Today we visited Guilford Courthouse National Military Park:

We watched the park film, and I noticed that the strategy that Nathanael Greene used at Battle of Guilford Court House resembled the strategy used by Daniel Morgan at the Battle of Cowpens, which we learned about yesterday during our visit to Cowpens National Battlefield.  The ranger said that Morgan had shared his successful tactics from Cowpens with Greene, who a few months later replicated them at Guilford Courthouse.

The kids completed their Junior Ranger workbooks and received their badges:

We continued north, crossing from North Carolina into Virginia:

Our next stop was Booker T. Washington National Monument:

The site preserves the slave cabin in which Booker T. Washington was born in 1856.  The Washington family was enslaved here until Union forces occupied this area in 1865, bringing with them implementation of the Emancipation Proclamation, which President Lincoln had authored two years earlier:

The grounds of the farm at which the Washington family was enslaved:

The Washington family’s slave cabin is on the right:

The kids completed their Junior Ranger workbooks and received their badges:

Heading northeast, we arrived at the village of Appomattox Court House, site of Appomattox Court House National Historical Park.  It was here in 1865 that the Battle of Appomattox Court House was fought.  Following Lee’s failure to break out from encircling Union forces, Lee surrendered to Grant here on April 9th, 1865.

We visited the McLean House, the house in which the surrender occurred:

It was in this room that the surrender occurred, signaling the end of the Civil War:

This painting depicts the surrender:

The rebuilt old Appomattox Courthouse now houses the visitor center:

A fragment of the white flag used by Confederate forces to surrender:

The kids completed their Junior Ranger workbooks and received their badges:

We continued east to overnight at a Walmart in suburban Richmond, Virginia.  See the trip map for today’s drive and our current location.

Our first stop today was Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park.  We had a tough time finding parking because this park is primarily used as a jogging and cycling space by suburban Atlanta residents.  In the visitor center, we were told that this park is the most visited Battlefield Park in the NPS system, but the visitor center itself does not get many visitors:

The visitor center was laid out as a timeline, placing the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain in the broader context of the Civil War, which was very helpful in understanding the events that took place here:

This canon is an original, shown in a period photograph beneath it:

The kids completed their Junior Ranger workbooks and received their badges:

I bought the NPS Passport, Collectors Edition for Trish:

Our next stop was the Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area:

Trish stamped her new passport book.  Its going to take a while to transfer all of our old stamps to this book:

The kids completed their Junior Ranger workbooks and received their badges and patches:

We crossed from Georgia into South Carolina:

Our next stop was Cowpens National Battlefield.  In January 1781, American forces routed British troops here.  Using a strategy that had multiple lines of troops weakening the oncoming British, then falling back, US General Daniel Morgan was able to execute the Revolutionary War’s only double envelopment against Banastre Tarleton’s British troops, leading to a spectacular victory for American forces: 

The visitor center was well done.  We also walked the battlefield:

The kids completed their Junior Ranger workbooks and received their badges:

We crossed from South Carolina into North Carolina:

Our last stop of the day was Kings Mountain National Military Park, where British Major Patrick Ferguson was killed by American forces after being chased for hundreds of miles by the Overmountain Men along what would become preserved as the Overmountain Victory National Historic Trail.  This diorama in the visitor center shows the battle:

Several displays dealt with British Major Ferguson, inventor of the Ferguson rifle:

The visitor center was laid out like a forest:

The kids completed their Junior Ranger books and received their badges:

They also completed the workbooks for the Overmountain Victory National Historic Trail:

We continued east to overnight at the Walmart of Thomasville, North Carolina.  See the trip map for today’s drive and our current location.

This morning we drove east, crossing from Mississippi into Alabama and passing the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama.  We’ve set an aggressive schedule for ourselves this week, so we will have to visit this site some other time:

We arrived at our first destination of the day, Russell Cave National Monument:

This site preserves a cave used as shelter by Native Americans since the Clovis period.  We toured the visitor center:

A pottery stamp used to emboss patterns in wet pottery:

After watching the park film, we walked out towards the cave:

The caterpillars were out in force today:

We arrived at the cave.  The left opening is an underground stream, and the right opening is the cave in which the Native Americans lived:

The cave goes back quite a ways, but it’s fenced off from visitors:

Spring is well along here in Alabama:

In the visitor center, I found a book with a suitably Southern title:

The kids completed their Junior Ranger workbooks and received their badges:

It’s very pretty here:

We drove to Scottsboro, Alabama, home of the Unclaimed Baggage Center:

This company contracts with air carriers to receive all of the carrier’s unclaimed baggage.  Some of the more unique items found are on display and not for sale, like this Tibetan Dung Chen.  M is doing his “how could this possibly get lost” expression:

The center has multiple buildings, with areas for clothing, tools, electronics, and many other types of merchandise:

M purchased a shirt, but otherwise we left empty handed.

