From Antietam to Wartrace: My favorite photos of 2020

BRENTWOOD, TENN.: A wilted rose left on a small, weather-worn gravestone
 in a small slave cemetery in a road median.
(READ MORE | CLICK ON ALL IMAGES TO ENLARGE.)

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What a crazy year ...

In Tennessee alone, I met a woman named "Blossom" at the tavern where Patrick Cleburne might have hung out in Wartrace, patted a dog named "River" at 20th Tennessee Colonel Bill Shy's grave in Franklin, and peered into a church in Denmark where Confederate soldiers hid under hoop skirts.

A poignant note left at a slave cemetery.

But my most memorable visit was to a slave cemetery in the median of a busy road in Brentwood, Tenn. On a memorial there, a visitor left this note: 

"Thank you. I so very hope someone thanked you during your life here. You could not have imagined so many wonderful things we have today because of your labors, and how much farther we have to grow."

There were road trips to Antietam, Chickamauga, Corinth, Miss.; Crampton's and Fox's gaps in Maryland, Gettysburg, Perryville, Ky.; Port Republic and Cross Keys in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, and for the first time, Brice's Cross Roads (Miss.), Mill Springs (Ky.) and Britton's Lane, Tenn. And I visited the grave in Glade Spring, Va., of the general with the fabulous nickname, "Grumble" Jones. Closer to home, I traveled to Franklin, Shiloh, Stones River, and Lookout Mountain. And, of course, many Nashville battlefield sites were only a bike ride away.

 

Besides my University of Alabama cap and a smile, I always traveled with my iPhone, eager to document the journeys. Here are some of my favorite photos from 2020. Hope you enjoyed riding "shotgun."

Remember: Life, enjoy the journey.

Always...

ANTIETAM, MD.: A misty early morning at Bloody Lane.

FRANKLIN, TENN.: A dog named "River" at grave of 20th Tennessee Colonel Bill Shy.

PERRYVILLE, KY.: The lone witness tree remaining on the battlefield.

GETTYSBURG: 27th Connecticut monument in The Wheatfield.

BRENTWOOD, TENN.: Abandoned antebellum farmhouse of slaveholding family.
(READ/SEE MORE.)

PERRYVILLE, Ky.: View advancing Confederates had on Henry Bottom's farm.
(READ/SEE MORE.)

ANTIETAM: An epic carved eagle atop New York monument.

ANTIETAM, MD.: Reenactors in the Bloody Cornfield.

SHILOH, TENN.: Battlefield marker denoting burial location for 28th Illinois fallen 
atop ancient Indian mound. The dead were later moved to Shiloh National Cemetery.

BRENTWOOD, TENN: A mural depicting in a tony subdivision depicting the capture
of Confederate Colonel Edmund Rucker on Dec. 16, 1864. 

CHICKAMAUGA, GA.: Michigan monument.

MILL SPRING, KY.: Coins left at Confederate mass grave. (READ MORE.)

NASHVILLE, TENN.: A massive battlefield witness tree, toppled in a storm, and my
 brother-in-law/bike riding pal, Nels Jensen. (SEE/READ MORE.)

BRENTWOOD, TENN.: Locked door of slave cabin. (READ/SEE MORE.)

FRANKLIN, TENN.: Confederate monument in the town square. 

CHICKAMAUGA, Ga.: Bullets in bas-relief on an Ohio monument.

CHICKAMAUGA, GA.: 125th Ohio monument on Snodgrass Hill. 

GETTYSBURG: Union General Philip Kearney, killed at Chantilly (Va.) on Sept. 1, 1862,
 depicted in bronze on a New Jersey monument.

MURFEEESBORO, TENN.: Shadow play with relic hunter Stan Hutson
at Lunette Negley at Fortress Rosecrans site. (READ MORE.)

BURKITTSVILLE, MD.: Union General William Franklin's headquarters. (SEE MORE.)

NASHVILLE: Shy's Hill, taken by the Federals on Dec. 16, 1864.

BRICE'S CROSS ROADS (Miss.): A grave in a cemetery overrun during the battle.
(READ MORE.)

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-- My favorite photos of 2017, 2018 and 2019.
-- Have something to add (or correct) in this post? Email me here.