August 14, 2016
Battlefield stories
Our first stop of the day was at the Fort Donelson battlefield, just a mile or two from the hotel in Dover where we stayed last night. Fort Henry has been submerged by Kentucky Lake, but Fort Donelson was situated above the Cumberland River and has not been submerged by Lake Barkley.
As soon as we entered the battlefield park we encountered a jogger who had just run up from the fort to the top of the hill whether park entrance is located. We asked him if it was worth riding down the steep hill to see the fort and he highly recommend it. He told us that his great-grandfather had been captured at the battle of Fort Donelson and spent several months in a Yankee prison before being released in a prisoner exchange. His great-grandfather later survived the battle of Chickamauga. Although a quarter of the Confederate participants in Chickamauga were killed or wounded, those were probably better odds than remaining in prison.
Prisoner exchanges were common in the first year of the war. After the Union started enrolling African American troops, president Davis announced that black troops and their white officers would not be exchanged and the exchanges ground to a halt. Another possibility is that because the North had a larger supply of manpower, it was in the North's interest to block exchanges.
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While we were strolling around the battlefield a woman named Shirley Knight came up to us and shared some interesting stories about the battlefield with us. Since 2004 the battlefield has been home to a nesting pair of bald eagles named Jack and Lizzy, named after two residents of Dover who's sons were killed by Yankees after the surrender of Fort Donelson. Jack (the human) became a sniper and killed many Union officers to avenge his sons.
Jack and Lizzy (the eagles) have raised an amazing 21 offspring. I asked if the children are still in the area, but Shirley told us they must be separated from the adults by many miles to give them enough room to establish their own nesting territory. One year as an eaglet was just learning to fly a storm prevented it from returning to the nest. The eaglet spent 2 days clinging to a branch, refusing to move. Jack tried to coax the eaglet into moving by dropping a fish under the branch where the eaglet was perched.
After many hours the eaglet decided to drop down and eat the fish. At that very moment an owl decided it was going to enjoy the fish and both the eaglet and the owl landed at the same time. The adult owl could have handled the eaglet, but Jack had been waiting and watching the whole time. Jack chased off the owl and there was a happy ending for all birds involved.
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Another story Shirley told us was about the residents of Dover after the area was occupied by Union forces. In an effort to get the Yankees to leave, the residents started setting fire to buildings. The Union officers gave orders to the troops to just let the buildings burn. A soldier from Connecticut saw the Methodist Church burning and could not help rushing inside to save a Bible from burning. He kept the Bible and recently his grandchildren returned it to the Dover Methodist Church.
From Fort Donelson we continued south along the Cumberland River. An interesting sight was the TVA power plant in Cumberland City. A system of conveyor belts can offload coal from barges on the Cumberland and a second system of conveyor belts can offload coal from railroad cars.
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Although the scenery was beautiful, there is not much to report for the rest off the day. A service location that we had been planning to stop out had burned down a few weeks ago, so we had a very hilly stretch of about 30 miles with no services. By then it was getting hot and we just pressed on to our destination in Dickson.
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