civil war
People don’t think of war as being something they want to send their children into…much less witness one themselves, or even one battle of a war. War really isn’t a spectator sport, after all. Nevertheless, there was a time, when people didn’t really seem to realize that. Early in the Civil War, the Union military command believed that the Confederate army could be easily defeated, and that the war would be over very quickly and with very little loss of life.
In July of 1861, the folly of that overconfidence was sharply pointed out when General Irvin McDowell led a premature offensive into northern Virginia. He set out in search of the Confederate forces, leading 34,000 mostly inexperienced troops, who were also poorly trained, toward the railroad junction of Manassas, which is just 30 miles from Washington DC. General Beauregard of the Confederate forces, was alerted of the advance, and so brought together 20,000 troops there. He was soon joined by General Joseph Johnston, who brought 9,000 additional men by way of railroad.
On the morning of July 21, 1861, the people of the area heard of the opposing forces, and that a battle was about to break out in their vicinity. Hundreds of civilian men, women, and children turned up to watch the first major battle of the Civil War. The fighting commenced with three Union divisions crossing the Bull Run stream. The Confederate flank was driven back to Henry House Hill. General Beauregard had set up a strong defensive line backed up by a brigade of Virginia infantry under General Thomas Jackson. From a concealed slope, Jackson’s men began firing a series of Federal charges. It was this plan that gave Jackson his famous nickname Stonewall. The Confederate cavalry under J.E.B. Stuart captured the Union artillery, and General Beauregard ordered a counterattack on the exposed Union right flank. The rebels came charging down the hill, yelling furiously, and General McDowell’s line was broken, forcing his troops in a hasty retreat across Bull Run. The retreat soon became an all out run for their lives, and supplies littered the road back to Washington. Union forces endured a loss of 3,000 men killed, wounded, or missing in action while the Confederates suffered 2,000 casualties in the bloody battle.
The horrific battle not only the frightened spectators at Bull Run, but the United States government in Washington as well, which was faced with an uncertain military strategy that would obviously need to change, if the South was to be stopped. I have a hard time understanding how the people could possibly have thought this was something to go out and watch…much less to take their children to. Of course, these days I think we have seen so much war on television, that no one in their right mind would go to watch a battle and no one would take their kids, because war is not a spectator sport.
My grandpa, George Byer served in the Army as a cook during World War I. He always prided himself on making sure the men had the best meals he was able to make. Wartime doesn’t always mean that the men have the tastiest of meals. In fact, the meals are pretty basic most of the time. Even in this day and age, the men in a war zone often have MREs…which is Meals Ready to Eat. They are basically dried food. They can be eaten as they are, because its not always convenient to heat them. The idea is to create a meal to keep our troops running strong out in the field. They are packed full of calories and nutrients. Of course, that doesn’t mean that they are packed full of taste.
Still, when I look back at my great aunt, Bertha Schumacher Hallgren’s journal, when 
she spoke of the food the men had to eat during the Civil War, I have to feel awful for those brave men. She spoke of Hardtack, which was served to both armies. It was basically a thick cracker, that they could carry with them. Because of the lack of preservatives in those days, Hardtack was often wormy. It was so wormy, in fact, that the men called them Worm Castles. Hardtack was so hard that the men joked…if you bite into something soft, you might think it’s a worm, but it’s probably a ten penny nail…now that is a hard cracker. When I think of our brave men having to eat such food, it makes me feel nauseous. These are the people that we sent out to fight our battles, while we are safe at home, and here they are eating such awful things. Still, it 
was what they had, that and dried or salted meats.
I suppose they got used to the food, but I still think that is was sad that we as a people were not able to give them food that was safe to eat. I have to think back on the MREs, and while they might not taste great, at least they don’t have worms. And I have to wonder what Aunt Bertha would have thought of the MRE. She had seen so many awful foods that the men had to eat, but to think of them eating something that was dried…well, that would be just strange. Maybe the MREs weren’t the tastiest meals, but at least they were safe to eat, and many a soldier has survived on them for sure. I guess that sometimes you just have to do what you have to do.
