When I was in Boy Scouts, my troop stayed the night and hiked the trails at Fort Pillow but that was many years ago. After studying the American Civil War and the battle fought there in April of 1864, I thought it would be time to re-visit the battlefield. I noticed a geocache is placed at the battlefield Lionel Booth's Folly, a traditional cache. The cache page indicates little about the history of the area and maybe the reason I have over looked it on previous passes along Highway 51. Maybe, also the cache is a 20 minute drive away from Highway 51 and there are no caches along the way?
Anyway, on October 20, I decided it was time to find that cache and also tour the battlefield. In the process, I set up 13 waymarks within the park. I also obtained information and and photos to set up an earthcache. We will see if I can pull that off.
Cachestalker94 caught wind of my plans on the afternoon of October 19 and found it necessary to stay the night with a friend, making herself unavailable for the adventure. Minnie Mouse, however, didn't have any choices and she came along for the ride. We arrived at the coordinates given by cgeek, which indicated the cache was .21 from our parking area. We hiked up one hill, down a hill, and up another hill. Was a good hike for me, however for Minnie Mouse, it was testing her endurance. We arrived at the Union earthworks, slipped over and found the cache. After signing the log we toured the earthworks. Being a student of military science, I soon realized the Union soldiers were in a bad situation at this site. The guns only could fire through a port hole in the defenses. All the Confederate dismounted cavalry had to do was avoid the portholes and overwhelm the defenses. During the battle sharpshooters, (would be called snipers today), picked off the Union defenders allowing the dismounted cavalry troopers to scale over the walls and enter the fort area. Another part I noticed, when setting up a defense, a route or way needs to be selected to retreat. The only way for the Union soldiers to escape was down the hill into the gully. Today, the area is forested, but in 1864, the land would have been clear, it was apparent the Union troops would have been shot like fish in a barrel.
Minnie Mouse and myself toured the remainder of the state historic park and did a little more hiking and also visited the interactive museum. After touring the fort, we ventured over to Henning, TN to set up more waymarks and visit the Alex Haley boyhood home and his grave.
2 comments:
This is a great park. I took my Mom with me to hunt the cache there. I did not have auto-routing and was quite surprised at long it took to get there. The cache hide was great, though, and the trip was well worth it.
I remember this cache, too! It's a classic! Hoot Owl and I did it, and I remember there was about a 30mph wind blowing, so we didn't stay as long as I would have liked, but it was a fascinating place. You could really get a sense of what it must have been like during the battle! I highly recommend this cache!! Thanks for bringing it to everyone's attention, TF!
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