Shiloh- Tuesday, July 5, 2011

“Now THIS is what I like about battle- fielding,” exclaimed Julie. We had just arrived at the Shiloh National Battlefield and had spread our blankets on the ground. We were eating bologna sandwiches, fruit and chips that we had picked up at a little grocery store on the way. It was hot, yes, but there was a gentle breeze blowing keeping it from getting unbearable. Most importantly, there were very few people around. It was nothing like the reported 125,000 people that the newspaper said were in downtown Nashville last night. It was just us, on an adventure.

Shiloh is a battlefield that we have never been to before. It’s a very important battle from the early part of the Civil War. Scott had seen the statistics that said there were as many people killed at Shiloh as all the Americans killed in all the wars America had been in up to that point. It was one of Grant’s early victories in the West.

After our picnic, we investigated the visitor’s center. A ranger gave Anna and Emma the workbooks for the Junior Ranger program. They are filled with different activities to complete around the park. Some of the questions they have to answer from exhibits in the visitors center, and some are from the park tour. They had to complete eight of the activities in order to get a Junior Ranger’s badge and certificate at the end of the day.

We also watched the film about the battle that is regularly shown at the visitors center. It’s quite a relic itself, and comes from the 1950s. The narration and music are just like you’d expect from a 1950s era film. The beards look like felt pasted on people’s faces—like the crowd of women at the stoning in Monty Python. The uniforms people are wearing often had no belts or accoutrements of any kind. People were wearing “modern” pants and shoes. This film was made before the centennial of the war. The ranger said that they were working on a new one that should be done in time for the 150th anniversary of the battle, next year.

We bought the CD-tour of the battlefield. Apparently, they changed the numbering of the stops a few years ago, and haven’t updated the CD. A ranger gave us a sheet that translated the “old” system on the CD to the “new” stop numbers on the park map, but it wasn’t well written. Furthermore, the CD didn’t take the stops in order anyway, and the girls had their own lists of stops to see in their Junior Ranger books. Lizzie was no help at all. We had fun though, because it was like a big scavenger hunt.

We saw a large number of monuments, mainly from the Midwestern states and the Confederates. Scott’s favorite monument was the Iowa State monument. It was a tall stone obelisk, but what makes it unique is the addition of a large bronze female figure to one side of the stone. She is posed to look as if she is writing the inscription on the monument. Scott is guessing that she probably represents “History,” or some similar allegorical figure. We saw the Shiloh Church that gave its name to the battle—both the modern church and the nearby recreation of the plain wooden church that was here at the time of the battle. Scott was also interested in seeing the location of the famous “Hornet’s Nest,” where the Union had a defensive position along a sunken road. It’s the most iconic part of the battle.

We departed from the tour route on the CD once or twice. The girls were interested in following their stops in the Junior Ranger books, and the girls wanted them done in order. Anna found a little lizard at one of the stops. His tail was a bright electric blue in color. He was just a little guy and moved very fast. Anna managed to hold him for a little bit. She said his feet felt like little suction cups.

We also took a path to see the Shiloh Indian Mounds. They are mounds left from a Native American village that was in the area around 800 years ago. Scott really wanted to see them to and we started down the path through the woods. He didn’t realize that the park road would also take you there. By the time we got to them, it was getting late, and the girls needed to turn their books in to get their badges before 5:00. We went back to the car and made it back to the visitor’s center in time. At that point we continued with the CD stops. After one particularly confusing bit of directions, we decided it would be best to stop that tour and continue on to Memphis. Scott played some sad Civil War songs on the mandolin, starting with “Shiloh’s Hill,” as we listened to the end of the descriptions and found our way past Pittsburg Landing on the Tennessee River, and out of the park.

We turned Lizzie back on, and followed her directions to Memphis. To find a major road, she actually took us south, into Mississippi, so we added a state to our “life lists” a day earlier than expected. Scott had purchased Paul Simon’s “Graceland,” on iTunes this morning. We played it a few times.
I am following …the highway
Through the cradle of the civil war.
I'm going to Graceland, Graceland,
In Memphis Tennessee.
I'm going to Graceland.
Poorboys and Pilgrims with families
And we are going to Graceland.
My traveling companions are ten and seven years old…
I've reason to believe
We all will be received
In Graceland.
That’s paraphrased a little, of course. When we weren’t listening to that, we were listening to Elvis Radio on Sirius.

We were getting hungry, but there wasn’t any place to eat along the roads that Lizzie was taking us on. We arrived in Memphis around 8, and we were very hungry. We checked into Elvis’s Heartbreak Hotel—no really! It’s adjacent to Graceland. We’ve been staying cheap at the hotels so far, so we’re splurging a little on this one. The room has a kitchenette and a view of the pool. It’s nice, but it isn’t even one of the suites. The “Burning Love Suite” is across the hall from us. We wonder what THAT looks like. There are pictures of Elvis everywhere, including two right in our room. It feels like he’s watching us sometimes.

Anyway, we were getting hungry, so we checked into the Heartbreak Hotel and went to the Jungle Room Bar, where they were serving food and showing a documentary about Elvis. It included shots of Elvis’s car that we saw in Nashville yesterday and the inside of Graceland that we’ll see tomorrow. Scott had Elvis’s favorite thing to eat—a fried peanut butter and banana sandwich, with a cold glass of milk. It’s better than it sounds. Then, of course, the girls went swimming. The ptool is heart-shaped.