Tales from the road: Sights, smells on Hood's retreat route

My journey started in Lynnville, Tennessee, the town that suffered a "partial burning" by
the Union Army, according to this historical sign.

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After mentally checking out of the 21st century, I park in quaint Lynnville, Tennessee (population 313) for stops at the fancy leather goods place for sniffs of the wallets and at Soda Pop Junction (home of “Big Johnny” burgers) for a delicious fried apple pie.

Great fried pies are sold here in Lynnville.

I’m flying solo on this frigid Saturday morning for visits to obscure and largely forgotten battlefields on John Bell Hood’s retreat route in the aftermath of his Army of Tennessee’s crushing defeat at Nashville on Dec. 15-16, 1864. Were if not for, like, 5,000 football games scheduled, sports fanatic Mrs. B might be with me. But as she mutters this morning at 3:23, “I don’t do well in the cold.”

My first stop after departing Lynnville — which suffered a “partial burning” by the United States Army during the war, per a historical marker in town — is the Richland Creek battlefield. Here, on Christmas Eve 1864, the outnumbered and ragtag rearguard of Hood’s army fought against United States cavalry. As I have a half-dozen times, I park near the modern bridge over Richland Creek and try to imagine the fighting.

Somewhere out here, perhaps on Milky Way Farm across the Pulaski Pike, Nathan Bedford Forrest — Rebel cavalry genius, “The Wizard Of The Saddle” and postwar Klansman — directed troops. And somewhere out here, an obsessed Union cavalryman named Harrison Collins captured the object of his longtime desire — a Rebel flag — by stooping down and picking it up. For his bravery, he earned a Medal of Honor.

Unheralded Richland Creek battlefield.

Naturally, I need to know much more about the battlefield, so I drive on a side road and across the railroad track for a stop at a gift shop. I figure someone inside might direct me to a local who can give me a tour of the unmarked hallowed ground.

“Your shop sure smells good,” I tell the three delightful women behind the counter. No battlefield tour results, but I enjoy a brief staredown with a strange-looking cat who smiles at me from covers of a half-dozen Dr. Seuss books on the gift shop shelves.

On my return to the pike, I flag down a local in a pickup truck, but the conversation goes like one you might have underwater with a friend. All the time I am thinking to myself: “DON’T YOU KNOW HARRISON COLLINS EARNED A MEDAL OF HONOR OUT HERE!”

Sigh. The life of a Civil War obsessive.

After that respectful convo, I travel south past Pulaski, where ex-Rebel soldiers founded the evil Klan on Christmas Eve 1865, and toward the Alabama border (gulp) for a visit to the Anthony’s Hill battlefield, where “The Wizard” fought off U.S. cavalry on Christmas Day 1864.

Before the battlefield stop, I visit a place my dad (“Big Johnny”) and momma (“Sweet Peggy”) — RIP to both ❤️❤️ — would have loved: a combo antiques store/AJ’s One Stop Deer Processing. An antler cap cut here will set you back 10 bucks, extra sausage is a cool 30 large.

Mom and Dad would have appreciated this place.

Inside I enjoy the smell of deer carcasses — pssst! it’s not like those wallets in Lynnville — and admire a multitude of deer heads hanging from the wall and a 1964 “Sport” magazine with Sandy Koufax, a hero of mine, on the cover.

Confederate dead from 
Battle of Anthony's Hill.

Near core Anthony’s Hill battlefield, owned by a descendant of slaves, I briefly stop at a small cemetery. Leaves and twigs crackle and groan beneath my feet. A hundred yards or so from the trace of a wartime road on this unheralded battleground rest a few dozen Confederate soldiers, some killed on Christmas Day 1864. My God.

In a flash, I’m zipping south on the pike, destination Sugar Creek — the final battle of the Nashville Campaign. I hope to put my drone in the air for a view of the battlefield, where only a few dozen fell on Dec. 26, 1864. But remember: Somewhere a momma and poppa mourned their deaths just the same.

Unfortunately, I don’t find a launch point, but I do find a general store (closed), where according to a source, Sugar Creek battlefield relics sit. Nearby, behind a barbed wire fence, a brown and white horse walks my way.

“What does he know about the Battle of Sugar Creek?” I wonder. But alas, I must go. Sadly, a return to the 21st century awaits.