As we were leaving, I checked the tires as usual and noticed that the bead was cracking away from the tire, and in this spot there was a hole in the connecting rubber:

We had a new tire put on, our second this week, and were on our way after a few minutes:

Our last stop of the day was Little River Canyon National Preserve, which contains one of the deepest canyons in the Southeast.  We viewed one of the falls in the canyon from this overlook:

The kids had completed the Junior Ranger workbook for Little River Canyon at Russell Cave National Monument and received their badges:

We continued east, crossing from Alabama into Georgia:

We overnighted at the Walmart of Cartersville, Georgia.  See the trip map for today’s drive and our current location.

Our first stop this morning was at Tupelo Tire.  With all the miles we’ve been driving, another tire is done and needs replacing:

We drove north to the visitor center for the Natchez Trace National Scenic Trail:

The trail is paralleled by the NPS’s Natchez Trace Parkway:

The visitor center had some great displays.  Of particular interest were the “Kaintucks”.  These traders would build or buy a boat, fill it with merchandise and float it down the Ohio or Mississippi river.  At the end of the trip, in Natchez or New Orleans, the goods were sold.  Since the boats couldn’t be floated upstream, the boats were sold for lumber and then the Kaintucks would walk for 35 days the 500 or so miles back to their homes in the Ohio River valley.  It was the Kaintucks who created the Natchez Trace:

After viewing the park film, the kids completed their Junior Ranger workbooks and received their badges:

The kids also completed a workbook which focused on sustainability:

We drove north on the Natchez Trace Parkway:

We hiked the old Natchez Trace for a bit to a point where unknown Confederate soldiers died and were buried:

Continuing north, our next stop was the Corinth Battlefield, a unit of Shiloh National Military Park.  It was here in late April of 1862 that Confederate forces managed to escape destruction by superior Union forces:

The visitor center was very well done and had several multi-screen video presentations which were excellent:

Replica fortifications:

The kids completed their Junior Ranger workbooks and received their badges:

Our last stop of the day was the Shiloh unit of Shiloh National Military Park:

Here at Shiloh, two days of fighting in early April of 1862 left over 24,000 dead, wounded, or missing:

We drove around the park and viewed the various memorials:

The kids completed their Junior Ranger workbooks and received their badges:

From Shiloh, we drove southeast to overnight at the Walmart of Iuka, Mississippi.  See the trip map for today’s drive and our current location.

We had a nice Shabbos here at the campground in Arkansas, though some of our neighbors were a little sketchy.

This morning, M photographed his R/C car:

Our first stop today was Hot Springs National Park.  The park was created in 1832 as Hot Springs Reservation, the first land ever set aside by the Federal Government for recreation.  The Park is known for its bathhouses which have allowed visitors to enjoy the area’s natural hot springs:

The visitor center was formerly the Fordyce Bathhouse, which operated from 1915-1962, one of the many bathhouses along Bathhouse Row.  In the basement, much of the machinery is still present:

The bathhouse has a variety of interesting baths:

One room has been converted to house exhibits:

Some things should go without saying:

The ladies’ waiting room:

Most people visited the baths to alleviate symptoms from various medical conditions:

The ladies’ lounge:

The ceiling track allowed immobile patients to be brought into the tub room and lowered into the tub:

The bathhouse had its own gymnasium:

The kids completed their Junior Ranger workbooks and received their badges:

We drove northeast to visit Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site:

This site interprets the federal government’s forced desegregation of Little Rock High School in 1957:

The gas station across the street from the high school has been restored to how it looked in 1957:

The high school is still used as a high school today:

The kids completed their Junior Ranger workbooks and received their badges:

As we left little rock, we passed by the Arkansas Capitol building:

Our last stop of the day was Arkansas Post National Memorial:

On this site in the 1680s, the French built a trading post.  The area was controlled at various times by the French, Spanish, and Americans.  In 1819, Arkansas Post became the first capital of the Arkansas Territory.  During the Civil War, the Battle of Arkansas Post was fought here.

We watched the park film and walked the exhibit space in the visitor center.  We then walked the grounds of the park:

The kids completed their Junior Ranger workbooks and received their badges:

We continued east, crossing into Mississippi:

We overnighted at the Walmart of Tupelo, Mississippi.  See the trip map for today’s drive and our current location.