Civil War Travel – Page 2 – The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable

Behind the Lines: My Life as a Yankee in Franklin, TN, Part 5

By Mel Maurer
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2004, All Rights Reserved

Part 5 of a 6-part article

Franklin had four major events each year at the time I moved there – one in each season. The last weekend in April, the town’s street were closed and filled with various booths of goodies and crafts for Franklin’s annual and very well attended “Main Street Festival.” In August stages were set up on several downtown streets for the town’s annual Jazz Festival (yes, jazz, not country music). On the closest weekend to Halloween, the streets were again closed for Pumpkin Fest with a costumed parade of young and old and various activities and booths. On an early weekend in December, the Heritage Society holds its “Dickens of a Christmas” festival, wherein townspeople dress up as Dickens characters, and the town becomes an English village, an event that attracts hundreds of visitors over its two days. (I was Batman for Pumpkin Fest and David Copperfield for Dickens, but I never had the chance to dress as a Federal or Confederate.)

Behind the Lines: My Life as a Yankee in Franklin, TN, Part 4

By Mel Maurer
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2004, All Rights Reserved

Part 4 of a 6-part article

In the first article in this series, I wrote that our house was in a subdivision that was in the shadow of Roper’s Knob – a hill, the top of which was used as a signal station during the Civil War. Actually, while it’s the highest hill in the area, although not by much, it’s only several hundred feet high, so “shadow” was something of an exaggeration. (We did wish we were in the shadow of something during the very hot Tennessee summers.) Roper’s Knob was just a half-mile west of our house – it was the first thing I would see when I walked out our front door.

Behind the Lines: My Life as a Yankee in Franklin, TN, Part 3

By Mel Maurer
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2004, All Rights Reserved

Part 3 of a 6-part article

I knew of Fort Granger before moving to Franklin from the reading I had done about the Battle of Franklin but I didn’t know until I had lived there a few weeks that Fort Granger, or what was left of it, was still there. While I had passed its location many times in our search for a home, I was unaware that the trees, on a small hill above Franklin’s Pinkerton Park right off route 96, just before the bridge over the Harpeth River as you enter Franklin from the east, were hiding the remains of a Civil War treasure. Once learning of its existence and its location, I set out one Sunday morning with great expectations to visit it.

Behind the Lines: My Life as a Yankee in Franklin, TN, Part 2

By Mel Maurer
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2004, All Rights Reserved

Part 2 of a 6-part article

As I’m sure you’ll realize if you stay with these articles, I came to be very fond of Franklin as one of its residents after moving there late in 1991. In fact, although born in East Cleveland and having spent most of my life in the greater Cleveland area, I never felt more at home living anywhere else. If I believed in reincarnation, and I don’t, I might have thought I either once lived there in a former life or maybe fought there wearing blue. While I never doubted what side I would have been on in the Civil War, I did come to have a much better understanding of those who fought the war defending their land.

Behind the Lines: My Life as a Yankee in Franklin, TN, Part 1

By Mel Maurer
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2004, All Rights Reserved

Part 1 of a 6-part article

Franklin, Tennessee is located in Williamson County – an area rich in history first occupied by Indians with a highly developed culture who lived on farms and in towns. Later, other Indians, Creeks, Chickasaws, and Cherokees, made Williamson’s lush hills, valleys, and streams their hunting grounds. The original white settlers moved into the area in the late 1700s from Ft. Nashboro in what is now Nashville about 20 miles north of Franklin. General John Bell Hood brought his Army of Tennessee into the county from the south in 1864, taking on the Federal army of John Schofield in the Battle of Franklin in what would be called “The Bloodiest Five Hours of the Civil War.” Although not likely to be noted in any history books, my wife Elaine and I arrived in Williamson County in late December 1991.

Ulysses S. Grant in Georgetown, Ohio – The Indispensable Man’s Boyhood Home

By Daniel J. Ursu
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2017, All Rights Reserved

If you believe, as I and many others do, that the Civil War would not have been won by the North but for U.S. Grant, then a visit to his boyhood home in our own State of Ohio at Georgetown, about ten miles north of the Ohio River and 40 miles east of Cincinnati, will be inspiring, informative and worthwhile.

I Escaped with John Wilkes Booth

By Mel Maurer
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2007, All Rights Reserved

I escaped with John Wilkes Booth – a bit of an exaggeration since he escaped from Washington, DC – after assassinating President Lincoln – in 1865 and I did it in 2006, along with my son Rick and grandson Eric, as we took the “John Wilkes Booth Escape Route Tour” sponsored by the Surratt Society in Clinton, Maryland. Booth escaped on a rented horse – we escaped on a leased Greyhound.

Notes On the 2012 Lincoln Forum

By Mel Maurer
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2013, All Rights Reserved

Editor’s note: The Lincoln Forum (www.thelincolnforum.org) is an organization that “endeavors to enhance the understanding and preserve the memory of Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War.” Founded in 1995, the Forum meets each year in Gettysburg, PA, on the anniversary of Lincoln’s address at the dedication of the Gettysburg National Cemetery. Several members of the Cleveland Civil War Roundtable are also members of the Lincoln Forum and attend its meeting each year. CCWRT past president and Lincoln Forum member Mel Maurer once again agreed to our request to provide a recap of this year’s event. (Read Mel’s reports on the 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010 Forums.)

The Lincoln Forum – 2010

By Mel Maurer
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2011, All Rights Reserved

Editor’s note: The Lincoln Forum (www.thelincolnforum.org) is an organization that “endeavors to enhance the understanding and preserve the memory of Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War.” Founded in 1995, the Forum meets each year in Gettysburg, PA, on the anniversary of Lincoln’s address at the dedication of the Gettysburg National Cemetery. Several members of the Cleveland Civil War Roundtable are also members of the Lincoln Forum and attend its meeting each year. CCWRT past president and Lincoln Forum member Mel Maurer once again agreed to our request to provide a recap of this year’s event. (Read Mel’s reports on the 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2012 Forums.)

The Lincoln Forum – 2009

By Mel Maurer
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2010, All Rights Reserved