Podcast: Dr. Mike Nickerson on Battle of Shepherdstown

On Episode 27 of "The Antietam And Beyond Podcast," Dr. Mike Nickerson — president of the Shepherdstown (W.Va.) Battlefield Preservation Association — dives into the fascinating final battle of the Maryland Campaign with co-hosts Tom McMillan and John Banks. Nickerson dishes on relics found on the battlefield and a musket discovered in the Potomac River. Plus, he tells the story of a controversial cannonball embedded in the wall of a Shepherdstown battlefield farmhouse.

Tales from the road: Jimmy Gentry and the horrors of Dachau

Jimmy Gentry statue near a church in Franklin, Tennessee.

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There’s no better way to explore a battlefield — or a town, for that matter — than by walking. And so on Sunday morning, after yet another visit to the Franklin (Tenn.) battlefield, I strolled into town, destination unknown.

Smiling Jimmy Gentry
caught my eye.

At the excellent Triple Crown Bakery, I bought a bunch of goodies that put a smile on my mug. Nearby, I added a jar of local honey. And while returning to “Murray” — Mrs. B’s nickname for her mighty Murano — I happened upon a bronze statue of man sitting on a bench outside a church. The smile on the work of art lights up this little corner of bustling Franklin.

Steps away, I examined a historical marker.

“This statue is in the likeness of Franklin, Tn native and U.S. Army veteran Jimmy Gentry as he reflects on the rock wall and the memories of waiting there for the bus that would take him and many others off to war to fight for our country,” it reads. “These empty seats are in honor of all the heroes who fought for our nation, many of whom never returned.”

I vaguely remember a friend talking about Jimmy, who died in 2022, age 97. So I did some digging. My God, what a life this World War II veteran led. In 1945, he helped liberate Dachau, the German concentration camp near Munich.

True story: In 1992, while on our honeymoon in Germany, Mrs. B and I stopped in Munich. After a night of beer drinking and frivolity in a pub, we asked a white-haired gentleman traveling alone on the bus with our large group if he wanted to visit Dachau with us the next day.

“No,” Bill told us, “I was there in 1945.”

He had helped liberate Dachau, too. The experience haunted him.

A historical marker near the Gentry statue.

In an interview with Nashville PBS several years ago, Jimmy Gentry told of his mind-numbing experience at that place of evil.

“Off in the distance I saw boxcars lined up with hundreds of dead bodies inside. They looked starved and tortured,” said Gentry, who survived the Battle of the Bulge in 1944. “I asked another soldier, ‘Who are these people?’ He said, ‘They are Jews.'"

“No one told us what we would find. No one explained what our mission was. We saw a wall and that was the entrance to a prison camp like I have never seen.” “I can't understand it,” Gentry added. “Not then, not now."

What an experience. What a walk. We thank you for your service, Jimmy. And you, too, Bill, wherever you may be.

Tales from the road: 'Disappearing' into Dill Branch Ravine

Dill Branch Ravine (right) on the Shiloh (Tenn.) battlefield

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Minutes after leaving Tom Petty and Bob Dylan behind, I stiff-arm the 21st century and disappear into the woods above Dill Branch Ravine on the Shiloh (Tenn.) battlefield.

“Watch for snakes,” a ranger had warned me earlier.

A stark reminder of the cost of war.

But on this glorious morning, I spy no snakes. No humans either. I’m apparently the only living soul traipsing toward the ravine, where on the evening of April 6, 1862, Confederates mounted a desperate (and failed) attack to break Ulysses Grant’s army on the ridge.

As a deep carpet of leaves and twigs crunch and snap beneath my hiking boots, I happen upon an eye-opening (and sobering) marker: “Burial place. 14th Wisconsin Infantry,” it reads. “Bodies removed to Nat’l Cemetery.” Such markers frequently spring surprises on walks in the Shiloh woods.

A few yards away, I inspect the bottom of a massive, uprooted tree. Surely a Gardner or sliver of artillery shell burrowed itself among the mosaic of pebbles and other stones.

Later, I enter the ravine from the Tennessee River side, scurrying down a steep embankment and into the muck of Dill Branch. During the battle, two Union gunboats anchored in the river — the wooden USS Lexington and USS Tyler — emptied their massive guns into the ravine. Combined with Grant’s cannons on the ridge defending Pittsburg Landing, my God what noise they must have caused.

“Terrorizing” for the Confederates, a ranger later told me. But apparently the fire did little else to the Rebels. 

