Stones River Battlefield and Cemeterys

We got up this morning with one of us having back trouble (it wasn't the blogger).  I guess he must have walked too many Nashville miles yesterday.  We pumped him full of aspirin and waited for the pain to subside.  Eventually, he was able to walk upright with minimal pain.  Then we headed south of here to Stones River National Battlefield.   We had been here briefly about 30 years ago but didn't remember much, if anything about it. 

We saw two policeman directing traffic to allow people attending this enormous church on this Sunday morning.  I don't think I would want to attend a church that big.

This is the church.  It had a generic name so I don't know what denomination it was.

Stones River was a battle fought for control of the transportation  center of Nashville.  Nashville was a railroad hub and the rivers flowing through provided important routes of transporting troops and supplies.  Both the north and south wanted to control Nashville.

Civil War Re-enactors  demonstrated how cannons fired.  The north had 58 cannons as compared to the south only having less than 30.   That was a number that the south could not overcome and were defeated at Stones River.

There were 81,000 soldiers and 23,000 causalities...one out of three were killed.  It was one of the bloodiest battles of the war.  The national cemetery attached to the battlefield contains 6,000 Union soldiers of which 2,500 were unidentified.  No Confederate soldiers are buried in this cemetery.  Following the battle, both Union and Confederate dead were quickly buried on the field.  In 1865 soldiers of the 111th US Colored Infantry dug up the bodies and reburied the Union soldiers in the National Cemetery.   The Confederates were buried in Evergreen Cemetery in Murfreesboro.

The shorter markers indicate an unknown soldier.

This is the Hazen Brigade Monument.  The men of this brigade lost over 400 men in the battle.  The survivors did not want the world to forget.  In 1863 soon after the battle, Hazen's men built this monument.  It is one of the oldest Civil War memorials.

These two markers are for soldiers from Illinois.

In the afternoon we drove to two cemeteries to see the graves of some country music stars.  We had a book that showed the cemeteries and the location of the graves but even with that, it was still hard to find the actual marker.  

As we were walking through the cemetery we came across this marker.  We didn't recognize the name but the monument was so large and unusual that I decided to take a picture.  Then we saw a sign explaining who the Odom Family was.

This statue of a little boy was a part of the monument.

The Odom Family founded the Tennnessee Pride Meat Company.

The little boy is part of the company's logo.

This monument was my favorite.  It is simple but beautiful.

According to Ferlin Husky's marker, he was a part of D-Day in World War II.

Johnny and June Carter Cash.

The day started out rainy and cloudy but before noon, the sun had come out and it was a beautiful day.  We enjoyed the Civil War history at Stones River.  We also enjoyed walking through the two cemeteries we visited.

We got back to camp at 5:00.  Sandy was so happy to see us.  It has been a long two days for her.  Tomorrow, we only have 175 miles to drive but a lot of it is on two-laned highways so the travel will be slow.  The weather forecast is for rain all day.  I hope it is wrong.

 I almost forgot to mention that today we ate at MacDonalds for lunch in Hendersonville.  Carol doesn't like MacDonalds (although he meets his friends for coffee at the local one nearly every week).   Apparently, he likes coffee from MacDonalds but not the food.  Anyway, when we travel, we usually eat at one MacDonalds and today was that day!