Monday, September 19, 2011

Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park

"Federal entrenchments at the foot of Ken...Image via WikipediaAs our vacation plans have completely collapsed, I found myself this afternoon at the battlefield instead of on the beach.

Kennesaw Mountain is the wrong theatre and therefore the wrong army, not to mention there wasn't a heckuva lot of cavalry action going on there. On the other hand, it's close to the house, so I loaded up my scooter (all by myself!) and off I went.

They've completely renovated the little museum since the last time I was in it, and it's a disaster. First off, it's dark as a closet in there. The text accompanying the sparse exhibits (many of the weapons and flags they used to have on display being in storage now) was either black on gray backgrounds or worse, white on black backgrounds, both of which I can tell you are combinations difficult to read in the dark. Many of the exhibits themselves were also placed on dark backgrounds and were in shadow to boot, disappearing into black holes, as it were. A glove was mounted behind a post. I left with a combination frustration/eye-strain headache.

The bookstore, on the other hand, was a researcher's joy. I found a copy of Bell Irvin Wiley's The Life of Johnny Reb (which I admittedly could and should have bought elsewhere for much less, but hey), and a book on confederate uniforms which is the best I've seen so far. Another, which I regretfully returned to the shelf, contained a photo of the drummer boy from one of the units in my book, Elliott's Greys (6th Virginia). But the pièce de résistance in today's haul is the little pamphlet on camp cooking which I snagged for a mere $3.99, well worth the price for the Roasted Rat recipe alone:
". . . baste with bacon fat and roast before a good fire quickly like canvas back ducks."
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