These days, when a new president makes the move from their current home to the White House, it is a huge production. Very little of the packing is actually done by the first family. Things were much different in 1861, when President Abraham Lincoln was moving to Washington DC. When Abraham Lincoln moved to Washington DC, he packed his family’s belongings himself. His wife Mary was in Saint Louis on a shopping trip, so she would join him later in Indiana. It was on this day, February 11, 1861 that Abraham Lincoln boarded a two car private train…probably the only special thing about this transition. After an emotional speech to his fellow Springfield, Illinois citizens, Abraham Lincoln moved to Washington DC. The day was cold and rainy…much like the mood as Lincoln left his friends. He spoke to a crowd before departing: “Here I have lived a quarter of a century, and have passed from a young man to an old man. Here my children have been born, and one is buried. I now leave, not knowing when, or whether ever, I may return, with a task before me greater than that which rested upon Washington. Without the assistance of that Divine Being…I cannot 
succeed. With that assistance, I cannot fail. To His care commending you, as I hope in your prayers you will commend me, I bid you an affectionate farewell.” One of the people who attended the speech, said that the president-elect’s “breast heaved with emotion and he could scarcely command his feelings.”
It’s hard to say if Lincoln had an inkling that he was not just saying “goodbye for now” to the citizens of Springfield, Illinois, or not, but there is no doubt that he knew that his presidency was going to be difficult…to say the least. Since his election, seven southern states has seceded from the Union. The nation was in the middle of a national crisis. President Lincoln knew that the nation was quite likely heading for a civil war. In short order, he was proven to be correct, when our nation embarked on one of the most bitter wars it ever fought…waged against its own people, over slavery.
When Lincoln said that it was possible that he would never return to Springfield, he was ironically very correct. 
While he returned in body, he did not return in life…as we all know, because he was shot by John Wilkes Booth on April 14, 1865, and died at 7:22am the morning of April 15, 1865. Booth opposed Lincoln’s freeing of the slaves, and maybe felt like killing him would somehow change that. Of course, it did not. After his passing, Lincoln’s body made a two week train trip back to Springfield, Illinois for burial, taking a route that would allow the people to pay tribute along the way. Memorial services were held at different towns when the train passed through them. It was the only time he rode in the new private train car that had been built just for him.
Americans are a people who have no problem speaking their minds. I suppose it all goes back to the reasons we left England in the first place. We were only allowed to believe certain things, and if we chose to be different, we could have been killed or imprisoned. It is what our nation was built on in more ways than just religion. The point was supposed to be that we were free to live our lives as we chose to, within a very few certain guidelines. For the most part, things went along smoothly…until November of 1860, when President Lincoln was elected to the presidency, that is. The people of the Deep South felt that their way of life was being threatened, in that they held slaves, and Lincoln was against slavery, as were the Northern states, or most of the people in the Northern states anyway. Of course, this whole issue brought our nation to war, a really sad thing when two sides of a nation war against each other.
It is a difficult thing when so many people have such differing beliefs about the same issue. And sometimes it gets so ugly, that I have to wonder about the sanity of some people. When people burn or otherwise deface our flag, sometimes in horribly disgusting ways, or do the same to Bibles and other religious books, it is disrespectful. What I find especially disturbing is that these same people want respect for their cause or lifestyle, but they will not give the same respect for the cause or lifestyle of others. It really is a two way street. I know that a lot of people are calling for the removal of the Confederate Flag from…everywhere, but in reality it is a part of our history. We need to remember that because they lost the battle, it 
does not mean they were not brave in the fight. Lately, I have seen some shocking displays in this nation. Digging up the graves of a general and his wife, because he fought for the South, and taking shows off the air because they have a reference to a Confederate Flag in them. Political Correctness has tipped the balance of this nation to the point of insanity. It must stop, or we will have another war here. We have already had a threat of states wanting to secede from the union. It is a sad state for this great nation to be in.