“Every two minutes, the enemy threw two shells from his gunboats,” Confederate Brigadier General Patrick Cleburne wrote, “some of which burst close around my men, banishing sleep from the eyes of a few, but falling chiefly among their own wounded, who were strewn thickly between the camp and the river…”

"Sounded terribly and looked ugly and hurt but few," Confederate Colonel John D. Martin wrote of the fire from the gunboats. 

Ulysses Grant's artillery protected Pittsburg Landing during the Battle of Shiloh.

Dill Branch Ravine on the Shiloh battlefield

Using cannons like these, Union gunboats in the Tennessee River shelled the ravine.

Surely several of the 32-pound shells from the gunboats remain buried in the ravine, perhaps still prepared to unleash their deadly contents on anyone who confronts them.

A gift from nature.

Deep in the ravine, as sunlight squeezes between the trees, I marvel at its steep walls. While climbing a hill on the return to my launch point, my heart races to well over 100 beats a minute. Under fire and carrying equipment, soldiers attacked here? What bravery.

In the ravine and above it on the ridge, I discover gifts from nature. A spectacular, red leaf among drab surroundings. Brilliant, green moss on a large, gray rock. A decaying, rusty brown stump. A single, cackling bird and a bouncy squirrel.

Maybe I should disappear into Dill Branch Ravine more often.

---

SOURCES

 — War of the Rebellion: Serial 010, Page 582, Kentucky, Tennessee, Northern Mississippi, Northern Alabama and southwestern Virginia, Chapter XXII

 — Ibid, Page 622. 

Podcast: Antietam battlefield guide Jim Smith

In a freewheeling Episode 26 of "The Antietam And Beyond Podcast," Antietam guide Jim Smith visits with co-hosts Tom McMillan and John Banks about his longtime interest in the battlefield (psst — it involves ballparks and Rush, the rock band). Plus, he highlights notable human interest stories and takes us (virtually) to two out-of-the-way battlefield sites you may never have visited.

Tales from the road: Meeting a witness to Nov. 22, 1963

Ex-Secret Service agent Paul Landis and I visited at the Cherry Blossom Festival in Marshfield, Mo.

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Well before the Civil War put me in its viselike grip, the assassination of President Kennedy did the same. This obsession started when I was 7 upon my discovery of a copy of JFK’s inauguration speech — an insert from the local newspaper — in a desk drawer in our house in suburban Philadelphia.

As a teen, when we lived in suburban Pittsburgh, I bought a copy of the Dallas phone book — remember them? — and called up assassination witnesses. Later, high school junior me argued with Arlen Specter — father of “The Single-Bullet Theory” — during a call-in segment on a KDKA radio talk show.

An image of the Kennedy motorcade taken
the moment the president reacts
to a gunshot wound.

That same year, I watched, horrified, as the Zapruder film played on American TV for the first time on the late-night show Good Night America, hosted by Geraldo Rivera. Then I bought a bootleg copy of the film of Kennedy's murder to study it for myself. In our basement, I watched, aghast, when Frame 313 — the gruesome head-shot impact frame — melted from the heat from my family's ancient 8-millimeter projector.

To this day, the assassination lingers in the corners of my mind, a nightmare that never goes away. During my Civil War talks in East Tennessee last week, I briefly mentioned this strange obsession. After each talk. an attendee asked me, “So who do you think did it?” But I demurred.

"Let's save that for a beer sometime," I told them.

At the Cherry Blossom Festival in Marshfield, Mo., in the spring, I met a small, gray-haired man who witnessed the horror of the assassination up close. Paul Landis, 88, is one of two living Secret Service agents who served in JFK’s detail in Dallas. What a good egg.

A cropped enlargement of the 
first assassination image shows
Agent Paul Landis (second
from left) reacting to a gunshot.

On Nov. 22, 1963, Paul rode on the follow-up car behind Kennedy’s Lincoln limousine — he’s the second of two agents with his head turned toward the Texas School Book Depository in the (in)famous image taken the moment the president was shot. At Parkland Hospital, he saw the blood and gore.

During our visit, I told Paul of my — ahem — “longtime interest” in the Kennedy assassination and of my 21-year employment at the Dallas Morning News, just blocks from the assassination site in Dealey Plaza.

