2023 DC Trip Day 3 – Around Franklin
I continued to find the traffic
congested and confusing, but I eventually made it to my destination –
Carnton mansion and the Battle of Frankin East Front area. This is
the area where three
brigades in Loring's Division made
their assault against the Federal left, supported by Guibor's
Missouri Battery. The attack, over open ground, was enfiladed by
Federal guns in Fort Granger and faced several batteries. The troops
involved, mainly Mississippi boys, advanced from the Carnton area
into a front protected by a thick hedge (Osage orange) abatis.
My first stop was a tour of Carnton, itself. It's very nicely restored, with many original family furnishings.
It also had a formal garden.
The mansion was used as a hospital during and after the battle. Upstairs rooms still hold blood stains from the many amputations carried out by candlelight. Five of the six Confederate generals killed in the battle were laid out on this porch.
The dead were buried near where they fell, and many the shallow graves were marked. In 1866, Carnton's owner donated 2 acres adjacent to the family cemetery for reinterment of the Confederate dead, Over 1200 are buried here, by state and unit (when possible).
The Missouri section holds the remains of 130 men, many unidentified by name.
One of those identified was Capt, Barnett K. Atkinson (or Atkeson or Atkison) of the 3rd & 5th Missouri Infantry, Company G (5th Missouri, Company A before post Vicksburg consolidation). The new granite marker for him, grave 18 in the Missouri section, has the wrong initials!
I took a walking tour of the battlefield guided by a younger gentleman who is directly descended from a Mississippian wounded in that portion of the field. My own great grandfather was Number 4 on a gun supporting that charge.
Tomorrow, it's on to North Carolina, with a stop at Murfreesboro. I had to make some changes in my subsequentplans, so I won't take the Blue Ridge Parkway. However, the revised plan will take me to Wilkes County, where Sandra's Adams ancestors lived, on Saturday.
For the day: 26.4 miles, for the trip: 659.5
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