In the end of the Civil War, the South lost the war, the slaves were freed, and given their proper rights. No, it wasn’t the last of the battles over this issue, unfortunately, but the healing of this nation began. The eleven states that had seceded from the Union…Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas, Arkansas, North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia, were returning one by one. Change was coming and it would slowly come to be accepted. I suppose that, as in the Civil War, the people who are fighting for their rights these days, consider the battles well worth the outcome, and maybe they are, but in many ways, we have forgotten that the people of the other side of the issue have rights too. The country was largely founded on a live and let live way of life…whether you agree with them or not. This may not be the perfect way for our nation to be, but it is as close as we can get. As with the eleven states who returned to the Union, I think it is important to consider the feeling of those who have lost the battle you felt the need to win, because in most cases, they are good people too. On this historic day, as our nation became united again, Georgia became the 
last state to be readmitted to the Union. They returned, because whether they agreed with every thing this nation stood for or not, they still knew that this was a great nation, and one they wanted to be a part of. I believe that was the case of the Cowboys and Indians. We all know that the Indians lost to the cowboys, but that does not make them any less a proud people, nor does it make them any less brave. They deserve respect, as do all the people who have lost the battles that have gone on in this nation about political correctness, policy change, or the battle of the North and South. In the words of Abraham Lincoln, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” Whether we agree with things or disagree, we must stand united…lest we forget that the rights we take from another today, could be taken from us tomorrow.
Many times, possibly to take the people’s minds off of long wars, presidents have worked to change some things back home. Sometimes that is a bad thing, and sometimes, as is the case on this day in 1864, it is a good thing. Abraham Lincoln was anxious to create new territories where people could settle during the Civil War, so on May 26, 1864, he signed an act establishing the Montana Territory. Abraham Lincoln had hoped to lift the spirits of the war weary, and open up the territory for gold exploration, but unfortunately the region was pretty unstable, so it didn’t do much to help the nation…at least not right away. In fact, it was so bad, that Sidney Edgerton, the territory’s first governor, fled after suffering through months of Indian raids. Some people probably thought of him as somewhat cowardly, but I think that months of Indian raids would make a man think that maybe he should get out before his number was up.
I’m sure we would all have to agree that now, Montana is a key part of the nation…especially in the area of 
agriculture, just not back then. Nevertheless, this new territory belonged to the United States, for better or worse. Montana Territory in the 19th century was home to the Sioux, the Blackfoot, the Shoshone, the Arapaho, the Cheyenne, the Kutenai and the Flathead Indians. That had to be a large number of Indians…and all were feeling like you were invaders in their territory…which you probably were. They decided that the best course of action was to raid your place, steal what they wanted, and kill those they needed to. It would make for a dangerous place to be.
Montana Territory came into United States possession as part of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. Within a couple of years, there were explorers, including Lewis and Clark, who were the first known explorers of European origin to pass through the region on their way to the Pacific Ocean. Still, the area remained pretty much untouched, until gold was discovered in the 1850s. That discovery brought people to mining camps such as those at Bannack and Virginia 
City, Montana, finally bringing growth to the territory. There are several members of my family, and of my husband, Bob Schulenberg’s family who came to Montana in those days. I’m not sure if they were there to hunt for gold, or just to get land, but they lived there for many years, and many of them still do to this day. I’m sure it was that territorial growth that brought the area to the attention of Abraham Lincoln when he decided that making the area an official territory was in the nations best interest at the time. While it would be another 25 years before Montana would official become the 41st state in the Union, I have to think it was worth waiting for. Montana is a beautiful state, and while their winters are a little more extreme than I would be comfortable with, I do love to visit there.
On June 16, 1858 more than 1,000 delegates met in the Springfield, Illinois, statehouse for the Republican State Convention. They chose Abraham Lincoln as their candidate for the U.S. Senate, running against Democrat Stephen A. Douglas. At 8:00 pm Lincoln delivered his famous House Divided speech to his Republican colleagues in the Hall of Representatives. Lincoln said, “A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure, permanently, half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward, till it shall become lawful in all the States, old as well as new — North as well as South.” Abraham Lincoln decided to run for president, and was elected president on November 6, 1860, and on December 20, 1860 it began…South Carolina seceded from the Union, followed within two months by Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas. On February 9, 1861 the Confederate States of America was formed with Jefferson Davis as it’s president. Abraham Lincoln was sworn in as the 16th President of the United States of America on March 4, 1861. On April 12, 1861 the Confederates under General Pierre Beauregard attacked Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina…the Civil War had begun.
