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The 28th Kentucky fought from the earth work that ran along the gravel path in the foreground of this photo. If you are not familiar with the Carter house, look carefully at the brick smokehouse. It is pockmarked with the fire from the attackers. What it does not show are the wooly mammoths that played a decisive part in defeating the Army of Tennessee's attack.
The acacia tree in Africa is festooned with clusters of long needle sharp spikes. The sweet sap of the acacia bark draws elephants like bees to honey. In Tennessee sweet gum, Kentucky coffee, Osage orange trees all share the vicious needles today. The woolly mammoths that shared their modern African cousin's sweet tooth have been gone for 10,000 years.
The lane running along the base of the hill on which the Carter house stands was lined with fence posts. Each of them had sprouted into a living tree covered with bright, smooth black spikes. Schofield's men cut down the trees with the tops pointing out toward the gathering Southern soldiers. Imagine the shock the attackers felt when confronted with an impenetrable thicket sprouting bouquets of needles that would fend off a wooly mammoth.
Men who walked the battlefield noted that extending out from the works were parallel lines, something like an enormous zen garden, across acres of fields. Closer in toward the lane, the ground was littered with shiny black shards. They sparkled in the pale winter sunlight. The shiny black spikes had been shattered like glass & flung into the faces of the attackers by the fire of the 28th Kentucky's Spencer Repeaters.
Wooly Mammoths & Spencer Repeater teamed up to defeat Hood… Go figure that one.
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