After we put the paper to bed, I’d often drink beer with pals in the West End and then go stare at the “X” on Elm Street that supposedly marked the spot. For a short time, I had an office on the second floor, where Lee Harvey Oswald killer Jack Ruby placed an ad for his Dallas strip club the morning of the assassination.

Paul told me he has returned to Dallas three times since 1963. He thought it would be cathartic.

It wasn’t.

Friday is the 61st anniversary of JFK’s death. My God.

Tales from the road: 'Andrew Johnson is the old traitor'

The house in Greenville, Tennessee, where Andrew Johnson lived before and after his presidency.

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On Tuesday, I visited Greeneville, Tennessee for a morning of almost 100 percent Andrew Johnson immersion — touring the 17th president’s homes, inspecting his tailor’s shop, paying respects at his grave on Signal Hill and even “voting” in his impeachment trial at the small but interesting visitors center.

A painting of Johnson -- saved
from destruction during the
Civil War -- hangs in the house.

At the front desk at the VC, I peppered the cheery National Park Service ranger with questions about Johnson and whether it’s allowed to launch my 250-gram mini-drone at the nearby national cemetery where the president rests. (No, but that was swell.)

“Would you like to visit Johnson’s house?” she asked. The ticket for entry was well within my ballpark — free — so I got mine for the 11 a.m. tour and strolled around a corner.

At Johnson’s house — the one where he lived before and after his presidency — I met two Englishmen from London on an epic two-week Revolutionary War/Civil War sojourn. I’d have offered to show them around the country, but Mrs. B required my return to Nashville by Wednesday.

During the tour, the excellent NPS ranger dished on slave-holding Johnson’s complicated life and legacy. Sidenote: He lived and worked in a downstairs bedroom/office, separately from his wife, Eliza.

My ears perked up when the ranger told our small group about Rebel soldiers evicting Eliza and the rest of the family from the house in 1861 while Andrew was elsewhere. During the war, Confederates trashed the place. Some even left graffiti on the wall of a second-floor bedroom.

“Andrew Johnson the old traitor,” one of them wrote. (The graffiti is protected by Plexiglas.)

Anywho, the tour was superb. So was my aptly named “Awesome Chicken” sandwich at the Tannery Downtown on East Depot Street.

Greeneville, I shall return.

Graffiti left in the Johnson house by Confederate soldiers.

At the Andrew Johnson National Historic Site visitors center, you can cast your vote
for -- or against -- President Johnson's impeachment, just as lawmakers did in 1868.

Tales from the road: Devilish terrain at Armstrong Hill

A post-war pond -- ah, let's call it a lake -- on ground where fighting occurred in 1863.

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On a gorgeous fall morning, I pull into the parking lot at High Ground Park, roughly two miles south of downtown Knoxville, Tennessee. My aim is to walk the obscure Armstrong Hill battlefield, where a sharp, two- or three-hour fight broke out Nov. 25, 1863, during the Confederates’ siege of the city.

But I’m directionally challenged, so I call on the man who turned me on to this unheralded (and unmarked) battlefield.

I navigated this path to the pond.

“Where is Armstrong Hill?” I ask my new friend Tim, a Knoxville Civil War Roundtable board member.

“Walk down the path by the two-tiered parking lot,” he says over the phone. “And go through the gate.”

While navigating a steep grade, a carpet of leaves crunches beneath my feet. To my left, I find a deep ravine — think Pickett’s Mill times two — and thick woods. The Confederates occupied ground in that direction, Tim says. To my right is Armstrong Hill, ground occupied by the United States Army.

“Can you imagine fighting here while carrying all that equipment?” Tim says as I take in the devilish terrain.

In Knoxville, where frenzied developers seem intent on carving up every square inch of ground, it’s remarkable that this Civil War oasis exists at all. 

Over the phone, Tim guides me down the path, past a modern, graffiti-covered retaining wall, to a massive, post-war body of water. "A pond," Tim calls it, but it's really a small lake. In 1863, in what was then a flat, open field, the armies clashed here, he says.

The steep terrain of the Armstrong Hill battlefield.

At the very bottom of the path, through the trees, I spy across the Tennessee River a cement plant — a brief, unwanted intrusion from 2024.

After my return to Nashville, I dig for information on this battle that resulted in probably no more than a couple hundred casualties.

"Never was a fortified position held longer against such odds," a Union soldier wrote in 1864 of the fighting at Armstrong Hill. "And never was the bravery of troops subjected to a severer test."