The war was long and bloody. Families were torn apart, as brothers fought against brothers and fathers against sons. The South wanted slavery, and the North did not. This war would be a horrible, brutal war. Losing was not an option for the North. Slavery had to be abolished…it was inhumane, and wrong in every sense of the word. This was Lincoln’s signature change to this nation, and those who didn’t want it hated him for it. The battles raged for four long years, ending the lives of 618,222 Americans and eventually sending 50,000 survivors home as amputees. The Civil War would go down in history as the deadliest of all United States wars…and the enemy wasn’t a terrorist group or some other country…it was us. I think it is a sad thing to think that we were our own worst enemy at one time in history.
The battles of the Civil War are names many people remember from their history lessons, Chickamauga, Chattanooga, Cold Harbor, Chancellorsville, Fredericksburg, Bull Run, and a second Bull Run, Shiloh, Antietam..which was the bloodiest day in US Military history with 26,000 men killed, and of course the famous Battle of Gettysburg on July 1-3, 1863, which was the battle that turned the tide in favor of the Union. On November 19, 1863, President Lincoln gave his famous Gettysburg address dedicating the Soldiers’ National Cemetery. The war continued for another year and a half, before General Robert E Lee, being completely surrounded by Union forces, with no possibility of escape, surrendered to General Ulysses S Grant at Appomattox, Virginia. They agreed to a meeting in the parlor of the Wilmer McLean home. The meeting took place at one o’clock in the afternoon, and on this day, April 9, 1865 General Robert E Lee surrendered.
The Union had all but won, but this was not over yet. On April 14, 1865, the Stars and Stripes was raised over Fort Sumter…where the war began. That night President Lincoln and his wife, Mary, went to see the play “Our American Cousin” at the Ford Theater. At 10:13pm, during the third act of the play, Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth shot the president in the head. He was moved to the house across the street where doctors tried in vain to save his life. President Lincoln died at 7:22am on April 15, 1865. The war dwindled to a close, and in May the final soldiers surrendered. The Union was restored, and the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was passed by Congress on January 31, 1865, and was finally ratified on December 6, 1865.
While little is known about his mother, Susan Francis Spencer Cheshire, my husband, Bob’s second great grand uncle, James Riley Cheshire was a rather well known man…at least in Jefferson County, Tennessee. As a young man of only 14 years, he vividly remembers some of the tragedies of the Civil War, of which his family was not a part, but because of where they lived, they were suspected of being a part of the rebel sympathizers. The old Baker place was where they lived, and the Bakers were hated by the Union soldiers for their loyalty to the Rebel cause. The family had moved there when Mr Baker decided to move to a place that was closer to his son-in-law’s place. So, the Cheshires into it because it was a bigger, very nice log home.
Soon after moving there, James recalls the day when he saw one of the Baker boys and Mr Richie, a brother-in-law, shot by the Union Soldiers. The bodies were taken to the Cheshire house to be prepared for burial. As they were getting ready to place them in their coffins, Union soldiers showed up and searched the house again, but they didn’t do anything to the bodies. James saw the soldiers march old man Baker into the woods, and heard the three shots they fired into him. After they left, James and his five year old sister, Louise Cheshire ran out to the woods and spend several hours guarding him so that the hogs didn’t get his body before the coffin maker could help move him. The Bakers had been so hated by the Kingston Militia that it was decided that their house would be burned. They ordered the Cheshires to get all of their goods out and burned the house down. There were many harrowing experiences that James recalls from the Civil War days, and maybe it was all the death he saw then that prompted him to begin carpentry work, including coffin making. He was the first person in the county to make a flat top coffin. I can’t say why the flat top coffin was so important, but apparently it was the latest thing. The people really liked them, and they had a hard time keeping them in stock. James was always considered a wise man. He felt very strongly that evey town needed a church. He joined the Cottage Grove 
Baptist Church in 1871, and he helped organize the Baptist Church of Cowgill in 1888. He was made deacon of the church in 1893. He also worked in banking, and became a judge at one time.
My main interest in James comes from the fact that he is related to both sides of my family. His dad is an ancestor of the Knox side of Bob’s family, and his mother is a Spencer, and related to my dad’s side of my family. Unfortunately there seem to be no pictures of James…a fact that I find very sad indeed. Nevertheless, he is a connector to both my families, and was a very well known and respected man who went through so pretty awful things as a young man, and handled them quite well in my opinion. And he was the brother of Bob’s grandmother, Sarah Cheshire Knox.
