Day 177, October 19, 2012: We bring you up to Grand Harbor near the Pickwick Lock and Dam on the Tennessee River. Although we have moved on to Florence, AL, farther up the Tennessee from Grand Harbor at the time of this post, we will catch our faithful viewers up on our journey upriver.

After Paris Landing we stopped at Pebbles Isle and Clifton both hospitable marinas with good facilities. Pebbles Isle is near Johnsonville a site of a Civil War action that left Federal  stores in ruin. The old town is underwater since the TVA flooded the river and New Johnsonville, a small village replaces the old town. Here we are at the river overlook in the Crockett Cemetery (same family as Davey but he died at the Alamo).

The town of Clifton is tiny with few inhabitants at this time of year. Most of Clifton Marina is under cover. We intended only a day there but stayed three because of violent thunderstorms.

For the most part the Tennessee is a gently flowing river. It got a little obnoxious for the last few mile below the Pickwick Dam. We had had a spate of heavy rain and TVA was letting water out of Pickwick Lake  giving us a substantial current to buck to the lock. From then on after our exit from the lock the river became serene.

Grand River is an excellent place to hang out to stage a visit to Shiloh. All along this stretch of the Tennessee from Pebbles Isle to Joe Wheeler where we are headed this afternoon and beyond up to Chattanooga relics of the Civil War abound. None compares to Shiloh where in two days of fighting some 24,000 American wounded and dead littered a battlefield of meadows and woods. Shiloh is worth the visit to cement the idiocy of war in our  minds. There is a documentary, Fiery Trial, property of the National Parks Service that is a must see and it is shown every hour the park is open to visitors.

A flock of white pellies on the river.

A foggy dawn on the river.

Our driver, Mike, Captain of One September, in Grand Harbor’s courtesy van.

The parade exiting Pickwick Lock.

Shiloh monument in Shiloh National Military Park and Shiloh church below.

The reason for the battle was the rail crossings at Corinth, MS. Grant’s forces came up against stiff resistance at Shiloh from two confederate Armies. Had CSA General Albert Sidney Johnson not died on the first day the outcome might have been different. It was the first major battle of the war that would determine the next three years of the conflict.

Another fall day on the Tennessee River.