Now I'm hooked. So what can you tell me about the Battle of Armstrong Hill?

A modern graffiti-covered retaining wall on the battlefield.

---

SOURCE

— The Courier-Journal, Louisville, Kentucky, Jan 15, 1864

Tales from the road: A visit to boyhood home of KIA soldier

Ken Hintz at the boyhood home of 16th Connecticut Captain Newton Manross.

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The beautiful wood floors in the house where 16th Connecticut Captain Newton Manross grew up in Bristol, Conn., are original but have settled in places over time.

“Put a marble on the floor of one side of a room and it might roll to the other,” the owner of the house, Ken Hintz, told me with a chuckle during an impromptu guided tour years ago.

Captain Newton Manross of the 
16th Connecticut suffered a 
mortal wound in the 40-Acre Cornfield
at Antietam.

Hintz and his wife bought the historic property on Washington Street in 1974, adding over the years modern amenities such as a clay tennis court and a swimming pool as they raised their family. But the Greek Revival house, part of which dates to 1746, still has many of its original features, including a bee-hive oven, stone fireplaces and even a tin roof painted bright red.

Manross was one of nine children of well-known Bristol clockmaker Elisha Manross and his wife, Maria. (Two of Manross' brothers, John and Eli, also served in the Union Army.) Newton was a brilliant man, graduating from Yale with a degree in geology in 1850, and a world traveler. A 37-year-old professor at Amherst College in Massachusetts, Manross enlisted in the United States Army on July 22, 1862, excitedly telling his wife Charlotte, "You can better afford to have a country without a husband than a husband without a country." (Love that!)

A little more than a month later, Manross was commissioned captain of Company K of the 16th Connecticut, composed mostly of men from prosperous Hartford County towns. “The father of the company,” one soldier called him. Another recalled how Manross earned the respect of his men by carrying the muskets of three soldiers (and a drum) while on the march from Washington to Maryland.

That's me with window frames from the 
boyhood home of Newton Manross.

In the 40-Acre Cornfield at the Battle of Antietam on Sept. 17, 1862 — the first battle of the war for his regiment — Manross was killed by cannon fire. His death had a profound effect on his comrades.

“The loss of our Captain was keenly felt by every member of the Company, for he not only recruited the men, mostly from the town of Bristol, Conn., but he cared for his men constantly,” wrote Pvt. George Robbins of the 16th Connecticut. “They felt for him almost a filial affection.”

Manross was buried in Forestville Cemetery in Bristol, about a mile and a half from his boyhood home.

“Come out back,” Hintz said during our visit. “I have something you might be interested in.” He took me to a barn-like structure and pointed to the floor at two ancient window frames — original to the house, he said.

“Would you like to have these?”

“Of course,” I told Hintz, who died in June 2024.

One of the treasures I gave away. The other remains in the garage, near the hunks of “witness trees” from the battles of Champion Hill and Nashville. Mrs. B insists they remain there, but despite their out-of-the-way location, neither the window frame nor the other “stuff” are ever far from my mind. 

Neither is one of my heroes, Newton Manross. Nor Ken Hintz, too.

One-year anniversary podcast: Antietam ranger Keith Snyder

On the one-year anniversary of "The Antietam And Beyond Podcast," longtime National Park Service ranger Keith B. Snyder — chief of resource education at the battlefield — visits with co-hosts Tom McMillan and John Banks about the new Antietam movie to be shown to public for the first time on Veterans Day and educates us about U.S. Marines Corps' excercises on the field in 1924. Plus, he talks about his famous "battlefield in a box" and much more.

Tales from the road: A hanging, 'Rebel gold' on Roper's Knob

Ben Nance of the State of Tennessee Archaeology Department explains how Civil War soldiers
used a flag to signal each other. The U.S. Army had a signal station on Roper’s Knob
during the Civil War. (CLICK ON ALL  IMAGES TO ENLARGE.)

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On a whim on New Year’s Day 2023, two bleary-eyed history-minded pals and I ascended to the summit of “Roper’s Knob” north of downtown Franklin, Tenn., only to discover the real Roper’s Knob stood way over yonder.

“I think we’re on the wrong knob,” one of us geniuses remarked about the embarrassing sojourn. Blame New Year’s Eve champagne.

An illustration of the U.S. blockhouse that
stood on this site at Roper’s Knob.

