A Week on the Road with Civil War Trails: Part 1

During the ECW Symposium earlier this summer, we had many people pop by our booth, grab a map, and ask what projects we had planned for the rest of the summer. Well, it gave us an idea to share what a week on the road looks like: our “official record” of sorts.

Official Records of the Civil War Trails.
The Tennessee Campaign of 2024
A Week on the Road
Day One

We took off on a Sunday after three months of planning, coordination with site hosts, and editing and updating signs between our staff and local history stakeholders. The primary objective? Between two teams we would install, repair, move, or update 63 signs in six days. The secondary objective: test local beer, BBQ, and forage along the way to ensure we had the best local spots picked out to help each of you plan your own trips. There were two teams of two, occasionally together, and often crisscrossing one another.

Leaving our base of operations around Richmond, Virginia, we headed south. We encountered no pickets as we crossed into North Carolina and began heading west on Interstate 40. The van, laden down with sign pedestals, new panels, concrete, paint, rain jackets, tools, and more bounced along as the sky darkened as we inched closer to the mountains. We listened to a favorite podcast, Lion’s Led by Donkeys, to pass the time to our first site. The hosts explore some of “the worst military failures, inept commanders, and crazy stories from throughout the history of human conflict.” Check it out, but just as a note this not family friendly or for the feint of heart.

We pulled into Caldwell Co. to rework the sign for Patterson’s Mill in a driving squall that blew the van back and forth as we sat idling next to the sign, patiently waiting for the wind and rain to stop. Patterson’s Mill produced finished cotton cloth before being burned on March 30, 1865, by troops under of US. Gen. George Stoneman’s command. After repairing the sign and popping in a fresh panel, we scouted around the nearby park in the hopes of relocating the sign to a better location so you can better see the vestiges of the mill as you read it. Onwards!

Continuing, we reached a sunny Asheville eager to refresh and update the sign for one of our favorite Civil War figures, William Riley Powers. Despite being from the North Carolina mountain, Powers served on CSS Virginia. His story is an incredible one and one which also needs some further investigation. The last gig for day one was the sign inside Riverside Cemetery, the final resting place of famed Civil War artist Allen C. Redwood and of Zebulon Vance, commander of the 26th North Carolina and one of the state’s wartime governors.

Tired, but excited for the 60 remaining signs that lay ahead, we celebrated a successful, albeit lightly scheduled, first day at Cellarest Beer Project. There is much debate amongst the team and having favorites across a six-state program isn’t polite, but if our feet were held to the fire, Cellarest would be among our top five list for the best beer in all the land.

Day’s Summary:
Miles driven through today: 383
Signs completed: 3
Beers consumed: 4

Day Two

With the alarm blaring at 5:45 am, coffee consumed, and emails checked, our team gassed up the van and prepared to proceed west, further into the North Carolina mountains. As our team headed north by northwest, a second team was leaving Richmond and by way of Southwest Virginia, would enter Tennessee and begin fixing, repairing, and installing news signs, too. The second team’s biggest job today was to create a new Civil War Trails site at Hayslope House in Russellville, Tennessee. Hayslope was the headquarters for Confederate Maj. Gen. Lafayette McLaws during the terrible winter of 1863-1864. More news about that installation is coming soon!

Our team arrived at our day’s first site heavily caffeinated and set up the tent since the weather appeared to be closing in again. The small college campus at Mars Hill was indicative of many of the communities throughout the mountains of western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee: divided politically, socially, and economically. After refreshing the sign adjacent to the historic campus buildings and the Mars Hill University Museum, our team set off for Marshall and Hot Spring, still dodging dark, rain-laden clouds as we popped in new sign panels with updated content, touching up paint on the sign pedestals, and making notes on how to improve the directional signs and map-guides.

Crossing into Tennessee on the winding and bending Rt. 25, we were curious if we were following roughly the same historic paths Union POWs used to escape southern prison camps and imagining Unionist hideouts in the cliffs and hollows around every turn. Pulling into Parrottsville, Tennessee, we updated two sign panels with brand new content highlighting the complexities and plight of the enslaved families and the sheer violence and confusion in small communities like this as they struggled with political allegiances during the war years.

We descended out of the aptly named Smoky Mountains into Knoxville, grabbing concrete and supplies before getting on Interstate 81 south towards Lost Sea. If you aren’t familiar with Lost Sea, it is a crowd-pleaser for anyone of any age. Not only is it America’s largest underground lake, but during the war it was home to both a mining operation and soldiers playing tourist. This should be on must-see lists when visiting Tennessee.

Our team cruised into Chattanooga after completing revamps of three more signs, landing at the only hotel in Tennessee which doubles as a Civil War Trails site. The Holiday Inn Express & Suites at 440 West MLK Blvd in Chattanooga looks up at the site of the College Hospital, which operated (no pun intended) from the early spring of 1862 through September the following year. We spent an hour or so after check-in editing the brand new West Virginia Civil War Trails map-guide which is set to head to the printer shortly, and then cruised over to Champy’s Chicken, our go-to place for great eats and local brews in Chattanooga.

Day’s Summary:
Miles driven through today: 740
Signs completed: 15
Beers consumed: 3

Stay Tuned for Parts Two and Three, which continue the week’s travels…