| Submitted by: Evelyn C. LeeperUnited States |
| Submission Date: 15 February 2005 |
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We got off the Blue Ridge Parkway in Roanoke and took US 220 south and VA 122 north to the Booker T. Washington National Monument ( http://www.newsadvance.com/Back%20Pages/btw.html). This is not exactly the most centrally located site, but then when Washington was being born, he probably wasn't thinking of that.
Washington was born a slave in 1856, emancipated in 1864, and went on to become a leading educator and spokeperson for African-Americans. He spoke in favor of what we would call vocational education ('a first-class house that a Negro has built is ten times more potent than pages of discussion') and segregation. Later, W. E. B. DuBois would oppose him, demanding integration and the same education for African-Americans as for whites ('The object of education is not to make men carpenters, it is to make carpenters men'). It appears now that Washington came to agree with DuBois, but supported those causes behind the scenes, feeling he could continue to get the support he needed from whites by continuing with his less confrontational stance. (For more of his philosophy, read his autobiography Up from Slavery. For more of DuBois's, read his book The Souls of Black Folk and his other writings. DuBois promoted the idea of the 'Talented Tenth,' who would help uplift the other 90%. This, at least, Washington seemed to be doing. Of course, DuBois was born after slavery ended, so he had a different background, which undoubtedly contributed to his different views.) Washington was the first president of Tuskegee Institute, a site we will be visiting later this trip. (He is sometimes described as its founder, but the founding seems to have been done before he was asked to head it up.)
We spent some time talking to the (Black) ranger there about education, and how people who have to work for their education appreciate it more. He also felt that while Reconstruction had the good effect of getting many Black colleges started, it was perhaps misguided in giving all sorts of privileges to people who were not ready for them. In this regard he agreed with Washington, who felt there were some basic things ex-slaves needed to learn before they were ready for full citizenship.
After this was a long drive to Knoxville, Tennessee, on I-40, which we filled by listening to an audiocassette of Wilbur Smith's River God. We stayed at a Motel 6, not the most luxurious of motels, but we're only staying overnight.
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After breakfast at Shoney's, we drove to Oak Ridge (http://tn.areaguide.com/oakridge/ad/index.html). There was quite a traffic jam at the exit on I-40 for it, but that seemed to dissolve within a mile.
During World War II, Oak Ridge was 'Secret City.' Well, not completely secret. John W. Campbell, the editor of Astounding Science Fiction, had a map on his wall with pushpins representing all his subscribers. There was a huge cluster around Oak Ridge (and another around Los Alamos), so he knew something was going on there.
Oak Ridge now has the American Museum of Science and Energy (http://tn.areaguide.com/oakridge/ad/museum.htm), run by the Department of Energy. It covers not only atomic energy, but also coal, oil, and other forms (though I don't recall seeing much on solar or geothermal). I learned that the country that gets the highest percentage of its electricity from atomic energy is Lithuania (about 85%), and that while the United States gets about 12% of its energy from atomic power, New Jersey gets over half.
The museum also had some exhibits unrelated to energy. For example, I don't think 'Home Video Games-The First 25 Years' had an energy connection.
Passing one of exhibits on drilling for oil, Mark said, 'Dig in the Earth. Go directly to shale. Do not pass gold....'
We had planned on spending only a couple of hours here before moving on, but there was a 10:30 AM bus tour of the K-25 area that sounded interesting. K-25 was one of the three refinement buildings, Y-12 and X-10 being the other two.
This tour was entirely a bus tour. (There is a longer afternoon tour of Y-12 and Oak Ridge National Laboratory that does go inside, I think, but we didn't want spend the whole day here.) One reason for this is that they are decontaminating the K-25 building. We got to here what things were like when Oak Ridge was much more active than it is now-the guides were retired Oak Ridgers. Their reminiscences gave a feeling of reality to the history of the place. (I must admit I was somewhat taken aback to here one of them refer to a 'colored woman.' However, given their age, this probably shouldn't have surprised me. I noticed that they told a couple of jokes with monkeys as the main characters that I'm sure way back when I heard told with Blacks as the main characters, so I guess I should consider that progress.)
We also saw (from the outside) one of the newer parts of Oak Ridge, the TSCA incinerator. This is used to reduce radioactive waste (liquid and solid) to an ash that is stored in containers somewhere in Utah. Why Utah? Well, it's geologically stable and also very dry.
We returned to the museum after the ninety-minute tour and finished the part we hadn't seen. It took us about two hours altogether, but one could easily spend more time, and if you take both tours (given only Monday through Friday), plan on spending the day.
From Oak Ridge we went back to I-40, then west on I-40 and south on US-27 to Dayton. Not Dayton, Ohio, but Dayton, Tennessee, which was fictionalized as 'Heavenly Hillsboro, the Buckle on the Bible Belt' in Inherit the Wind. Dayton was the site of the famous 1925 Scopes Trial (http://www.dimensional.com/~randl/scopes.htm, http://wsrv.clas.virginia.edu/~lem2c/1925home.html) and is now the home of the Scopes Trial Museum (http://www.rheacounty.com/attractions.html). In addition to a basic recounting of the facts about the trial, one of the things the museum tries to do is to separate fact from fiction, specifically the fiction of Inherit the Wind.
