CWT Chickamauga 2018- After Action Reports

I will have more to post this weekend, but I wanted to share this one with you! Need to do some research and figure out how he was related to us... in our old family cemetery in Collirene, Ala.
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From July - Monday last week,I read 4 books and 3 Blue & Gray Magazines on Chickamauga, Chattanooga, Dalton and Resaca. Tonight, I started reading a book about a small battle in western Arkansas. It was really hard to make myself start reading about something other than the Chickamauga/Chattanooga and Atlanta Campaigns.
 
On my way to Dalton from Chattanooga,I passed the sign and highway intersection leading to Tunnel Hill,GA. I visited there in June 2016 and had planned to do a quick return visit during our tour but wasn't sure when. I decided on the fly to go there after Dalton. The time of my first picture shows that I arrived there about 3:10pm. Spent most of my time there in the Museum. I was with a group of around 25 people on my 2016 visit and there is a good collection of artifacts on display at the Museum but the floor space is a bit small. For a while there last week it was just me in the museum with a lot of room to maneuver. Our group got a deluxe tour of the Railroad Tunnel and Clisby Austin House in 2016 as special guests of the Tunnel Hill Historical Foundation so I took the short version of those tours this time. Total cost ---> $6.00.

Lemme say this as a Civil War Traveler's Companion tip: Even though their website says they are open until 5pm,if you want to take the Railroad Tunnel tour then get there before 4pm. If you just wanna visit the Museum,don't wait until 4:30pm to get there. The last Railroad Tunnel tour started at about 3:45pm and it goes right to the Clisby Austin House afterwards. It was about 4:35ish when we returned to the Museum. I had wanted to go back in the Museum for a few minutes but it was locked. I had seen reviews on TripAdvisor and Facebook to the effect that sometimes they close up shop early with no notice or reasons given but I didn't wanna believe it. I know it's true now because I saw it with my own eyes. As I was leaving James N. and @mkyzzzrdet pulled into the parking lot. I believe they went back on Sunday afternoon after our tour ended.


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Continuing on...what I really like about the Museum at Tunnel Hill is the relics from the building of the railroad tunnel and the Civil War relics that were dug locally at Tunnel Hill and Dalton. There's more but I'm not gonna post all the pics:

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From July - Monday last week,I read 4 books and 3 Blue & Gray Magazines on Chickamauga, Chattanooga, Dalton and Resaca. Tonight, I started reading a book about a small battle in western Arkansas. It was really hard to make myself start reading about something other than the Chickamauga/Chattanooga and Atlanta Campaigns.
Oddly I had no trouble and am about 100 pp. (of 700+) into the G. F. R. Henderson Stonewall Jackson I bought at Adairsville. (Up to Falling Waters in 1861.) But I expect it'll take me a month at least to finish it!
 
On the way to Tunnel Hill during our June 2016 HTBAR tour we passed Rock Spring Church. Our guide that day was Sam Hood and he pointed it out and mentioned that it was historic. There was also a church cemetery there with Confederate flags fluttering everywhere. We were on a tour bus and it killed me to not be able to stop there. :D I circled it's location on a map that we had been given for our tour with the intention of going back some day.
 
When I read Cozzens' This Terrible Sound and my only issue of Blue & Gray Magazine on Chickamauga,Rock Spring Church was often mentioned and was on most of the maps and was on The General's Tour. That did it for me. I went there after Tunnel Hill on our tour last week. None of the 1863 church is still there. Not sure when the current structure was built. There is a historical marker there and the cemetery also. Glad I went. You never know if you don't go.

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Another Confederate Cemetery we visited on Wednesday that has been featured here in the forum before was this one at Resaca on a plot of land a short distance behind the Confederate lines as described on the historical marker below.

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Although most of the graves contain unknown dead, a few have been grouped into sections by state like that marked by the Georgia Monument below.

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Another Confederate Cemetery we visited on Wednesday that has been featured here in the forum before was this one at Resaca on a plot of land a short distance behind the Confederate lines as described on the historical marker below.

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Although most of the graves contain unknown dead, a few have been grouped into sections by state like that marked by the Georgia Monument below.

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Very nice. It was a little misty and overcast when we went there on Friday afternoon and it looked completely different.
 
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Another "attraction" we saw at Resaca was far less satisfying than the cemetery and mainly a waste of an hour or so - the well-preserved but miserably interpreted earthwork called Fort Wayne that had been built by Confederates following the scare of the Great Locomotive Chase or Andrews Raid. Located on a hill near the RR bridge over the river (one the raiders had attempted unsuccessfully to burn) its purpose was to protect the vital bridge and link between Chattanooga and Atlanta.

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What very few descriptive signs there were had been placed at a kiosk beside the parking area; two of three trail maps within the park had been stolen and the third damaged although not seriously. Unfortunately, these seemed to do nothing but show an outline of the trail itself and your location on it, but provided absolutely NO information as to exactly what you were looking at.

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Dense woods have grown up protecting the fragile earthworks but also masking the scenery making it impossible to understand except in the most general way the layout of the fort or the direction you were looking. The only other feature was this unknown and unexplained gravesite below near the beginning of the trail. The fort was abandoned by companies of the Georgia Militia upon the arrivals in May, 1864 of Sherman's and Johnston's armies. When Resaca was abandoned by the Confederates, Fort Wayne next served as protection for the Union-operated W&ARR and was garrisoned by troops under the command of Brig. Gen. Henry Judah until the war's end in 1865.

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Very nice. It was a little misty and overcast when we went there on Friday afternoon and it looked completely different.
We were here before back in 2014 and visited the tiny Resaca Pocket Park or wayside above and the nearby Confederate Cemetery and drove the short road along the northern portion of the Confederate lines but had to wait until Sunday and the return trip to finally see the Resaca Battlefield Park:

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Peavine Church is also mentioned often and is on the maps in This Terrible Sound and Blue & Gray Magazine. It is close to Rock Spring Church so I went there too. The 1863 church is not there. The current structure is very modern. There is a weathered historical marker and cemetery there. I walked the cemetery a bit. There were no Confederate gravestones or flags. I spotted a coupla Southern Crosses. Didn't stay long. It was getting late in the day and there was one place in Ringgold that I wanted to visit on that beautiful day before it got dark.

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A better picture I downloaded off the web.
 

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… Lemme say this as a Civil War Traveler's Companion tip: Even though their website says they are open until 5pm,if you want to take the Railroad Tunnel tour then get there before 4pm. If you just wanna visit the Museum,don't wait until 4:30pm to get there. The last Railroad Tunnel tour started at about 3:45pm and it goes right to the Clisby Austin House aterwards. It was about 4:35ish when we returned to the Museum. I had wanted to go back in the Museum for a few minutes but it was locked. I had seen reviews on TripAdvisor and Facebook to the effect that sometimes they close up shop early with no notice or reasons given but I didn't wanna believe it. I know it's true now because I saw it with my own eyes. As I was leaving James N. and @mkyzzzrdet pulled into the parking lot. I believe they went back on Sunday afternoon after our tour ended.
Actually, it was on the very next day, Thursday, when we ran into @archieclement, @Booner, and @rebel brit! Unfortunately they had just finished up the tour but Mike and I were given a very full one of the tunnel, Austin House, and reproduction general store.
 
Actually, it was on the very next day, Thursday, when we ran into @archieclement, @Booner, and @rebel brit! Unfortunately they had just finished up the tour but Mike and I were given a very full one of the tunnel, Austin House, and reproduction general store.
That's right. Now I remember you telling me that.
 
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