DailyHistMaymesterTrip.blog

I woke up at 7:10 AM today. I had my alarm set for 5:50 AM, but I turned it off when it rang and went back to sleep. I was super tired from all of the running that I did yesterday. I skipped breakfast, but drank some coffee before leaving the hotel. We left at around 8:02 AM today for the Chattanooga battleground, but made a pit-stop at a gas station at 9:10 AM for water and snacks. The gas station had a dunkin donuts as well, so some of us went in to get some donuts and coffee.

We were driving to the Chattanooga battleground when we crossed a ginormous fireworks supermarket. I thought I should add this into my blog because having new experiences is another part of a maymester like this one. I had seen firework shops before, but none of them were this glamorous.

We reached the Chattanooga battlegrounds by 12:00 PM and the first thing we seen was different cannons on display. They showcased the different styles of cannons used in the battle, for example, there was a cannon that would shoot 6-pound cannon balls and it would shoot approximately 1650 yards. The inside of the battlefield were a display of all the different Confederate generals and a small description of what they did in the war. There were abstracts that showed us how this military park was created. Veterans of the war took up the cause of memorializing the men and military units that fought at Chattanooga and Chickamauga. Farther on we learned that railroads made Chattanooga indispensable and very important. Whoever controlled Chattanooga controlled long distance travel and got better access to supplies. The picture above shows how slaves back then were sold. Very horrifying examples that really makes you think how their life was like back then.

The military park got cooler as we went farther into the history because they had a whole room full of guns. Starting from the pre-civil war era to the start of the world wars, This showcases technological advancement of warfare as time went on. The guns started of very long, slow, and combative. But, as we got to the end of the civil war, the guns turned into very dangerous and fast action weapons. The transition explains why more casualties occurred at the end of the war. Soldiers got better at shooting cannons and guns, also the technology for guns also got better to where they could shoot more than one round at a time.

We left the Chattanooga battlegrounds at 1:00 PM and went to look for a place to have lunch. After driving around for maybe 25 minutes we finally found a good spot with 3 different fast food restaurants: Panda Express, Chic-filet, and McDonald’s. Mostly everybody went to chic-filet, but I went to McDonald’s and got me a large fry with a medium caramel frappe. On the way to lunch, we went through some nice mountain ranges that were used by the Confederates to block in the union army. I thought it would be good to include that into my blog.

We made our way to the lookout mountain and somehow luckily made our way to the very top. The roads to the top were very windy and scary. I know they gave everybody on the bus a scare because I heard screams and hushed voices all throughout it, also I had goosebumps the whole time. I want to give a huge thanks to our awesome bus driver Greg for driving such flawlessly through those impossible roads. For perspective, I would not even drive a car on that road let alone a 45 foot long bus that is almost 10 foot wide. Even so, Greg made it up to the mountain and back with out a problem. We could not find a good spot to take a picture of the view because either it was private property or it would cost money. We finally found a place that was on sale so we quickly went on the back porch and took some pictures and made our way back to the bus.

After we carefully, made our way down the mountain I was able to take a picture of the whole mountain. This mountain is important because it was used by the Confederate forces in the civil war to box in the Union forces. This mountain gave great advantage to the forces on the top because they were able to see their enemies way before their enemies could see them. The Union forces under Rosecrans were stuck here without supplies, until Grant came in with more fresh troops and supplies. This mountain was a very important part of the battles in the civil war.

Here is an old Choo Choo train that played a very important role in the battles. The only forms of transportation during the civil war was walking, horseback, horse-carried carriage, trains, or boats. The trains were the big reason why both the Confederate forces and the Union forces wanted to have control of Chickamauga and Chattanooga. The train tracks that were found in here was what allowed the trains to bring in more supplies and troops.

Here is a picture of what the inside of an old train station would look like. Brings back those Harry Potter memories, but the important thing here is preserving and modifying important part of our history. The fact that this place has been preserved even after so long is a very great point on its own because we do not use trains as a means of transportation anymore in America. Even though, there are some companies that are trying to increase the technology in transportation via trains, there are still other modes that are better.

After our little visit to the train station, we went to the river to get a good look of the olden boats that would have been used during the civil war for transportation of supplies and people. We got a chance to take a walk there and look around to learn and experience new parts of life. After our visit to the river, we made our way to the hotel that we will be staying at today. We arrived at the hotel at 6:00 PM, and we checked in, got settled, and went to eat after 30 minutes. We ate at a pizza place nearby and afterwards got ready for bed by 9:00 PM.