For example, Bryan did not die on the last day of the trial, Bryan acquitted himself considerably better on the stand than is portrayed, and Scopes probably never even taught evolution. (I think Mark wrote this up in greater detail.) The whole trial was set up to get publicity (and hopefully commerce) for Dayton, and there was an entire staged speech and fight involving the a local metallurgical engineer and the 'Man-Biting Barber.' The barber, by the way, was a cousin of one of the prosecutors, Sue K. Hicks, who was also the original 'Boy Named Sue' of Johnny Cash fame. Someone should make a movie of all this!
Of course, people did idolize Bryan, who was actually usually an espouser of what we would consider liberal causes. After his death, Alfred Dubin, Wm. Raskin, and F. Henri Klickmann wrote the song 'Bryan Believed in Heaven (That's Why He's in Heaven Tonight).' There was also a song 'The Monkey Case' by Edgar P. Elzey and J. Ludwig Frank.
On leaving Dayton, we stepped back into the past. Well, only an hour, as we passed into the Central Time Zone. We took TN-30 west to US-70S west to I-24 east to US-64 west. This took us off the interstate, but we had decided to skip Nashville, where the only even marginally interesting site was the Hermitage (Andrew Jackson's home) (http://www.nashville-collection.com/deluxe/HERMITAGE.html), and go to Shiloh instead. This was almost directly west of Dayton, so going north to the interstate and then south again to Shiloh would have been foolish.
Of course, we questioned the wisdom of this decision at the beginning when the road twisted and turned, and went up and down steep mountain roads. ('6% grade', 'watch out for fallen rocks', 'construction ahead', and 'trucks entering roadway' were signs that all appeared in the first few miles!)
We had dinner at the Hickory House in Pulaski (again, okay barbecue). Pulaski, we found out later, was the birthplace of the Ku Klux Klan, a fact that they do not advertise loudly on a sign as you enter town. We then drove another bit to Lawrenceburg where we stayed at the Richland Inn. Tip: always ask if there are train tracks right outside your room.
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We drove west on US-64 and south on TN-22 to Shiloh to the strains of 'Gettysburg.' (Well, no one's made a movie 'Shiloh.')
We passed a church that had on its signboard: 'Judgment Day is near/ Are you ready?/ Weight down clinic/ Tues 8PM.'
We arrived at Shiloh National Military Park around 9:15 AM. We used our Golden Eagle Passport, but the price would have been $4, which is not an increase over the old price. I think it may be just the more popular parks that saw a price jump. Shiloh is described in Lawliss's Civil War Sourcebook as one of the more isolated battlefields of the Civil War, and it certainly wasn't very crowded. In fact, we probably saw fewer than thirty other visitors while we were there-and over half of those were in the Visitors Center area. The only life in abundance (other than plants) were a lot of very noisy crickets and a whole lot of butterflies which were so unafraid they would land on your clothing or arm and refuse to get off, even when you got in the car.
We spent some time looking at the same exhibit in the Visitors Center, then watched the film (videotape) shown every half hour that gives the history of the battle at Shiloh. This battle was on April 6 and 7, 1862 (fifty-years years to the day before our entry into World War I), and was the first major western battle of the Civil War. The Army of the Mississippi (C.S.A.) was led by General Albert Sidney Johnston and General Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard. The Army of the Tennessee (U.S.A.) was led by General Ulysses Simpson Grant, and the Army of the Ohio (U.S.A) was led by General Don Carlos Buell. Johnston died from a wound that could have been treated had he not sent away his surgeon to help with the battlefield wounded, and in fact, this was the first time a field hospital was set up to centralize treating the wounded. Notable survivors of Shiloh included future Presidents Ulysses S. Grant and James A. Garfield, Lew Wallace (author of Ben Hur), Henry M. Stanley (the explorer who went to Africa to search for David Livingstone), and John Wesley Powell (who lost an arm here but still led the first expedition down the Colorado River).
The most important aspect of the battle was at the 'Hornets Nest', so called because the constant firing of rifles made it sound like one. Eventually sixty-two cannon, the largest mass of artillery in any North American battle up until then, was brought to bear on the Union troops by the Confederates and the South took that position by Saturday evening. But that gave Grant time to reinforce his troops with Buell's men, who arrived that night, and the next day the Union was able to force the Confederates to retreat from the area entirely. The toll was 23,746 casualties: 3482 dead, 16,420 wounded, and 3844 missing.
Oh, and if anyone is interested in researching Civil War soldiers and sailors, there's a Web site: http://www.itd.nps.gov/cwss. Since none of Mark's or my ancestors was even here at the time, we probably wouldn't find much.
(It is particularly fitting that I am reading How Few Remain, Harry Turtledove's alternate history about the Second War Between the States as my pleasure reading, although I must admit I picked it because of the trip. |
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