Now, about my date...
Yesterday the Wifester picked me up from work and took me on an adventure. We became tourists for the day. We went to Carnton Plantation, in Franklin, TN. It served as the largest field hospital in this area for hundreds of wounded and dying Confederate soldiers. The floors of the mansion are still stained with bloody footprints. Ewwww. The grounds were once covered in blood, as this is the sight of one of the worst battles in the Civil War. It makes me sad each time I'm faced with the fact that I live in an area that is the epicenter of such racism and bigotry. But I believe that it is important to visit this part of our history, to understand and learn from it, so that we can move forward.
So much unnecessary death happened, all because of ignorance. The entire place feels as though the weight of the world presses upon it. At night, you can get a ghost tour. We went during the daylight hours, but that was eerie enough, to think of all the death and suffering that happened there, not only the soldiers on both sides, but the slaves who were being fought over as well. The slave's house was where I had the strongest reaction. It seemed so painful there. I felt as though more pain and more suffering than all the battles of all the wars had occurred right there in that front room. I immediately felt repelled from the room. The bedroom was peaceful and comfortable to look in, but the front room...it was dark and not in an absence of light kind of way.
Wifester kept the camera in her possession, so I was unable to take any photos, but she got many. You can check out the ones she's posted at her flickr page.
It was an eerie, heavy, and somewhat unsettling adventure, at a beautiful mansion on meticulously manicured grounds. I always enjoy being a tourist in my own hometown. Sometimes, though, it's tough.
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