DailyHistMaymesterTrip.blog

I woke up at 5:30 AM, took a shower, got dressed, drove 45 miles to UAFS campus center from my home in Ozark, Arkansas, and got on the travel bus for my Honors History Maymester trip at exactly 7:20 AM. I was so tired that I went to sleep back and forth throughout the approximately 7 hour long drive from Fort Smith, Arkansas to Nashville, Tennessee.

We stopped at Russellville, Arkansas to change drivers, take a bathroom break, and to get some drinks/snacks for the road. I also bought a blanket from here because I was getting so cold in the bus. I forgot to bring my water bottle so I bought two bottles of ozarka water.

For our second and last stop before we got to our final destination was Memphis, Tennessee. We stopped for some lunch. Most of us got some Taco Bell, McDonald’s, and even Hardee’s. Since I am Muslim, I can only eat halal foods, so the only thing I got was a Mexican veggie pizza. It was really good! It was practically two taco shells with refried beans, cheese, tomato sauce, and some chopped tomatoes. We stopped for almost 25 minutes. It was a two hour drive from here to the Shilo Battlefield at Nashville, Tennessee.

We finally reached the Shilo Battlefield at 3:11 PM. This is a huge historical site, and you can roam around this site for probably a full day and you would still have some spots that you had not visited. There are monuments built all around the site by the states that participated in the battle that happened here at Shilo. This tells you of the what happened from the perspective of the winners or in this case the union army. Shilo battlefield historical site was created by the veterans of the civil war, and the union army.

This was one of the many posters inside of the visiting center, it discloses the number of troops that the Confederates have and the number of troops that the Nationals have. Also gives a count of how many casualties on each side, the number of wounded, and the number reported missing. The visiting center has many other posters that give multiple ‘facts’ related to the history of the war at Shilo, but the amount that we can believe is still difficult to say because we do not really know the other sides perspective. The visiting center also has a theater room of types that plays a civil war related movie. It was a very heart screaming movie and it almost made me cry. I learnt that the confederates sneak attacked the Union Army and had them pretty much scattered with approximately 2300 of the Union soldiers captured. But, the union army was still able to reverse the tables the next day when more of the Union soldiers made it to battle. They took back all territory won by the confederates.

This is one of many different types of cannons found at the Shilo Battlefield. They come many forms and sizes with some being more mobile and some being more deadly. These cannons are located at specific spots to signify what happened during this battle and to show how they were used in the war.

These markers are used to pinpoint the locations of many various battalions in this battle and to also show where and when they attacked. They even go as far as to explain if they were able to fight or not and if they were not then it gives the reason as to why they could not.

Monument built by Iowa, has some quotes and on the opposite side of this photo there is a sculpture of a woman writing something on the monument, I could not read what it said though. Disclaimer, this monument was the biggest of all other monuments that I seen in all of Shilo. It also had a bald eagle sitting on the top as a sculpture maybe signifying the bald eagle as America. The reason I understood to why this monument was biggest out of all other monuments is because Iowa spent more money than all other states did. All of the monuments also explain which battalion fought and if they did not it explains why they did not fight. The monument also names the who is leading the battalion.

Fun fact: Did you know that Ulysses. S Grant went batshit poor after his two terms as being the president. Also, did you know that before he died he remade his wealth by writing his own memoirs.

Fun fact: Did you know that Ulysses. S Grant wanted to teach math at WestPoint before he got into the military. This guy loved math, became a war hero, the president, and was also a fabulous writer. That is pretty amazing.

I know I already did one on the cannons, but we talked more about the cannons later on in the day as well. It took on average 1.5 to 2 minutes for a group to shoot a cannon ball. The rifle back in the civil war took longer to reload than the cannon did because instead of 5 people working together to reload the cannon only one guy was reloading the rifle. Imagine having to tear a paper cartridge to pour the gunpowder down the barrel’s muzzle, inserting a ramrod into the barrel to push the powder and bullet down to the breech, and finally having to shoot a enormously long rifle. It seems very hard.

At the end of the day, we left Shilo battlefield at around 6:00 PM and started making our way towards the hotel that we will be staying at. The Avid hotel which is approximately 2.5 hours away from Shilo Battlefield. We stopped midway at love’s to get some food and to take a bathroom break. I got me a protein bar, a strawberry parfait, and two pepper jack tornados. We made it to the hotel at around 9:10 PM and settled into our respective rooms. Have a good Night!