Old Salem Church Cemetery/Battlefield

Before I begun geocaching I had heard of the battle fought near Jackson, Tennessee in December of 1862. I had read about the engagement in a book written by Dr. Lonnie Manass, a history professor at the University of Tennessee at Martin, called "The Untutored Genius" a book about the military career of Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest.

On May 6, 2005, I had business in the Jackson area and found a few caches on that day and my last find prior to meeting the wife and kids at Pringles Park for a baseball game was Old Salem Church Cemetery/Battlefield by -boatman-. I had saved the best for last. It was a little warm that day and the briers was my biggest challenging in finding that cache. In fact, the briers were so bad, I ended up stomping around and my foot found the cache. That was before I used a hiking stick to poke around.

Found the cache and having some time to kill prior to the baseball game, I walked around admiring the cemetery/battlefield and appreciated that a game that I had found just a few months prior led me to such a great location. I consider this cache one of the best in Madison County. Won't place it in my forgotten cache series; it has been found nearly 100 times. However, I do think the cache should be on more cachers 'to do' list and it does have easy access from Highway 70 and Interstate 40.

Since finding the cache, I met Dr. Manass at a Sons of Confederate Veterans meeting and told him about geocaching taking me to Civil War locations. During the meeting, I purchased Dr. Manass' new book "Lighting Warfare" Forrest's First West Tennessee Campaign December 1862. The new book had in depth information about the battle at Old Salem Church.