One of the best things we did on the trip was see a movie at the Lincoln Museum.  When I was googling today, I came across the official website:

http://www.alplm.org/

And here is some information about the movie.  This doesn’t really do it justice, you have to see it to believe it!  If you’re ever in Springfield, you HAVE to see this:

http://www.alplm.org/museum/ghosts.html

This is the last of the vacation entries for a while.  I mentioned it before, but I’ll mention it again:  we’re taking submissions for the next history tour.  Where do you guys want to go next????

We made it back home at about 10 a.m. this morning.  We turned in the van and had one last lunch together.  I hope everyone had a good time.  We covered a lot of  territory and learned many things (now if we can just keep them straight!).  I will be posting more pictures on Flickr, but this is the last post for a while.  Thanks again for following along on our travels.  Hope you enjoyed it as much as we did!

My camera, not the van.  Consequently I missed the inside of President Benjamin Harrison’s home again.  We were there four years ago and I had some sort of camera issue because I don’t have many inside photos and this is one of the few homes that allow them.

Here’s a photo of the outside of the house:

And here’s a photo of the garden in the rain:

I managed to get one interior shot before the “change battery pack” message showed up but it was blurry.  We had already showed up a little after the hour so I didn’t want to push my luck by asking the tour guide to halt the tour until I could swap batteries (especially since the stupid thing was in the van – along with the other TWO cameras).  Oh well, I guess that means we’ll have to swing by the house again some day!

Here’s a link to the site so you can learn more about the house:

www.presidentbenjaminharrison.org/

Everyone enjoyed this house tour, although I’m still kicking myself for not grabbing an extra battery (or camera) before we started. 

This was the final stop on the history tour.  Tonight we’re in Wisconsin Dells.  We’re heading out early tomorrow morning for the final 200 mile trek home.  Hope you enjoyed following our exploits.  If you can think of a trip to top this one, please let me know.  We’re taking suggestions for the next history tour in 2011.

We started our day at the Henry Clay home in Lexington, Kentucky.  We arrived before the house was open so we had time to wander around the grounds.  Here is some information about the house:

http://www.henryclay.org/ashland-estate/

The house is not the original structure Henry and Lucretia lived in.  That house was demolished and this house built on the same foundation:

After we toured the Clay home, we headed up the road to Mary Todd Lincoln’s home.  There are some original pieces in this house, but photography was not allowed on the inside. 

And here’s the gang on the back porch of the Todd house:

After that, we headed to Cincinnati to the home of President William Howard Taft.  Here’s a shot of the city before we got to the house:

And here is the house:

I have a few interior shots that I’ll post on Flickr.

We’re spending the night in Harrison, Ohio.  Tomorrow we’re heading to Indianapolis in the morning for another presidential home and then we’re done with all the history stuff and it’s down to just driving (or napping if your name is not Mike).

I think the gang is getting a little punchy after so many days on the road, many of them spent in different states throughout the day.  None of us (except Mike of course) can seem to keep track of which state we’re in.

This morning we started from North Carolina and headed through Tennessee into Kentucky, which is where we are tonight (I think).

We only made one stop today, which was the home of President Andrew Johnson.  But it turned out he actually had two homes in Greenville, Tennessee.  Here is the first one:

He lived in this house from some time in the 1830s to the time he became Vice President.  After the assassination of President Lincoln, he became President and then went on to become a Senator (again).  He lived in this house after becoming Vice President and throughout the remainder of his life (he died in 1875):

Here’s the tailor shop he worked in.  It’s located within the National Park building which was built around it to protect it.

The rest of the day was spent in the van.  We tried to make it to Mary Todd Lincoln’s home but we would have gotten there after the tours were over and it started raining, which wouldn’t have made for a fun walk around the grounds so we decided to call it a night.  We went out for dinner and everyone is probably crashing as I write this.

Here are a few shots of the mountains we traveled through today:

We started our day in South Carolina and ended it in North Carolina.

We drove to Columbia this morning to see some Civil War sites.  The first was The First Baptist Church where the Secession Convention met on December 17, 1860.  I didn’t get a picture of the church because it appears the original structure either no longer exists or it’s within the current structure.  We couldn’t really pull over for any length of time so I’m not completely sure what the deal was. 

Next was the Hampton-Preston Mansion: 

Here’s a little information about it from the Historic Columbia Foundation website:

Established as a Union Army headquarters in February 1865, the property survived destruction thanks to the exploits of Sister Bapista Lynch, who implored Sherman to spare the home for use as a temporary convent.

This was also the headquarters for General John (Black Jack) Logan, Commander of the XV Corps.  The Fourth Minnesota was in the XV Corps.

And this is the Maxcy Gregg House:

Maxcy Gregg was an active promoter of states’ rights and signer of the Ordinance of Secession.  Gregg formed the 1st SC Regiment in January 1861.

After leaving Columbia, we headed to the Rose Hill Plantation:

Here’s a little bit about it:

In the days following the election of President Abraham Lincoln, South Carolina Gov. William H. Gist was characteristically blunt: “The only alternative left, in my judgment, is the secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union.”

Today, Rose Hill Plantation State Historic Site interprets the life and legacy of the man history has come to know as the “Secession Governor.”

The son of a Charleston merchant, Gist rose from modest beginnings to be elected governor of South Carolina in 1858.

From there, we started toward North Carolina and our hotel.  Along the way we came across this home:

This is Cross Keys House where Confederate President Jefferson Davis stopped for lunch on April 30, 1865 – as he was fleeing South Carolina.

