The Carnton Plantation house in Franklin, Tennesseet,  as seen here from the McGavock Cemetery, was witness to one of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War.      Photo by Gene Korte     

In the waning light of a November 1864 evening, it’s said that the Union soldiers sang hymns while Confederate bands played “Dixie.” Over five hours amidst the cannon booms and cavalry advances, the firing of tens of thousands of muskets and bloody hand-to-hand combat, 9,200 soldiers would lay wounded.

During the last months of the war, the Battle of Franklin, located 16 miles from Nashville, was not the largest fought, but it was the bloodiest. Nearly 50,000 soldiers from 17 states both North and South – three of these contributed soldiers to both sides – met on the battlefield.

As casualties mounted, nearby Carnton Plantation was commandeered as a field hospital. Four of the six Confederate generals who died in this conflict spent their last moments on the porch. The wounded were mostly soldiers from the South, but both they and Union soldiers ended up side by side on the floors of every room, where surgeries and amputations went on nearly round the clock. Carnton Plantation, which has been open to visitors since 1978, still has blood permanently staining the wooden floors.

Carrie McGavock was the mistress of Carnton Plantation at the time of the battle. She and her husband, John, reburied nearly 1,500 of the dead a few years later on their own property, once the owner of the original gravesite announced plans to plow under the burial place of the war dead.

Carrie devoted much of her life to tending these graves, often accompanied by her lifelong friend, Mariah, once a slave and later a free woman. Carrie, who had buried three of her own young children in nearby graves, walked through the cemetery daily, carrying her Book of the Dead. In it was a list of the names, regiments and home states of most of the soldiers who are still buried in the cemetery at Carnton Plantation, known now as the McGavock Confederate Cemetery. To this day, it’s still the largest Confederate cemetery anywhere. A solemn place, the cemetery remains living history, lest we forget, and the gate is always open.

Local Franklin author Robert Hicks memorialized Carrie McGavock and the Carnton Plantation in his novel, “The Widow of the South. ”  Go here for our interview with the author, http://www.prx.org/p/95379.

According to Hicks, Carrie was always known as the Widow of the South in the years after the Civil War. And many newspapers, the New York Times among them, published her obituary in 1905 when she died at age 76. Long a supporter of Carnton Plantation and a member of its board of directors, Hicks works with Franklin’s Charge, www.franklinscharge.com, a group dedicated to reclaiming this Civil War battlefield in its entirety. The American Battlefield Protection Program has called this endeavor “the largest battlefield reclamation in North American history.”

Carnton Plantation, http://www.carnton.org, and the Carter House, http://www.carter-house.org, a farmhouse at the time of the Battle of Franklin, are both open year-round.  The “Battle of Franklin: Five Hours in the Valley of Death” is a 70-minute documentary, http://www.wideawakefilms.com.

Distributed by Tribune Media Services, INC. for World’s Fare Syndicate

© 2012-2014  Diana and Gene Korte

This southern city is home to hundreds of historic homes located on a peninsula across from Charleston Harbor and Fort Sumter where the Civil War began.     Photo by Gene Korte.

Charleston continues its rise in the ranks of top destinations worldwide.  And why not?  More than 300 years old, Charleston, named for England’s Charles II, began its colonial life as a flourishing seaport. Because of that centuries-old history, this place is filled with hundreds of historic homes. And among the attractions of the countryside are grand old plantations full of sweeping movie-scene vistas.

Over the centuries, Charlestonians have been shot at, burned out, beset by earthquakes and hurricanes. More than a few were forced to walk the plank on pirate ships. The British occupied the city for more than two years after the Revolutionary War. And the most devastating war of all here, of course, the Civil War, began at Charleston’s very own Fort Sumter.

Despite all this, including Hurricane Hugo in 1989, which caused billions in damage, Charleston has dusted itself off and reinvented itself.

Once rich from slavery, today Charleston celebrates its black culture, becoming a 21st-century destination for history and music festivals, food, fun and beaches, too. Charleston is the New South.

A grand and glossy hotel

The Charleston Place on Meeting Street, charlestonplace.com, has all the earmarks of an Orient Express hotel. No matter where their hotels are, they will have the perfect blend of welcoming style and comfort. And the location is always perfect, too. In Charleston that means this eight-story landmark hotel, with a staff full of Southern hospitality, is in the heart of the historic district near shops, parks and the city’s Museum Mile. One of the many ways this posh hotel shows its family friendliness is the Spa Kid program where children can enjoy the Cinderella treatment, too.

The hotel’s celebrated Charleston Grill is not the place to be for a quick bite between meetings. Rather, it’s where you want to take your time, enjoy the feast of flavors and textures and say to heck with worrying about the bill. From the first taste of the thinly sliced venison carpaccio and the teeny tiny lettuces with champagne vinaigrette we savored the moment. It was difficult to choose from the menu because we couldn’t have everything. Evening favorites were the grilled kahala fish from Hawaii, even the humble collard greens, and at the evening’s end — all that chocolate.

To continue reading this article, go to http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2008-11-16/travel/0811130207_1_meeting-street-fort-sumter-charleston-peninsula