Tales from the road: His love for history knows no bounds

Glen Echo on the Battle Ground Academy campus.

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My history-minded pal Jack reminds (loosely) of Mikey from the old Life commercial. Showing the same enthusiasm as that little kid lapping up that cereal, he embraces almost any Civil War excursion, no matter how out of the way or bizarre.

Jack and I recently visited the Snow Hill
battlefield 45 miles east of Nashville.

On a recent weekend, we reveled in a trip to the obscure and unheralded Snow Hill battlefield in the wilds of Middle Tennessee. Several years ago, we two history nerds looked at each other, gobsmacked, while examining documents from the 1859 John Brown trial in archives in Charles Town, West Virginia. And, of course, the piece de resistance of our Civil War adventures was that time he put me under a hypnotic spell at dawn at Fort Granger in Franklin, Tennessee.

“Don’t come back clucking like a chicken,” Mrs. B told me that morning at 5 from under the comfy confines of warm blankets. Mrs. B, of course, desperately hopes some of Jack rubs off on me. He’s a neat freak like my dad, “Big Johnny.” (R.I.P.) I lean toward slovenly behavior. The technical word for this condition is “slob.”

Glen Echo historical marker

Anywho, on Saturday morning, following a hearty breakfast — Jack didn’t pay this time, so it didn’t taste as good as one when he does — we went on a whirlwind, 4 1/2-hour history tour. All of this immersion came within 10 or so square miles north of Franklin.

After examining some rando historical markers, we explored an antebellum mansion called Glen Echo in the middle of the Battle Ground Academy campus. “Look here,” Jack says, thrusting a finger toward a historical marker in front of the impressive, two-story brick structure.

“In 1862, General Don Carlos Buell’s Federal Army could be seen from the back porch as it marched to Shiloh,” reads the sixth sentence. For us, this was a moment worthy of a half-dozen goosebumps.

Prehistoric Native American mound in Primm Park in Brentwood, Tennessee.

Then we visited the 1864 Hollow Tree Gap battlefield — a “battlefield of the mind” smack-dab among apartment complexes, retail and other suburban schlock. Next, we explored log slave cabins on the old Primm farm, a circa-1832 schoolhouse, a prehistoric Native American mound and two brick slave cabins on the Ravenswood plantation.

Restored slave cabins on old Primm Farm.

During these history excursions, Jack often dispenses, scattershooting style, historical facts and figures, a small percentage of which are actually useful. When he does, I typically look at him as you may look at someone while listening to Pink Floyd’s “The Dark Side Of The Moon” under the influence of THC gummies.

“Did you know that if the Spanish Armada hadn’t happened the world would be so different?” he blurted (I think).

Of course, we completed this sojourn with visits to a farmer’s market, where I briefly considered the purchase of (funny) mushroom-infused coffee; an Amish store, where the owner showed us a “slave wall” bordering a creek; ANOTHER battlefield (Knob Gap); and a tony residential neighborhood where the Union Army constructed massive earthworks.

Oh, we also stopped at ANOTHER rando historical marker, this one for “Wheeler’s Raid Around Rosecrans.”

Thank you, Mikey… err … Jack for your enthusiasm for history. Let’s keep it alive.