Apparently I spoke too soon when I commented on our beautiful weather.  Today it rained all day and it was cold.  So there.

We spent most of the day in Savannah, Georgia.  We stopped at a couple of obscure spots where the Fourth camped along the way.  I didn’t get pictures of those, though.  One was a canal that doesn’t have much water left in it, and the other was a location we couldn’t really get to. 

We took a carriage ride around the historic part of Savannah.  The horses are named Sonny and Cher and are shown here:

Here are some of the buildings we saw on the tour.  Sorry, I don’t recall which ones are which.

After our carriage ride, we had lunch at an outdoor cafe.  Here’s the gang afterwards:

Then we walked along the river for a little while.  It was very hot.  I think it hit 90 degrees today.  I almost feel bad since I hear it’s been pretty cold in Minnesota.  Mike says I have to mention that the weather has been perfect for the entire trip.  It was pretty cool this morning, but probably still warmer than the high in Minneapolis for the day.  I’m really trying hard not to rub that in… 

Here are a couple of pictures from the riverfront area:

And finally, a picture of a boat:

Tomorrow we’re planning to end up in North Carolina, which will be the 48th state Mike and I have been to.  We’re pretty much done with the Fourth Minnesota at this point.  They did not fight at Gettysburg, but they did march in a parade in Washington D.C.  We’re not including that as part of this tour though.  We’ve been as far east as we’re going, so today starts us on our way back toward home.

I probably should have called yesterday’s post Crossing Alabama, since we didn’t really cross Georgia (or maybe we did, I’m losing track!).  Anyway, today we spent the day in Georgia.  We started our day at the Allatoona Pass Battlefield, where the Fourth Minnesota fought.  We had one of those unexpected surprises this morning.  There was a Civil War Encampment on the battlefield.  We had been joking about seeing soldiers walk out of the mist and it actually happened.  Although we meant the ghosts of…

Here is one of those photos:

And here we are in the Eastern Redoubt, where the Fourth Minnesota fought.  Almon Cottrell was shot at Allatoona Pass and had his arm amputated.  He is mentioned in the Alonzo Brown book, which Mike is reading:

After Allatoona, we went to the Bulloch Plantation in Roswell.  President Theodore Roosevelt’s mother grew up in this house.

After the plantation house, we headed for Jackson, where there are a couple of markers that reference the Fourth Minnesota (I’ll post those on Flickr).  From Jackson, we attempted to drive to the Ocmulgee river crossing but it was probably meant to be traveled in something with four-wheel drive, so we took some photos and went back to the paved roads:

From there we went to Juliette to see the Whistle Stop Cafe  from the movie Fried Green Tomatoes.  It had nothing to do with the Fourth, but it was on the way to the hotel, so we stopped:

I almost forgot, somewhere in the midst of this, we also stopped at the National Cemetary in Marietta to see where Almon is buried.

Tomorrow we’ll be spending most of the day in Savannah.

We finally made it out of Mississippi.  Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against the state or the people, I was just tired last night!  We meant to be at our hotel around 7:00 but the guided tour took a lot longer than Mike planned.  And I would just like to say “well, duh.”  Mike has been doing  research on the Fourth Minnesota for a couple of years so I knew we wouldn’t get him out of there in a mere three hours.  And our guide, Joyce, was challenged to learn all she could about the Fourth so she had a lot to share, too.  I was a little wiped out by the time we made it to Tupelo.  And on top of that, the GPS unit (which we dubbed Tristan) was totally flaking out and sending us down roads that weren’t there and sending us off roads that were.  In the daylight that’s not such a big deal but at night it was a big problem.

This morning we started out a little after 8 a.m. and headed for a little town called Paint Rock.  I was only slightly disappointed to learn that was the name of the town rather than a thing we were going to see.  There wasn’t much left of the town, but this is where the Fourth Minnesota camped.  They marched to this spot down the railbed that is still in use today.  Here’s a photo looking up the railroad tracks:

This is a photo of the area they camped in (they were actually across the creek):

From Paint Rock, we headed toward Chattanooga and Lookout Mountain, but made a stop along the way.  This is the second best rest area we’ve stopped at:

After that was Lookout Mountain .  I think there were a couple of people who were a little green around the gills by the time we made it up the mountain but everyone thought it was worth it.

It might be a little hard to make out in this photo, but there is a ridge visible that the Fourth Minnesota fought on.  You may have actually heard of this one - it was called Missionary Ridge.

From there we headed for our hotel in Dalton, Georgia where we got in early enough to have a little dinner together.  Tomorrow we head a little further into Georgia where we’ll get a chance to tour a plantation home or two.

Today was a rather long day, so this will be a short post.  I promise to do better tomorrow night.

We spent most of the day in Vicksburg.  Mike arranged for a tour guide and  she was Amazing.  We were supposed to have her for three hours and I think we finally wrapped things up closer to six.  She gave us an excellent tour of the battlefield, taking special care to tell us where the Fourth Minnesota was.  She did extra research just for us.  We managed to find four monuments, which were two more than she thought there were.  Here’s the gang in front of the monument to John Sandborn:

And here is the Minnesota monument.  This monument was paid for by the State of Minnesota and is the largest of the four.

And this is the USS Cairo, the first ship to be sunk by a torpedo.  This ironclad was sunk in the Mississippi and found in 1964. 

Tomorrow we head to Lookout Mountain, Tennessee.  I might work up the nerve to take the incline railway up the mountain…