Carnton

We visited the Carnton house in Franklin Tennessee. Constructed in 1826, it has a basement and three floors above ground. It's constructed of red brick but in the restoration process they've painted the front of the house white. The baseboards are of marble throughout the house, and the third floor contains the ballroom and the gentlemen's smoking parlor. The front of the house faces north and you will notice in the picture how the front porch extends some little distance beyond the west side of the house. That was so the family, sitting on the porch to catch the evening breezes, could catch a breeze even if it came from the south by sitting on that end of the porch.

On the back of the house you can see two dormer windows for the third floor. There are also two windows in each end of the third floor. During the Civil War battle of Franklin Carnton served as the hospital for the Confederate army. The battle of Franklin was the bloodiest battle of the Civil War and the floors of Carnton are stained ebony with, the blood of the wounded from the surgery performed in the house.

After the battle the Union having been victorious, gathered their wounded and dead, but the fields were covered with the Confederate dead. The owner of Carnton set aside a portion of the plantation as a cemetery, and they gathered and buried 1,496 soldiers there. At first they marked the graves with wooden markers, but later collected enough money to replace these with stone. To this day the cemetery is well maintained with a wrought iron fence surrounding it. You can read a bit more about Carnton and the battle of Franklin here... http://www.carnton.org/history.htm

The Devil went down to Georgia...

...and my wife went with me. We spent a few days with a good friend in Rome Georgia. Interesting town. Like its namesake in Italy it's built on seven hills. Also three rivers flow into town, two of them join and two rivers flow out of town. Because of the hills and rivers there are no straight streets or roads except in the old downtown area, and that's only for a few blocks. One hill is called Myrtle hill and the cemetery is terraced up the sides of it. Another hill is topped by the clock tower. It has a nine foot diameter clock on each of the four sides, and the tower itself was the original water tower for the city, built in 1871. There is a statue of Romulus and Remus being nursed by the she wolf of Rome Italy myth. This statue is a smaller version of the one in Italy and was given to the town of Rome Georgia by the city of Rome Italy. We also visited the campus of Berry college there. It's the largest college campus in the world with over 26,000 acres. The old mill sets on the campus and is a remnant of the days when the college provided all it's own food. We also toured the Berry mansion, home of the lady that started the college. We were quite fortunate to have a tour guide on our visit. A lady that is a neighbor of our friend, is a member of the old families and has lived there her whole life. She rode along two days and gave us a running commentary of the history, the gossip and the scandals down through the years, identifying houses, buildings and areas by telling their historical significance. It was a fun trip, fun visit, and a very pleasant get-away.