When I first read about the six Knox brothers who were able to place themselves into a family history where they belonged, but in which no one had been able to connect them to before, I was intrigued, for sure. They seemed so resourceful, but I had a feeling that there was a lot more to them than just finding their place in the family history. I’m sure I will come back to these brothers over and over in the future, but when I read about Dr Nicholas C Knox, I was…well, amazed really. This man had the character and fortitude to overcome adversity, and move forward with his life, and in the end, make it better.
The fourth son of Absalom Knox MD, Nicholas married Henrietta Craigan. After their marriage, the civil war slammed its way into the midst of their lives. Nicholas enlisted in the Seventeenth Mississippi Regiment, which was commanded by Colonel WS Featherstone, and was a part of McLaw’s Division. Nicholas took part in all the great battles in the Army of Virginia in which his command was engaged, but it was the Battle of Gettysburg that would change his life forever. On the second day of the battle, Nicholas lost his right arm. To make matter worse, he was captured and confined as a prisoner on Hart Island, off the city of New York, for several months before being parolled and sent into the Confederate lines again…without his right arm, and he managed to stay alive during the remainder of the battles he fought in.
During his entire enlistment time in the Civil War, Nicholas was never home…until the day he was discharged. I don’t know if he had been able to tell his wife about his arm, but even if he did, there is nothing like actually seeing it for the first time. It had to be hard for her…and for him. Many soldiers coming home from wars with life changing injuries feel very concerned about just how their spouse will look at them now. They feel like they are a lesser person than they were when they left, and that is just the physical challenges. I’m sure that an injury that cost you your arm, would be a moment that would live in your memory files for the rest of your life.
Nevertheless, Nicholas was not a man to let adversity take his life or his future from him. He returned to Mississippi, and he started the task of rebuilding his life, and getting reacquainted with his family. He started out by teaching school. Now most people would think that was a noble profession, and they would be right, but 
it was not enough for Nicholas. While teaching school, he began to study medicine, and received a diploma from a medical college at Nashville, Tennessee. When I think about the challenges of being a doctor in post Civil War America, with only one arm, and during a time when prosthetics were primitive at best, I am amazed. Still, Nicholas was not satisfied. He entered politics, and represented his county in the Legislature, and afterward was a practitioner of medicine in Reynolds, Mississippi, and he was an elder in the Presbyterian Church. No matter what challenges hit Nicholas, he met them head on, and succeeded in every endeavor he took on. He was not a man content to settle on the ordinary. He was truly an amazing man.
Israel Putnam Spencer, who is my sixth cousin twice removed, was a writer in his own right. He wrote a journal of sorts that dated back to his earliest recollections, beginning at about four or five years of age. Not everyone can remember very much about themselves at that age, although I think a number of us can. Usually it is some traumatic even, such as illness, a death, or as in my cast, an accident, in which I lost a fight with an escalator. For Israel, it was both illness and death. Israel states that he was just “getting over a spell of sickness” in the town of DeRuyter, Madison County, New York. He talks of moving to Corning, Steuben County, New York where the family lived another four years. This place had no stove, so cooking was done over the fire in the fireplace. It was in Corning that he and his sister got the measles, and his aunt, his mother’s sister died…probably also of measles, as they were very dangerous in those days. His writings tell of hard times…of moving to live with his mother’s brother, Frank Lewis. Hard times in that after finding a dog and being so excited to have a pet, they had to give the dog to a cousin. I’m sure these things all seemed extra hard to a young boy of about nine or ten. Yet, in the midst of those hard times, the family arrived at Israel’s Uncle Frank’s house, to find the dog, that they hadn’t seen in two years…and the dog remembered them, and was so excited to see them. That friendship must have felt like the sun coming out after a long raging storm.
Soon things were looking up for the family, and Israel’s dad bought a farm where the family lived until Israel was fourteen and then he traded that farm for a 100 acre farm just a sort distance away. That farm brought about a big change for the Israel and his brothers because they now have to work the farm, in order to keep up. They went to school in the winter and worked the farm in summer. Then Israel writes of reaching an age where he got a “big head” like most boys did at about 15 to 18 years of age. He said that he got to a point where he was convinced that he knew more than the teachers and his parents combined, and so he quit school at 17 years old. He got odd jobs, and made about $15.00 a month…about average for a 17 year old in those days, I suppose, but maybe less than if he had more schooling…these days anyway.
