History Lesson

Well I went into historic Kennesaw, GA. To get some stair parts for Cliff and Cindy’s Stair project and found a really great Civil War and Locomotive museum. What a great museum! I stayed for about 2 and ½ hours and had a blast. It turns out that one of the most exciting battles that didn’t involve guns started here. They called it the Great Train Chase. James Andrews a Union civilian and about 20 men, later called Andrews Raiders, boarded the General (the train engine) and took off running North trying to destroy the tracks and bridges along the way. This was William Fullers train and when the train took off he and two other men chased the train on foot. Finally they came upon another train started chasing down Andrews. It took about ninety miles and a lot of luck but they did it and the Union guys were all caught. This is a very abbreviated story, Disney made a movie about it in 1959, on my part but very cool none the less. There were lots of other very interesting things about the Civil War and Slavery in the museum, Weapons, Uniforms, Pictures of War and life during the time, but for me the most impressive thing was the Locomotive Manufacturing plant. They reproduced the plant and had a good amount of the original equipment restored and even a couple of small locomotives in various stages of assembly. My kind of museum! This made for a great day of learning and discovery. Speaking of discovery, across the train tracks was an incredible old South/Rebel store/museum. I say this with a loose interpretation of both. The store is owned by a guy named Wild Man, he fits the description, wild hair, big shaggy gray beard and an old Colt 45 on his side. Just a little on the frightening side. He did however have more stuff on the old southern generals and war relics that I have ever seen in one location. There were books and anything else you could think of on or about the South and its Rebel Flag, the KKK and even period muzzle loading guns. I did not stay very long in the store it sort of made me just a little uncomfortable but it was definitely interesting to look at.