Visitation to the Widow of the South

[BenAliGtor]

Cut my vein and I will bleed Federal blue but..

..one cannot even think of, let alone walk the battlefields of, that last part of 1864 in Tennessee without admiring the valor of the common soldiers of the Army of Tennessee. To the point of tears, really. So many brave and good soldiers wasted because of Hood's recklessness. I'd be the last to question Hood's personal courage in battle, but he was a ravaged man (in body, mind, and spirit) who should have never been given command of that army.

[SonjaJeanius]

What this says to me is that in the the middle of all the killing and bloodshed, one woman and her house staff took a stand for caring.

[TheSunkenGrave]

@mwgroves1961 The secessionist commissioners stated most emphatically and clearly in trying to convince other slave holding states to join the Confederacy that they seceded from the Union because of Lincoln's threat to slavery. That point was driven home time after time, speech after speech in the months leading up to the Civil War. These very same men changed their tune after the war. I think both sides were wrong personally.

[beretta1342000]

Carrie McGavock is very pretty in her potrait. She had five children and only two survived to adultedhood. I'll tell you somebody I find intresting is Adecilia Acklen who built Belmont. She had a very sad history. She also was one of the richest women in the US.

[TheSunkenGrave]

Did you know that Carrie McGavock's daughter had a birthday party where all the guests signed their names and Adelicia Acklen's daughter was one of the attendees? One of the guides at Carnton told me that. Belmont was designed by Adolphus Heiman who is buried directly across from the Acklen Mausoleum at Mount Olivet Cemetery. Heiman is buried beneath the Confederate Memorial in Confederate Circle. Also, the statue called "The Peri" is in the mausoleum. It was originally in Belmont.

[jwoodswce]

There were important lessons learned about reconciliation from the Civil War and its aftermath. Some of which, such as civil rights, took over a hundred years to be realized.

Yet, there are conflicts without reconciliation in the world today which are rooted in causes hundreds of years old.

It would be good for our State Department to study, apply, and teach those lessons.

[TheSunkenGrave]

I have always lived close to battlefields most of which are not preserved.  Always an interesting study to find out what happened and why especially being so far removed in time.

[TheSunkenGrave]

... there are reports from other civilians both male and female who aided the wounded during and after the battle and sacrificed life and limb to do so. Carrie had a big, nice house though so I guess that is why her story is told more.

[Rhonda9]

The unsung heroes are the ones that could have told the most unique stories.

[Rhonda9]

The more details you've brought to this story the more fascinating it has become.

[TheSunkenGrave]

One of the books I have read is titled *Eyewitnesses to the Battle of Franklin.* Soldier and civilian eyewitnesses are quoted from every stage of the battle and afterward. What I don't buy are some of the ones where someone quotes a high ranking officer who was shot and about to die in the height of the battle. They seem to ALWAYS say something profound which I think is BS. This is typical of all Civil War battles. Everyone that got killed said something profound.

[Rhonda9]

TheSunkenGrave, Better to remember them in that way then to be remembered screaming.

No matter what rank they were, they must have screamed in pain. In many cases no one could hear through the noises and the confusion and so it must have been rare to even have brief conversation at all.

[TheSunkenGrave]

Consider the death of Gen. John Adams (CSA). After his grand heroics after getting shot in the chest and then both legs the Federals take him to the cotton gin and give him water. "You're too brave to die," they say to the enemy General. He says "Tis the duty of a soldier to die for his country." He dies. Very well. They took him to the Cottin Gin but the Cottin Gin area was the very area where it is reported that men's ears were bleeding from the concussion of musketry and cannon.

[TheSunkenGrave]

It may be in bad taste but there is definitely a comedy video to be made here! Oh Jeez, the comedic wheels of my mind are starting to turn.

[SoBelleofTN]

I don't think that a comedy type video would be in good taste at all, especially of this place where so many died a horrible death. There are many of us here in Tennessee, who had ancestors who fought in that terrible battle so long ago. Carnton House, was full of men who where dying or badly wounded. They were the lucky ones, so many still lay beneath the sod who's bodies were never found. May they rest in eternal peace!