Thankfully, on this sun-splashed Saturday morning, our party of five Civil War adventurers had a qualified human being — Ben Nance, a 36-year employee of the State of Tennessee Archaeology Department — to guide us about the real Roper’s Knob.

In 1863 atop the 350-foot-high knob, the United States Army constructed a fort, blockhouse, earthworks, magazine, signal station, rifle pits and more. Four cannon protected the stronghold, which a New York Herald correspondent called "impregnable" in the summer of 1863. The Confederates (smartly) never attacked Roper's Knob.

“Five thousand men worked in shifts to construct it,” Nance explained to us trampers. Roper’s Knob is one of those “hidden” Middle Tennessee Civil War gems we history aficionados relish exploring.

On our way up the steep, osage orange-strewn trail to the summit, Nance took us to the remains deep in the woods of a circa-1829 stone house where mid-30ish Agnes Roper hanged herself in 1840. A 22nd Wisconsin chaplain referenced Agnes' hanging in a letter published in a Wisconsin newspaper in the summer of 1863, although he probably was mistaken about the location of the tragedy.

Remains of house where
Agnes Roper lived.

"One of our fortifications occupies a spot, according to [a] report, [that] was previously rendered historic," Caleb Dudley Pillsbury wrote in a letter published in The Racine (Wis.) Advocate on July 8, 1863. "It is called 'Roper's Knob' and rises very abruptly to a hight [sic] of no less than two hundred feet, in the midst of a valley some six miles in diameter. On the summit there is still standing a large peach tree, now well laden with ripening fruit, on which, Mrs. Roper committed suicide by hanging herself.   

"This knob seems to have been planted here in view of this unholy rebellion for the purpose of commanding this valley; and the Rebs will find that it produces fruit of a more solid character than peaches should they venture too near. The view of the surrounding country from the summit of this knob is most beautiful, and [a] more desirable location for a camp in these sweltering days could hardly be found."

Closer to the summit, Nance showed us the trace of the road the Union Army used to haul cannons, ordnance, supplies and more to the summit. But what really piqued my interest was the tale about Roper’s Knob "Rebel gold."

Ben Nance of the State of Tennessee Archaeology Department inspects a stone outcropping for carvings.

ABOVE AND BELOW: Carvings on an outcropping at Roper’s Knob.

“Have you ever seen strange symbols carved in the rocks on Roper’s Knob?” a caller asked Nance years ago.

Knob visitors have carved their names on rock outcroppings between the fort and surrounding rifle pits, but Nance has never spied “strange symbols” that the caller said represented the Order of the Golden Circle. According to the man, that secret organization supposedly hid Confederate gold, silver, weapons and other valuables in a secret chamber on the knob. Outlaws Frank and Jesse James are said to have had a role in stashing the treasure. 

My gawd, Mrs. B and I are going to skip watching football on fall weekends and spend much more time exploring Roper’s Knob.

Another carving on Roper's Knob.

While my thoughts drifted to launching my 250-gram drone, Nance pointed out at the summit the locations of the blockhouse — it was manned by 60 soldiers — and depressions in the ground for the fort cisterns. Years ago, he and his archaeology team unearthed a friction primer wire for a cannon, a flashlight and Thermos at the sites. Over the years, relic hunters have unearthed scores of artifacts on the knob. (Illegal now!)

“I’d love to get ground penetrating radar up here,” Nance said.

Heck, I’d love to find a map for that Rebel “treasure.”

Now who has a contact at the Order of the Golden Circle?

Earthworks on Roper’s Knob.

---

SOURCES

— New York Daily Herald, June 12, 1863

— The Racine (Wis.) Advocate, July 8, 1863

Podcast: Michael Hill on how to become Antietam guide, more

In a freewheeling Episode 24, Antietam guide Michael Hill talks with co-hosts Tom McMillan and John Banks about the ins and outs of becoming a battlefield guide, his favorite spot on the field — it's on the southern end! — and his journey from Lost Cause devotee to the present day. Plus, these three ink-stained wretches contemplate starting an "Old Men of Newspapering Podcast."

Tales from the road: 'The King' and I and a 'Harvest of Death'

Bob Kalasky explains a detail in "The Harvest of Death" image.

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On a deep-blue sky afternoon, roughly 150 yards from the Old Alms House Cemetery on the Gettysburg battlefield, I stand in a bean field with Bob Kalasky, a 60-something licensed massage therapist from Ohio and Civil War-era photographs obsessor.

