Category: Kentucky Lake/Tennessee River

On Friday, Rick and I borrowed the marina’s courtesy van to visit Shiloh National Military Park and Corinth Civil War Interpretive Center.

If you are ever in this area, I highly recommend a visit to both sites, these sites are exceptional and provide a wealth of information on the civil war.

Civil War History (April 12, 1861 – May 9, 1865)

Both the Union and Confederate armies considered Corinth, MS, crossroads of the Memphis & Charleston and the Mobile & Ohio railroads, vital to their success. At the beginning of the war, the Confederate Army utilized Corinth as a mobilization center for Confederate troops. By March of 1862, Gen P.G.T. Beauregard had gathered nearly 44,000 troops at Corinth.

In March 1862, fresh from his successes at Forts Henry and Donelson, Maj Gen Grant disembarked his troops at Pittsburg Landing, TN with plans to advance on Corinth. However, on April 6th, the Confederate army seized the initiative and attacked the Union camps in the forest and fields around the Shiloh Meeting House. At the end of two days of fierce fighting, 23, 746 union and confederate soldiers were killed, wounded or missing. By the end of the war, approximately 620,000 soldiers would die from combat, accident, starvation, and disease.

After Shiloh, the Union advanced to Corinth. The Siege of Corinth, April 29th through May 30th, 1862 came to an end when the Confederates retreated and the Union took control of Corinth. As a result, the union also controlled the entire Mississippi River valley.

 

 

As we continue on our Great Loop adventure, we expect to transit at least 100 locks, Thursday was lock number one. The stories of good and bad lock passages are numerous on the Internet and with fellow Loopers. Wait time of hours, transiting in the dark, damage to your boat, bad weather, and unfriendly, if not hostile, lock masters. Today we locked up to Pickwick Lake and I’m delight to say that our transit was outstanding, Twenty-minute wait-time, no other boats in the chamber, bright sunny skies, and an awesome lock master. Kudo’s to the lock master, he not only made sure all was going well, he also entertained us with stories of other Loopers and about his trip to Idaho and Washington.

After exiting the lock, we continued to Tennessee River mile 215.1 where the Tennessee River goes east.  We turned into Yellow Creek at the Mississippi and Tennessee State border and we continued south on the Tennessee-Tombigbee (Tenn-Tom).

Below are pictures of some of the houses along the Tennessess River. Lots of diversity.

 

As I have noted, the water on the Tennessee River is currently very low, however, that is not always the case. At the Clifton Marina Bar & Grill, we saw a 2004 picture showing the waterline up to the middle of the white fuel tanks that are shown in the picture below. I think we are happy with the current conditions.

Today we encounter four towboats, one going downstream and the others going upstream. Passing a towboat on the river is not like passing a semi on the freeway, the towboats are too large and too slow to change course, so it is the pleasure vessel that must abide by the towboat captain’s needs. When calling the captain of the towboat they will either say, “See you on the one (whistle)” or “See you on the two (whistle),” (they do not always say whistle). What does this mean?

When overtaking a towboat (both vessels heading in the same way)
“See you on the one (whistle)” means overtake on his starboard (your port)
“See you on the two (whistle)” means overtake on his port (your starboard)
When passing a towboat (vessels going in opposite directions)
“See you on the one (whistle)” means pass port to port
“See you on the two (whistle)” means pass starboard to starboard

Wednesday on the river turned out to be a great bird watching day. As always, taking pictures from a moving boat was a bit problematic, but I managed to get a few.

Our anchorage Wednesday evening was behind Wolf Island, near Savannah, Tennessee. Another beautiful evening, fish were jumping, owls were calling “who, who, who”, coyotes were howling, and a Blue Huron was there to bid us a good evening.

Remember what I said about not wanting less water beneath our keel? Well, on the way out of the channel the depth-gage showed 0.1 feet. The level is controlled by the TVA at Pickwick Dam and for some reason, they haven’t released any water for a few months. One of the men at the marina thinks they are doing either construction or repair work at the dam. At least we did not go aground.
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From Perryville, we traveled a short distance to Clifton, TN where we are spending two nights exploring the area and preparing for our first lock at Pickwick Landing Lock and Dam.

In the late 1800’s Clifton became the most important commercial area in Wayne County. Local lumbermen and farmers shipped livestock, lumber, cotton, and tan bark on the river from Clifton. Supplies coming into Clifton were distributed around the county by wagon.
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Famous Son: Clifton, T.S. Stribling, 1933 Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist.
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Today the town was pretty quiet. We did find the public library and were bemused by the sign on their door.

Civil War History (April 12, 1861 – May 9, 1865)

From the spring of 1862 until July 1863, Union forces waged a campaign to take the Confederate stronghold of Vicksburg, Mississippi. On December 15, 1862, a Confederate force of eighteen hundred, under the command of General Nathan Bedford Forrest, crossed the Tennessee at Clifton to launch a two-hundred-mile raid on Union lines and supplies in order to delay the Union campaign against Vicksburg.

Before leaving Pebble Isle Marina we accepted an invitation to join the staff for homemade cinnamon buns. If you know me well, you know that I rarely eat sweets. This time I decided to make an exception, I wanted to join in the conversation and, at the same time, not offend the host. We were on the river for several hours with me standing up, sitting down, moving here, and moving there before I realized I was having a “sugar high.” How do you say, never again?

Sunday was a beautiful day to cruise the river. We left Kentucky Lake behind us and continued on the Tennessee. We passed our first two river barges, cruised by a Tennessee National Wildlife Park, and entered Perryville Marina with the lowest water level we ever hope to see be beneath Andiamo. Our depth-gage showed a mere 0.5 feet of water below our keel and we were inside the entrance channel, a traumatic experience for the captain who was sure that we would run aground. The day ended with a glass of wine and a full moon, life is good.

Civil War History (April 12, 1861 – May 9, 1865)

While at Pebble Isle Marina we visited Johnsonville State Historic Park which commemorates the site of the Johnsonville Depot, the Battle of Johnsonville and the historic town site of Johnsonville that existed from 1864-1944. Johnsonville, the location of a Union supply depot, was attacked on November 4th, 1864 by Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest. The attack destroyed 14 transports, 20 barges, four gunboats and more than $6 million worth of supplies meant for Union General William T. Sherman’s army in Georgia. Although this battle was a win for the Confederate army it did not stop General Sherman’s march to the sea.

Tuesday morning and we are ready to leave GTB behind us.

Tuesday evening we entered the beautiful, peaceful, enchanting Sugar Bay for our first anchorage on the Loop. As we enter the bay  we are met by an eagle, then blue heron, and as we drop the anchor a white pelican flows by.

As we leave Sugar Bay we see a UFO taking off from Kentucky Lake.

Wednesday, we said good-bye to Kentucky and hello to Tennessee where we spent our second night at a beautiful anchorage. We enjoyed a star filled evening and awoke with Andiamo encased in dense fog that took several hours to melt away.

Tonight we are at Paris Landing State Park Marina, can you tell that we are traveling a little out of season? Since the office staff left at 4:00 pm, we have not seen anyone in the marina.