[dubiousgansta]

The Civil War, man, what a time, Rhonda and I went for a tour at a civil war re-enactment here, and no matter what side U were on, the blood was 10 fold on both sides. "hospitals," were nothing more than "saw" mills, cutting off damaged limbs. Sustaining a wound was almost certain death, and a gruesome one at best.

[TheSunkenGrave]

Hey Dubious one. I think the war I would have liked to be in the least would have been WWI. They would lose 100,000 just to move forward six inches.

[dubiousgansta]

So true and so very horrid, the interesting thing about that war is, I don't think it would have ended had it not been for just about everyone deathly sick from influenza, still, I think the Civil War keeps the title as most casualties in all those wars combined.

[TheSunkenGrave]

It holds the record for American casualties but the loss of life in both WWI and WWII both far exceeded that of the Civil War. I think just the battle of the Ardenne in WWI had 600,000 casualties. Mind boggling.

[Largo64]

Yet the Civil War over all claimed more American lives than all America's other wars put together, including WWI and WWII. The death toll on both sides at the end of the War Between The States was more than 600,000. That's not total casualties. That's dead. It's the greatest tragedy in American history.

[TheSunkenGrave]

There are battlefields all over the place in this vicinity. There is something about Franklin though that makes it stand out as particularly cold and brutal. The tour guides there do not sugarcoat it either.

[robbyfan7]

I told a Civil War class last year and I wrote about the Battle of Franklin (not the first battle, but the second one) and they have a video telling the story about it and I knew about the hatered between the North and South, but after I watched that video, I never realized how much hatered there was. It really put it into perspective. Actually I think the word hatered is an understatement. I am planning on a trip to Franklin in March and I am really looking forward to it.

[Rhonda9]

I found the smokey battle images in the background chilling. That was a noble woman - Carry McGavick. Imagine the emotional heaviness and sadness that they must have felt. That 5 hours probably felt like forever for the soldiers who fought that battle. So sad.

[TheSunkenGrave]

Hi Rhonda. They said that Carrie was kind of nondescript prior to the battle but her actions gave her a "purpose" and certainly a legacy. The house was under an artillery barrage as the Confederate ranks were passing during their approach to the Federal main line. They recently unearthed an unexploded hotchkiss shell just six inches from the house.  Carrie did not have to stay but did....

[TheSunkenGrave]

...She, of course, was always priviledged and always had the finest of everything. Her dress became stained with blood and she cut up her other dresses for much needed bandaging. She did not complain. The actual battle front, though, was simply a surreal hellish scene. It was hand to hand combat at night. Some wound up fighting with axes and picks. You could not see for the darkness and smoke so you never knew if the one rushing toward you was friend or foe...

[TheSunkenGrave]

.. just flashes of guns lit the night where one could detect movements. Most of the 10,000 casualties were from close range fire, many from cannister and grapeshot. Some of the dead found had over 100 bullet holes in them. Some of the bodies just fell apart. The Carter House museum has various bones unearthed where that was all that was left from people who basically "exploded." It was absolutely brutal and obscene what happened there.

[Rhonda9]

I don't think many of us can ever imagine what it would be like to see such a psychotic scene of brutal battle with hand to hand combat of axes and picks, without being emotionally scarred for life. It is simply too gruesome to imagine the terror of it.

War is such a horrible waste.

[Rhonda9]

This is an example of how a person can discover the very best of themselves when the most precarious situation presents itself.

One can discover strengths/bravery unbeknownst prior to the experience.

She sounded like a true hero, in every regard. Imagine the terror and tension that permeated that atmosphere without any relief.

[TheSunkenGrave]

There is a YT video about Carnton with the author of Widow of the South and he said one of the points of the book was to show how facing adversity can overcome it and it ultimately transforms them into a better person. Personally, and I hope this is not a knock on Carrie MCGavock in any way because she was brave, but I'm not sure she was any more brave than so many other civilians in virtually every other battle who did the same....

[Rhonda9]

It sounds as if she was far more compassionate than vain and far more giving than self-serving. She remained and endured. She had the good character to continue under untenable circumstances.