“Watch out for ticks,” warns the author of Shadows Of Antietam, a well-received book on images taken in 1862 on that bloody battleground. “I hate ticks.” My gawd, will short-pants me be ravaged by those nasty, little bloodsuckers?

On this glorious day, we’re here on the Day 1 field, within site of Barlow’s Knoll and the 17th Connecticut monument, for Kalasky to persuade me that this is indeed the spot where Timothy O’Sullivan photographed United States Army dead in the aftermath of the battle. The location of (in)famous “A Harvest Of Death” photograph has eluded historians and others. Over the years, 40 locations have been identified as the spot, but none of those investigations have led to a consensus among experts.

The ghastly Gettysburg photograph known as "The Harvest of Death."
(Library of Congress)

"The King" with a blow-up of "The Harvest of Death" photo.

Kalasky — whom I fondly call “The Shadow King” or simply “The King” — is convinced we stand at the location. I consider him a friend, although our association led to brief tension/unintended hilarity with Mrs. B, who as de facto family chief financial officer oversees nearly all of my purchases topping, say, 40 bucks.

True story: Weeks after buying Kalasky’s book, Mrs. B spotted “massage” on my credit card bill. Gulp. It took all my vast powers of persuasion to convince her of the legitimacy of the purchase.

"The King" and I.

In the bean field, Kalasky comes armed with tools of his trade: a protractor, enlargements of “A Harvest Of Death” images and a vision of 1863. He points out the location of old fence lines and subtle undulations in the ground, farmer David Blocher’s wheat field long ago. “Damn, if that doesn’t all fall into line,” he says as he shows me a blowup and points to the battlefield.

“This is nuts!”

His research and interpretation of it seem good to me, but I’m no expert.

“Look at that horse’s ass,” Kalasky says of O’Sullivan’s photograph. Is it a grand clue or merely a false lead?

What we both know for certain is that we stand on hallowed ground. Union soldiers from the 11th Corps, including those from Kalasky’s Ohio, fell in this unremarkable field on July 1, 1863.

“Those poor bastards,” I say of those men.

“Oh, absolutely,” says “The King. “Absolutely.”

Kalasky traipses over the Day 1 battlefield at Gettysburg, near Barlow's Knoll. where
he believes Timothy O'Sullivan created his famous "Harvest of Death" photo.

---

LISTEN to Kalasky on our "The Antietam And Beyond Podcast."

Podcast: Antietam guide Kevin Pawlak on Final Attack, more

In Episode 23, battlefield guide Kevin Pawlak talks with co-hosts Tom McMillan and John Banks about the Antietam Institute's epic tour of the 40-Acre Cornfield and elsewhere on the southern end of the battlefield. Plus, Kevin, John and Tom begin their campaign for a Congressional Medal of Honor for 118th Pennsylvania officer Lemuel Crocker, whose heroics at the Battle of Shepherdstown — the final battle of the Maryland Campaign — should be known by all students of the Civil War. 

Pawlak, a board member of the Antietam Institute, is author of Shepherdstown in the Civil War: One Vast Confederate Hospital and other Civil War books. | Join the Antietam Institute.

Tales from the road: Peanut soup but no 'ghost cats' in Virginia

Historical marker in front of The Wayside Inn in Middletown, Va.

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What a grand overnight stay at The Wayside Inn & Larrick’s Tavern in the heart of history-rich Middletown, Va.

Quick recap: During a tour of the place by Piers — the inn’s excellent and enthusiastic communications director — he pointed out a historical marker in front of the inn that references General Nathaniel “Bobbin Boy” Banks.

Nathaniel Banks

“We are NOT related,” I announced to my fellow tour attendees, mostly from a septuagenarian motorcycle club called the Voyagers. (Banks was a lousy Civil War commander.) The bikers briefly chuckled and then looked at me the way your dog might when you blow a shrill whistle.

At dinner Thursday night at the tavern, I met two gentlemen from Europe. Here’s a complete transcript of our convo:

“Where are you from?”

“Sweden.”

“Welcome.”

Plus, I struck up a conversation with a delightful couple — shout-out to Sheri and Hugh! — from California dining at the table next to me. They offered me some of their yummy-looking peanut soup (I respectfully passed) and bought a copy of my book (A Civil Road Trip Of A Lifetime), cementing what should become an eternal friendship.

