think both sides claim victory at. The Confederates held off the Union attacks, but then abandoned the mountain a couple of days later to avoid being surrounded. The film about the battle (which took place in late 1864) showed West Virginia as still part of Virginia.
One interesting item I saw for sale in the shop was the complete official archives of the Civil War (both sides) on CD-ROM for $70.
From the Visitors Center, we drove to the four other main sites, the battle being strung out along a ridge of mountains. It was so spread-out that in the middle we passed through a town, stopped at a Kroger food store, and picked up a picnic lunch, without even leaving the tour route!
After this, we continued on to Atlanta (or more accurately Norcross), Georgia. We arrived about 3 PM, so we did some laundry and lounged by the pool. For dinner we went to Siamese Basil and had a very good Thai dinner.
I called home that night and discovered my brother was also in Atlanta! I tried calling him, but there was no answer. This is probably just as well. I can talk to him on the phone without being in the same city, and I suspect we wouldn't have had time to get together anyway.
September 14: After a couple of cooler days, the temperature was back into the 90s.
We had breakfast at the Waffle House. This seemed appropriate, because the chain is based in Norcross, Georgia-which was where we were.
We had planned on seeing the sculpture at Stone Mountain, but when we got there we discovered that it was not visible except from within the park-which had a $6 parking fee. Somehow taking a quick look at the sculpture didn't seem worth it.
So we drove into Atlanta for the CNN tour. Parking here seemed expensive-lots had only all-day parking for $10. With our usual impeccable timing, we had managed to come into Atlanta on a day when there was not only a baseball game and a football game, but also the start of a week-long arts festival.
Amazingly, we managed to find a space on the street, behind Olympic Centennial Park (site of the festival). I suspect we were actually parked in the right-hand traffic lane, but there were no 'No Parking' signs, and there were lots of other cars parked along there.
We bought our tickets for the tour ($7). Tours leave every fifteen minutes or so, but we had to wait for twenty minutes, because the next tour was full. We went through a metal detector like the ones at airports, but with all the stuff (camera, walkie-talkie, computer, etc.) we were carrying it took several passes.
The first stop is a memorabilia room, with various awards won and other objects, such as the jacket Peter Arnett wore in Iraq with $100,000 sewn in it.
Then came a short film about the history of CNN and Turner Broadcasting in general. Ted Turner began in 1970 by buying what became WTBS, the first station to be broadcast by satellite and become a 'superstation.' CNN was started in 1980. In 1986, Turner bought the MGM and RKO libraries for use on TNT and later for Turner Classic Movies. He also owns movie companies Castle Rock, New Line Cinema, and Turner Pictures. Other networks of Turner Broadcasting include the Cartoon Network and Turner Sports. And Turner owns the Atlanta Braves and the Atlanta Hawks.
When CNN started, people said no one would want to watch an all-news station. By the time of the Gulf War, that had completely changed, and CNN is now 'the largest provider of news and information on earth.'
We next went to a room where the guide showed how many of the effects or 'tricks' were done. For example, the TelePrompTer is really a two-way mirror with the text projected on it and the camera behind it so that when the anchor is reading from the TelePrompTer, he or she is also looking directly into the camera. There is also a printed script, just in case the TelePrompTer breaks down, and also so that the anchor can glance over it to see what's coming. They can also put a late-breaking script on a conveyer belt where it is videotaped and played back on to the TelePrompTer. The anchors read at 150 to 175 words per minute; the TelePrompTer never puts more than four words per line so that the anchor's eyes don't have to move back and forth.
The weather anchors ad lib rather than using a TelePrompTer. They use chromakey effects to project the weather map onto the blue wall behind them. The anchor can see the projection and himself or herself on the monitors in front and to either side of the wall. So the anchor will never directly face the wall. Chromakey was also used in Forrest Gump for the 'legless' scenes with Gary Sinise.
The CNN news room has screens where the staff can track the three broadcast networks coverage, as well as see the CNN Financial Network, CNN, CNN International, CNN Headline News, and what is happening in the CNN Studio. Monitors also cover the twenty satellites they use for news gathering. In the studio, the anchors have laptops so they can be kept abreast of what is happening. There is no wall or glass between the studio and the news room; the anchors use a uni-directional microphone to avoid picking up background noise.
We then saw the (smaller) Headline News news room. |
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