Then came the biggest change of Israel’s life…the Civil War started in 1861. His oldest brother, Morton Spencer 
enlisted in Company E, 23rd New York Infantry for two years. Shortly thereafter, Israel’s brother Fred Spencer enlisted, and Israel joined him. It was August 6th of 1862, and Israel was 18 years and 2 months old. Israel tells of his time spent in the war, with an insider’s view that most of us never got to hear about. The northern army, and I suspect the southern army as well, were having trouble keeping their officers. Back then, they didn’t have the came controls over the people in the army. A person could be missing for weeks before anyone really got word of it. Of course, when an officer goes missing, and you are one of his men, you know it, and that is what happened at times…especially when the war put brother against brother, as was the case in the Civil War. He survived the war, as did his brothers, but those were days of hunger and lack. He chose in later years, not to talk about them much, because who would want to remember such a time. He did write about those day, and there are many more tales to tell of the Civil War, but that is a story for another day.
On a trip to Tennessee and the surrounding area in April of 2003, Bob and I had the opportunity to visit Lookout Mountain, which is located near Chattanooga, in southwestern Tennessee. The drive up was stunning, and everything we saw there from Ruby Falls, to the Incline Railway, and Rock City proved to hold amazing views as well. From the top of the mountain, you can see seven states…Tennessee, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Georgia, and Alabama. The view across that area is spectacular. When we travel, we love to go sight seeing, so this area fit right into our idea of a great place to visit. looking back now, I’m sure that time constraints played a part in my missing out on some of the amazing historical value of the area I was visiting, and to me, that is really a shame, because so much took place there, and I didn’t even know it.
I suppose I should have known the history of the area, but apparently I wasn’t as up on my Civil War and Indian history as I am now. I really wish I had known or had at least taken more time reading the many signs in the area, because I could have figured out what a great area we were in. During the Nickajack Expedition which occurred in the 18th century, Lookout Mountain would become a last stand for the Chickamauga Cherokee, who were followers of Chief Dragging Canoe, who opposed the peace treaty between Native Americans and the American settlers. The peace treaty was signed in 1777. Most of the Chickamauga Cherokee agreed to the treaty, but a small band followed Chief Dragging Canoe, and they went to battle in the late summer through the fall of 1794. The final battle, and the point that Chief Dragging Canoe’s warriors would lose the fight took place on Lookout Mountain. The Indians were no match for the military might of the army, and after wounding only 3 of the militia, the villages of Nickajack Town and Running Water Town were destroyed, leaving seventy Cherokee dead.
The Civil War battle that made Lookout mountain famous took place on November 24, 1863 and was a part of the Chattanooga Campaign. Major General Joseph Hooker defeated the Confederate forces who were under the command of Major General Carter Stevenson. Lookout mountain has an excellent view of the Tennessee River, making it a perfect stronghold. It also held a perfect view of the Union supply lines, so if the Confederate army wanted to starve out the Union army, they needed Lookout Mountain, and if the Union army wanted to keep their supply lines clear, they needed Lookout Mountain. One of the hardest places to fight a battle is a mountain…at least for the side who is at the bottom of the mountain. They are far too visible to fight the battle easily. So, after calling for reinforcements, Major General Joseph Hooker went into battle. It was a must win situation. If they lost the Union soldiers would be starved into surrender.
Looking back now on our visit makes everything we saw seem much more interesting. In my memory files, I can pull out the different views of our visit to Lookout Mountain, and I can visualize the exact view the Confederate soldiers had, and knowing that there was virtually no place to hide, I can’t help but wonder how the Union soldiers managed to win that battle. I suppose that it was partly the numbers of soldiers, with 
the Union having more than 1,000 more, but more importantly, I think it was the fact that they surrounded the Confederate soldiers, leaving them with too many sides to cover. Our trip to Lookout Mountain, Ruby Falls, and Rock City has taken on a whole new meaning for me. I wish I had known it then. I would have really enjoyed that stroll through history. The great thing is that my pictures, memories, and a little look at history can take me back to visit again.
