April 22, 2007 – Will you hide the dead man's ghost? Or will he lie beneath the clay?

Tomorrow, I leave Atlanta. My time here was short, but that was mainly because I was a little unimpressed with the town itself. Julie was awesome to take me in for the weekend and I got to see an old friend that I haven’t seen in almost ten years. (For the record and for those who know him, Ben found himself a super-cool wife and has a great house just outside of Atlanta. It was good to see him again.)

Yesterday I did the Battle Ground tour, which ended up being lots and lots of hiking. Accidental hiking. Sometimes that’s the best kind.

I started out at the visitor’s center…where I couldn’t find a parking place. There were SO MANY people picnicking and hanging out on the fields that every parking spot was all locked up.

So, instead of getting any kind of information about the park, I ended up just driving around and guessing what was a battle ground for a bit.

Luckily, I came around to the visitor’s center again from another way and found more parking spots. I was getting nowhere driving around blindly.

(No idea what happened here. But just about any field around Atlanta has history to it, so here it is.)

The visitor’s center had a little museum all about the end of Sherman’s March that ended in him losing at Kennesaw Mountain and finally burning Atlanta to the ground. (Ok, it actually ended in him NOT burning Savannah to the ground because he had a girlfriend there, but that’s beside the point.) There was a guy there who walking talking (very loudly) about how loved Sherman is around Atlanta.

Yeah. Sarcasm wasn’t lost. Too bad he was being really obnoxious about it.

It did, however, get me thinking about Sherman and his march through the South. I understand the concept behind laying waste to the armies as you go, but did he really have to burn cities to the ground? He and his men killed basically everyone in their way. And then, when he finally got to Atlanta, he told the women and children to get out of town and burned the entire city down, ignoring whether the building was military or private. A whole city gone.

Anyway, I hiked a bit behind the center. But Kennesaw Mountain was a mile or so away and I didn’t really feel like hiking that far straight up. And the road going up there was closed for some reason. Only the tour buses were allowed up there.

So, instead of the battle field where hundreds of Americans died and Sherman’s army had their worst loss, I saw an obelisk.

I drove around for a bit and found where Pigeon Hill, Kolb’s Farm and Cheatham Hill were. I don’t remember too much about what happened on all of these fields, but the Confederate Army didn’t do as well on them as they did on top of the Mountain.

I hiked a little bit thinking that Pigeon’s Hill wasn’t too far away. But, apparently I went the wrong way. I ended up heading towards Cheatham and Kolb’s. Oops. Cheatham was 2.6 miles away. No WAY was I going to hike that far because once you hike that far…you have to hike that far back.

But once I started, I couldn’t stop. I ended up going the whole way, mainly because I knew that I might not get to see another actual battle ground. Of course, before I got to Cheatham…I hit Dallas Highway! Bastards! Not only did I have to cross it (and it was busy), but I could have fucking driven there!

Well, I wasn’t turning back now. I went ahead and ran across the street and finally saw it.

Just thinking about all of the men who died on these beautiful fields made me feel a little queasy. War is the stupidest thing that humans do. And it can always be avoided if the people on both sides would just listen to each other. Unfortunately, that is the one thing that about 90% of people either can’t do or are completely unwilling to do.

Seeing the cannons in the earthworks (that Texans built for the Confederates, by the way…great. One more thing we did wrong) was pretty cool. I was able to actually touch them where they were 150 years ago. Generals Cheatham and Cleburne probably touched these cannons. It was very strange.

(A view from the cannon.)

I hiked by ass back to my car and was pretty damn tired. But, just as I was walking towards my car, I saw a sign on the other side of the road. Yep…there’s Pigeon Hill. Straight up. Sure, only 200 yards…but straight…fucking…….up.

Oh well. When would I get a chance again, right?

So, up I went. I made it almost to the top, but I really only wanted to see the earthworks up there. They were trenches that the Confederates hid in. (The rock in the picture was also in the period picture. Although, the trees are new, because the ones in the picture were burned and broken.)

On the way back to Julie’s place I really took a look at some of the houses near the battlegrounds. I’m not to sure how people could live that close to where so many people died. Sure, they probably don’t think about it, but I would every day. I would feel like they would come into my bedroom at night to push me off of their land or something.

So, yeah, I was a little creeped out by the whole thing, but it was really interesting. And the land is beautiful. To think that so many people died in such a beautiful place was pretty depressing.

In order to get to Ben’s house (who doesn’t really live too far from Julie), I had to pass back through the Kennesaw Park. It was fine going there in the day time, but coming back tonight was, for some reason, really creepy to me. You always hear so much about Civil War ghosts and that sort of thing. As much as I hate to be a pussy about stuff like that, it made me nervous driving through all of that at night. And the fact that Julie’s neighborhood doesn’t have any street lights didn’t help.

You see, I’m a skeptic who wants to believe. I have to see something to believe it…but I don’t WANT to see it. I think it would freak me out too much.

Ok. I’m headed to Athens tomorrow. I’m pretty damn excited about that. The more I read about that town, the more in love with it I am. It’s the sleepy little college town that we all want Austin to be. I’ll let you know what I think. I want to hang out there a couple of days. Unfortunately, that means a hotel room.

Shit.