We started the day by stopping at Tupelo, the birthplace of Elvis Presley where they have created a park dedicated to his early years. He was born in what they call a shotgun house which basically meant that you could stand at one end and fire a shotgun and the bullet would leave the other side and not hit anything! A lot is said about how poor the family were you don’t realise until you see the size of the house, two rooms and the fact that they had to share an outside loo with other houses on the block, the sad thing is that even this was too expensive and when he was 2 and a half years old they had to move out because they hadn’t paid the rent. They lived in the area until he was 13 and it was here that he was brought his first guitar, he had wanted either a bike or a .22 rifle for his 10th birthday his mother wouldn’t buy him a gun and decided the bike was too dangerous so the store keeper suggested a guitar and after trying it out he relented. As well as the house he was born in the park has the church he used to attend, although it has been moved from its original location, a few statues that are actually very good and a 1939 green Plymouth sedan which represents the car that the Presley family moved from Tupelo to Memphis. He is quoted as saying that he remembered his Dad putting everything they owned in the trunk of the car and them driving through the night to Memphis. We walked round the park to the statue at the top of the hill which has a representation of Elvis as a 11 year old with his guitar which apparently is life sized, then behind him is a larger than life statue of a mature Elvis the showman. We walked down to the lake and had a look at the fountains then continued our journey through Mississippi towards Alabama! Our next stop was at the Final Stands Visitor Centre, this represents the Battle of Brices Cross Roads and the Campaign and battle of Tupelo / Harrisburg. I am not sure the ladies in the visitor centre had seen anyone else today or possibly all week as they were very friendly and I think if we had let them they probably would have read the information to us rather than let us walk round on our own! In the second half of 1863 the Federal armies won important victories at Vicksburg, Gettysburg and Chattanooga. Four of the 11 Confederate states were completely in Union hands. The strong positions Federal armies held all around the Confederacy grew stronger as Lincoln unified all commands and named Gran supreme commander of all Federal Forces. As the 1864 campaigns began, Grant and Sherman coordinated their armies to advance into the South simultaneously. From May to September 1864 Sherman’s troops fought through northern Georgia finally forcing Atlanta’s evacuation. Early in the campaign the Confederate high command contemplated attacking Shermans supply line, the 151 mile single track Nashville & Chattanooga Railroad. Late May Major General Nathan Bedford Forrest was sent to strike Sherman’s supply line. The union forces realised this was probably the confederate plan so sent Sturgis with 8,000 troops including a couple of regiments of Black Soldiers to try and defend the position. Forrest had 3,500 men who he marched from Tupelo and they finally met on June 10th, both sides started heading towards Brices Cross Road leaving about 4am, the two sides met about 11:00 and by the end of the day almost half of the soldiers had died and it if hadn’t been for the actions of the 1,863 former slaves and free black men who were determined to inflict as much damage on the Confederate army as possibly Sturgis’ army would have almost certainly been wiped out. Sturgis was quoted as saying that after the actions of the coloured army that day overturned 20 years of opinion about the coloured man. We watched a video on the battle which described a lot of this but also mentioned the fact that a number of people either passed out and some even died from heat stroke and the humidity which wasn’t something we had considered they were fighting in the height of summer. After watching the video we looked at the information boards, I rather think that if we didn’t know anything about American History you could leave this museum under the impression that the Confederates won the war! Once we had finished in the museum we drove the scenic byway which takes you round the major sites in the battle, unfortunately or fortunately depending on which way you look at it, there is nothing left, none of the houses or barns that were used. Then it was time to continue our journey to Florence, we weren’t on the road an especially long time today but we did see some sites at one point we were overtaken by a house and at another we had to stop at a cross roads because there was a train heading down the middle of the street! We are only staying in Florence for a night as we are breaking the journey to Huntsville so after checking in we decided to head down to the bar for a drink and something to eat then back to the room to crash before hitting the road again tomorrow.