By the way, Sheri and Hugh — who told me of their deep respect for journalism — sat next to the ancient (circa 1740) and deep (45 feet) town well. (Earlier, our tour group peered into the mysterious well.)

Guests peer into the ancient well at The Wayside Inn & Larrick's Tavern.

A view of the well through Plexiglass.

Overnight, I slept in the Jubal Early Room at the reputedly haunted inn. I heard no tramping of Civil War soldiers’ boots and didn’t see those “ghost cats” that allegedly walk between Room No. 2 — the room where “Little Phil” Sheridan supposedly stayed — and Room No. 1, the “Old Jube” room. And, no, the ghost of General Early didn’t torment me with any Lost Cause musings. (I did, however, hide my wallet inside the case for my drone — you know, just in case any spirits came looking.)

Early this morning, I spied strange flashes of light dancing on my wall. (Probably should be title of my autobiography.) But I figured they were merely the nasty effects of those CBD gummies I take to sleep.

A sketch created during the war by James E. Taylor of Rebel General Jubal Early in the
room where I slept at The Wayside Inn.

Tales from the road: 'Ghost cats,' communing with Early's spirit

Piers Lamb, the excellent communication director of The Wayside Inn, conducts a tour.

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After a nine-hour drive through the rain from Nashville — including a brutal stretch on I-81 (“The Devil’s Highway”) — I finally pull into the parking lot of my accommodations at The Wayside Inn & Larrick’s Tavern in Middletown, Va. A short distance up the old Valley Pike here in the Shenandoah Valley the armies clashed during the Battle of Cedar Creek, fought Oct. 19, 1864, which just happens to be Mrs. B’s birthday (but not the same year!). 

Kyla is related to some guy
named Robert E. Lee.

Minutes after parking, I check in with a nice, young lady at the front desk named Kyla, who spills the beans on her 5x great uncle, some dude named Robert E. Lee. Never heard of him.

“His painting stares at me every day,” she says cheerfully, gesturing toward the wall in front of her.

Anywho, the next thing I know I’m standing, dazed, in front of the late 18th-century inn, where Piers — The Wayside Inn’s enthusiastic communications director — is conducting a tour for a septuagenarian motorcycle club called the Voyagers. The drone of traffic on the Valley Pike in front of the inn nearly spoils his excellent talk about the colorful history of the place.

Over the years, according to Piers, a veritable who’s who of arts, culture and finance have stayed at the Wayside Inn, including Eleanor Roosevelt, James Earl Jones, Tom Cruise and John Rockefeller Jr.

During the Civil War, officers from both sides frequented the inn and tavern, including “Little Phil” Sheridan of Battle of Cedar Creek renown. (A monument to Union Colonel Charles Russell Lowell, mortally wounded at Cedar Creek, stands in front of the Wayside Inn.)

Jubal Early

A few feet away, a motorcycle club member enjoys a huge martini, which I need about nine of following my nerve-wracking drive. Seconds later, the white-haired, martini gulping biker club member — Kim from Illinois, an inn guest — blurts: “I think ghosts rearranged the change in my room.” 

OMG! I’m staying in spacious Room No. 1, inhabited by Confederate General Jubal Early during the war. If the grumpy ghost of “Old Jube” haunts me with Lost Cause mythology or moves my change tonight, I may have to move to the Hampton lnn in Harrisonburg.

Naturally, guests in the tour group wonder about ghosts in the inn, so Piers feeds the need.

“This is one of the seven most haunted inns in Virginia,” he says.

The Wayside Inn in Middletown, Va., has welcomed guests since the late 18th century.

Piers tells us of an old telephone in one of the rooms that would never stop ringing, even after the yanking of its plug from the wall. Plus, among other ghostly experiences, guests have heard troops tramping through the inn and kitchen workers have had their aprons tugged by unknown forces. (The Mirror Room, where seances once were held, is supposedly the most haunted in the place.)

But by far the weirdest Wayside Inn story is of “ghost cats” moving from Room No. 2, where Sheridan supposedly stayed, to Room No. 1, Early’s room and — gulp! — MY ROOM.

I think this is gonna be a long, one-eye-open night.

READ MORE about The Wayside Inn & Larrick’s Tavern. 

The Jubal Early Room, where I spent a sleepless night.