Reporting from TN (long ass post)..

So, I’m in TN and the visit with my aunt is going quite well. To be honest, I can’t wait to get back home. I miss my bed and such.

Christmas as great. I reconciled with my father and sisters, so the holiday was especially nice. My younger sister looks absolutely adorable pregnant. She has that glow. My other sister looks horrible. I wish she’d start taking care of herself, but what can we do. She’s going to live her life the way she wants.

I spent Christmas Eve at my father’s and then Christmas Day at my mom’s. It was exhausting and wonderful. Everyone loved the gifts I bought them and it was so much fun to watch them opening their gifts. I love that part of Christmas. It takes me forever to pick out gifts for people and I just love when I hit it on the head perfectly. I bought my mom a gorgeous silver watch and I couldn’t wait to give it to her. She told me months ago that she wanted one, so all I did was hope that she didn’t buy it for herself. She didn’t.

Of course, I was spoiled as usual. I mostly get things I need, but some surprises were thrown in. I got the following presents:

• a new digital camera
• a wok
• Japanese cooking ingredients
• a cheese serving set in a Tuscan theme
• a vacuum
• house phones
• clothes
• gift cards
• books
• food processor
• a deep large skillet
• makeup
• closet organizers
• two beautiful rings
• a wine rack
• wine

I think that’s it. I’m totally spoiled and I should be ashamed of myself, but I’m not really. I gave $100 to St. Jude’s and $100 to American Cancer Society for Christmas. I also bought toys for Toys for Tots and I even bought a whole food order for a family in need. I think I did more than most people, so I shouldn’t feel too guilty about the gifts I received.

So, yesterday my mom, my aunt, and I drove an hour to Franklin, TN to see the Carlton Plantation and the McGavock Confederate Cemetery. I had just finished reading the book Widow of the South and was so moved by it that when I heard that I was only an hour from where this novel takes place, I had to see.

The book is fiction and based on the famous Battle of Franklin and Carrie McGavock, at the end of the American Civil War. I’m not a huge Civil War buff, but reading this book and now seeing that place…I find the subject to be highly fascinating.

Anyhow, the Battle of Franklin was a huge blow to the Confederates. Of the 10,000 casualties, theirs counted for 7,000. You see, one of the Confederate generals decided that he would get together 22,000 troops for a full frontal assault on the Federal Army, whose numbers were about 23,000. The battle only lasted 5 hours and more people died in those hours than in any other battle in U.S. history. This includes those who died on the beaches of Normandy. The battle is also unique in that it was fought mostly at night and there was much close range and hand-to-hand combat. Crazy, huh?

There was a plantation house less than a mile from this battle, named Carnton. This is where most of the book takes place. The house was used as a field hospital and at one point there were about 300 injured men in the house. Amputations were done in the downstairs parlor and the removed limbs were thrown out the window. It was rumored that there was a huge rotting pile of limbs in the backyard and piles of bodies in the garden. You can still see blood stains in the upstairs bedrooms of the plantation house. You can see the outline of buckets and there is one spot where it looks like a doctor was standing and the blood was just dripping off onto the floor. It’s a huge circle with drops everywhere.

Two years after the battle, the field where roughly 2,000 soldiers were buried in shallow graves was in danger. Many of the grave markers were being used for firewood and some of the bones were being dug up by animals, so the McGavocks (the family that owned Carnton) deeded two acres of their land to be used as a Confederate cemetery. It took three weeks to move the bodies and each was put in a pine box and buried in a numbered plot in the cemetery. A book was kept with the list of names. This book is still in the house. Amazingly, they were able to identify 60% of the bodies.

Word started getting out about this cemetery and letters started pouring in, families asking about their sons, husbands, fathers, etc. The first family members started showing up about 3 years after the cemetery was completed and from then on, Carrie McGavock (the woman the book Widow of the South is about) would go out to the cemetery with the families and mourn with them. And when the families couldn’t find their loved one, she would still mourn. They say she mourned for all of the unknown soldiers because they had no one else to mourn them. This is why they called her Widow of the South.

What a story! I took some pictures of this place and I hope you enjoy them. And you should really go visit this interesting place in our history. It’s quite remarkable that the place is still very much intact and preserved.

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The front door of Carnton.

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The back porch of Carnton. It’s said that 4 Confederate generals lay on this porch dead.

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A better picture of the back porch.

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The foundation where the old house used to be and the smokehouse. When the big house was built, they made the old house into the kitchens. It was destroyed when a tornado hit it in the early 1900’s.

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Another view of the porch and smokehouse.

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The slave quarters.

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The spring house where they kept perishables like eggs, milk, and fruit. The water would come up about 2 feet and the evaporation would keep these items fresh longer.

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Cemetery sign.

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Carrie (Widow of the South) and John McGavock’s headstone.

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The family cemetery.

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Confederate Cemetery sign.

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The cemetery.

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Information about the cemetery.

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One of the markers indicating which company is buried there. The cemetery is organized by the company of state for which the men buried fought.

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Another marker.

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A nice picture of the cemetery with the house behind it.