Planning Chickamauga

A Union cannon sits atop Horseshoe
Ridge at Chickamauga.

I am heading for Georgia next week. It’s a business trip. I’ll be working for Goodyear at the NHRA drag race at The Atlanta Dragway Thursday through Sunday. I haven’t been to a race in Atlanta in several years and I have never been to the Dragway. I always look forward to visiting new tracks.

The first few days of the trip will be spent along the Georgia-Tennessee border at the Chickamauga battlefield park. It’s the oldest Civil War battlefield park in the system. I’ll be researching the actions of the unit an ancestor of ours belonged to. Our ancestor was wounded during that battle. I’ll have my trusty Nikon with me and I hope to photograph the areas where the family history was involved.

This is my second visit to Chickamauga. I was there in March of 2010 and caught some images of the same areas I want to walk and study this year.

Chickamauga is a somber place for me to visit. It is, after all, the site of a very bloody battle where a lot of men lost their lives and many more, like my kinsman, were wounded. I visit with great enthusiasm but I walk with great respect.

In order to save time I have a list of the locations that I think I want to photograph. I’ll arrive with a very systematic plan. Typically I abandon the systematic approach about an hour after my arrival because I’ll notice something not included in my plan and I’ll spend time setting up a photo of the new area. That happened frequently at Gettysburg last summer.

The South Carolina Memorial
near Horseshoe Ridge at
Chickamauga.

I read a bit about the battle of Chickamauga before I visited the battlefield last year and I bought a battle map from the Alabama Department of Archives and History to study. Now that I’ve been there and know what things look like, the map makes sense and I can picture mentally what I’m reading about. That has made planning this year’s trip easier.

I’ll carry my Nikon D90 and four lenses, plus a monopod. I have a huge backpack specifically designed for carrying photographic gear and I’ll have all my stuff in it. I can carry two cameras in the backpack but this time I’ll probably bring just the one.

When I return to Gettysburg in June, I’ll probably add my N8008 film camera to the load. We’ll be there a longer time than the three days I’ll be at Chickamauga and I’ll have time to use the second camera. There is something about shooting with black and white film that is pleasing to me but I have found that using two cameras requires a great deal more time than I’ll have next week.

If you visit Chickamauga, I advise you start with the Visitors Center. The Rangers are very helpful and I found the people in the bookstore to be friendly. There is an excellent display of long guns – rifles – as well, some dating back to the earliest such weapons. There is a small theater that shows short films about the battle.

The battle of Chickamauga took place roughly 10 weeks after the battle of Gettysburg. Chickamauga was a two-day fight that resulted in a Confederate victory. It also resulted in a serious leg wound from which my great, great grandfather never fully recovered. He limped for the remainder of his life.

I’ll try to post some images from Chickamauga after my visit there. In the mean time…

Thanks for reading.