Old Country Tours. Historical, Civil War, Personalized, Battlefield Tours

The Nashville to Atlanta Campaigns Tour
26 September - 8 October 2009

Much has been written about the relative values of battles in the east against those of the west. You will now have the opportunity to make the comparison? In early 1862 a Federal force under U.S Grant invests Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River. Quickly it is overcome with 'no terms or conditions' being offered to the defenders. Nashville falls and the Confederates withdraw south towards the Mississippi border and the important railroad town of Corinth.

In April 62 the Confederates attacked the Union troops guarding Pittsburg Landing, at the end of the first day it was a great Southern victory. During the night Grant brings up, re-enforcements, the Battle of Shiloh ends as a Union triumph.

During the next couple of years the armies will fight at Stones River, Chickamauga and Franklin, to name but a few. In the spring of 1864 as US Grant pushes into the Wilderness in Virginia the new commander in the south Union General Sherman with new orders to destroy the Confederate Army in the field, moves into Georgia.

Within months Atlanta has fallen and Sherman's march to the sea has commenced.

(26 September)
Fly from London to Nashville Airport to be met by your tour guide/manager and drive to down town hotel, Nashville.
Overview of tour.

(27 September)
Drive to Franklin and tour the battlefield. In November 1864. with Sherman’s Army ‘Marching to the Sea’, the Confederates tried to draw his attention way by advancing into central Tennessee. On the 30 November, the Confederates attacked an entrenched Union force, the attack proved to be disaster, with losses of over 6,000 men including Major General Pat Cleburne.
2nd Night in Nashville.

(28 September)
Drive to Murfreesboro to tour the Stones River Battlefield. Between December 31 1862 and January 2 1863 the Armies of Braxton Bragg & William Rosecrans were engaged in a battle, which typified the bloody fighting in this region. One in three of the soldiers engaged became a casualty.
3rd Night in Nashville.

(29 September)
We leave Nashville and drive to Dover, the site of Fort Donelson. This is where in February 1862 General Ulysses S. Grant issued his ‘unconditional surrender’ note, which forced the surrender of the Confederate garrison, which in turn, compelled the south to give up most of Tennessee.
Travel to Pickwick Landing on the Tennessee/Mississippi border.

'No terms except an unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted'
(U.S Grant, Fort Donelson)

(30 September)
At 04.55 hours on Sunday 6 April 1862 the Confederate Army of General Albert S. Johnson, attacked the unprepared Union Army at Shiloh. This battle becomes the bloodiest in the west. We will see where Johnson is mortally wounded, the ‘Hornet’s Nest’ defended stoutly by Union soldiers enabling reinforcements to come up and stabilise the Union lines. That night the Confederates are celebrating a victory; they are confidant that on the next morning they will push their foes into the Tennessee River.
2nd Night at Pickwick Landing

(1 October)
During the night General Grant is able to bring up fresh divisions, these troops force back the Confederates who eventually withdraw leaving the road open towards the important railroad hub at Corinth. After lunch we will drive to Corinth, just over the border in Mississippi, we will also see Battery Robinette and the new National Park Visitors Centre, the site of heavy fighting in October 1862.
3rd night at Pickwick Landing.

(2 October)
Today we will drive to Chattanooga, our route takes us through the Southern Counties of Tennessee with the Alabama border on our right. In Lawrenceburg we will see a statue of Col. David Crockett. In Pulaski there is a statue of Sam Davis, the young Confederate soldier executed in the town in 1863. Numerous small cavalry skirmishes abounded in this region.
Hotel tonight in down town Chattanooga.

(3 October)
We visit the battlefield of Chickamauga, where between the 18 and 20 September 1863, Bragg’s Army inflicted a major defeat on the Union Army. The holding action by General George Thomas allowed time for the shattered Union Army to regroup and to stop the Confederates retaking Chattanooga.
2nd night in Chattanooga.

(4 October)
This morning we will drive up to Lookout Mountain occupied by the Confederates after Chickamauga, the mountain here gives an impressive view of the Tennessee River and the town of Chattanooga.
After lunch we drive southeast towards Atlanta, stopping at Pickett’s Mill Battlefield, where on 27 May 1864, the new commander of the Union Army, General William Sherman’s advance was halted with heavy casualties. Almost 25,000 men fought the terrain, the heat, the fear and each other in an area that became forever known as ‘the hell hole’ to surviving veterans.
Hotel tonight Atlanta.

(5 October)
We will tour the major Confederate defensive works on Kennesaw Mountain. Abandoning his usual flanking tactics, and ordered by Grant to bring the Confederate Army to battle, Sherman sent his troop against strong opposition at Cheatham Hill. Repulsed bloody, with losses of 4 to 1, and under threat of removal from command, he flanked Johnston’s position and continued his drive to Atlanta.
Then to the Southern Museum of Civil War & Locomotive History at Kennesaw.
2nd Night in Atlanta.

(6 October)
This morning we visit the large Cyclorama painting, 42 ‘ high by 348’ in circumference, depicting the battle for Atlanta, created in 1886.
After lunch we will drive out to Stone Mountain, the world’s largest granite monolith, on the mountain’s north side is a relief carving of President Davis and Generals Lee & Jackson.
Final night in Atlanta

(7 October)
An opportunity for shopping or relaxing before return afternoon flight from Atlanta