Rivers, rails, and a Trace

Hasn't all been just great food and music.  Made a brief visit to Hot Springs NP, but the leisure aspect was a little ho-hum.
Hadn't really grasped what a crossroads and focal point Tennessee was until doing research for this trip.  Major rivers, the Natchez Trace, east-west and north south rail lines.  But we first had to cross the Mighty Mississippi...
Our first contact with the Mississippi was in Helena and standing on the levee, we read the historical markers about the Trail of Tears when the tribes from the southeastern US were relocated to Indian territory (Oklahoma) in the 1830s.  Some traveled via water up the Mississippi on barges pulled by paddle wheels, although 300 perished when one of the barges capsized in the river.  Many of the 'civilized tribes' passed along the road we had just driven.

At the exact same point, the Battle of Helena on July 4, 1863 when CSA troops attacked the fortified Union positions along the river and just inland at a redoubt known as Fort Curtis.  The USS Tyler with her guns turned the tide against the Rebs and they were forced to withdraw with significant casualties.

The Union locked down rail and river travel across the South after the Battles at Shiloh and Corinth in 1862 and ultimately Vicksburg.  Transportation was the prize in both conflicts and Grant's success, though costly, surely sealed the CSA's demise.  Shiloh was perhaps most notable for showing both sides the tremendous number of casualties that could be inflicted by determined forces with improving weaponry, a sober predictor of things to come...

The Natchez Trace was the first super highway in US history.  Stretching from Natchez, MS to Nashville, TN, it had been used for centuries prior to its adoption by the boatmen who had come down the Mississippi from the Ohio and headed home, the traders and trappers making their way south and west, Andrew Jackson on his way to war ... etc. etc.
Didn't realize it but one my personal historical heroes, Meriwether Lewis, died and was buried along the Trace while on his way to Philadelphia to edit his report on the Corps of Discovery.  Soph was amazed that he could travel to the northwest and back, but dies on his way from one city to another back in civilization ... that's the early 19th century I suppose.

If you ever have time to travel the Trace, there are numerous interesting pull-outs with historical discussions or displays, but perhaps none as interesting as the traditional tobacco farm, complete with drying barn where the leaves must hang for 4-6 weeks.

 

Smoke 'em if you got 'em, 'cause these won't be ready 'til after Christmas!