Atlanta

Work took me to Atlanta for two weeks. Over the weekend I visited some local sites.

Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park



Kennesaw Mountain with Visitor Center and Cannon

Here Sherman fought Johnston in the Atlanta Campaign. He could not prevail in direct attacks, so he outflanked the Confederates, and went on to take Atlanta. Kennesaw Mountain was designated a national battlefield in 1917.

At 1,808 feet, Kennesaw Mountain is the highest point in the core metropolitan Atlanta area. Its park setting and network of roads and paths attract many walkers and joggers. When I arrived around nine o'clock the main parking lot was already full, so I went to a secondary lot. The elevation gain from the Visitor Center to the summit is 657 feet, making for a pleasant 1.1 mile morning walk, but I took the shuttle bus as my time was limited. Kennesaw Mountain lacks the solitude and vistas of the Sierra Nevada. People were all about. On this overcast and hazy day I could not see across the flatlands to Atlanta.


Oakland Cemetery

Of the some 6,900 soldiers buried in the Confederate section of the cemetery, about 3,000 are unknown. Such was the horror of the Civil War. Sixteen Union soldiers were somehow interred in this section.

The grave site of Margaret Mitchell, author of Gone With the Wind, is popular with photographers.

Margaret Mitchell Grave Site

I chanced upon the grave of a man drowned in the Chagres River of Panama at age twenty. I would guess that he worked on the canal construction, and drowned somewhere between Cruces and Chagres. A long stretch of the river for sure, most now under Gatun Lake.

Update: On the Internet I found his obituary, published in the Panama Canal Record:

Gordon Burton Smith, of Atlanta, Ga., a civil engineer in the employ of the Panama railroad, was drowned in the Chagres River near Gamboa bridge on the afternoon of August 20. He was crossing the river in a native canoe which was swamped. Two laborers who were in the boat with him escaped. Mr. Smith came to the Isthmus on January 30, 1908, and was employed in the Pacific Division until January 18, 1909, when he transferred to the relocation of the Panama railroad. He was 20 years of age. The body was recovered near San Pablo shortly after midnight Sunday, and was shipped to Atlanta, Tuesday, August 24.

Elsewhere:

A Card of Thanks. As friends of the late Gordon Burton Smith, and on behalf of his family, we wish to thank all those who assisted in the search for his body, from the time of his drowning in the Chagres River at Gamboa, on August 20, until the body was recovered at San Pablo on the night of August 22. Louis E. Wilcox, A. R. James. Corozal, August 23, 1909.

Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site

I grew up near Oakland, California, birthplace of the Black Panther Party, which chanted "Off the pig!" Thank God Martin Luther King's call for non-violence as a response to centuries of oppression prevailed.

State Capitol

Outside the capitol are signs, placed by the Atlanta Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy in 1920, describing the fall of Atlanta. General William Tecumseh Sherman's siege was a "reign of terror." His order to evacuate the city was "merciless." Sherman's taking of Atlanta and his subsequent March to the Sea are still controversial. I'm with Sherman on this one. The South started the war by firing the first shot at Fort Sumter. The war they thought would last a few weeks dragged on with no end in sight. Sherman saw that to speed the war's end and save lives in the long run, the infrastructure that supported the troops had to be destroyed. So Georgia howled and South Carolina got it even worse. But Sherman let up on North Carolina, which hadn't been as deep into secession as her sisters. In North Carolina Sherman and Johnston met again in battle. Johnston surrendered to Sherman, and the war soon came to a close.

CNN Center

I'm a Fox News guy myself, at least until Erin Burnett comes on.

Erin. Erin. Erin.