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The next stop in Franklin is Carnton Plantation. On the New York Times best-seller list for months, The Widow of the South was based on the life of Carrie McGavock, the mistress of the plantation during the Civil War. After the Battle of Franklin, the plantation – like many other large houses near battlefields – became an impromptu army hospital. McGavock cared for hundreds of wounded and dying men from both sides of the war, and in 1866, enlarged her own family’s cemetery to bury 1500 troops. Tours now showcase the family’s portraits and furnishings, much unchanged since the war. “On the floor, you can see imprints of bloody shoes from the Civil War,” says Hodge. “They had tests done to make sure it wasn’t oil from the 1950s, but no, it was blood.”

On the anniversary of the battle, Franklin hosts thousands of die-hard Civil War reenactors, who spend days dressed in woolen shell jackets, camping out in A-frame canvas tents and eating Civil War rations from tin mess plates. Hodge had never much thought about the environment before he began spending time in historic locations that were being swallowed up by suburban sprawl, or ignored out of budget constraints or apathy. But then he found reenacting and, “the Confederate flag made me an environmentalist,” he says. “It’s about being at Franklin, Tennessee, on November 30, and preferably on a Wednesday, because the battle was on a Wednesday. It’s about knowing that you’re stepping on the same ground at the same time where people you’ve read about stepped.” Years ago, a Pizza Hut was built over soldiers’ graves, but preservation groups have raised $2.5 million and reclaimed the area as a public green space, open to visitors.

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“You’ve got to hit a battlefield early in the morning. Sunrise to 8am is best. It’s beautiful with the fog in the morning, or at twilight with the fading light. I’m a filmmaker, so I’ll take my tripod and camera out and I’ll film the historic vistas I’m enamored with. That’s when the spiritual vibe gets me more.”

Robert Lee Hodge

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If you’d like to bed down for the night somewhere a tad more comfortable, head into Chattanooga and the Mayor’s Mansion Inn, a stately 1889 home with as many modern comforts as antique touches. Set your alarm to rise before dawn to head down Hwy 1/US-27 to the expansive Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park. Chattanooga was a major railroad thoroughfare at the start of the Civil War, so whichever side claimed her would be able to boast a clear transportation advantage. The park was the first battlefield made into a national military park, back in 1890. From September 18 to 20, 1863, over 60,000 Union troops and 43,000 Confederate troops fought at Chickamauga. At the end of the battle, there were 34,000 soldiers wounded, killed or taken prisoner. The Union troops had retired to Chattanooga, where they gathered supplies. One month later, under the direction of General Ulysses S Grant, Union and Confederate forces once again fought, this time resulting in a clear Union victory, paving the way for Union General William Tecumseh Sherman to start his eastward march to the sea from Chattanooga the following spring. Be sure to stop in at Lookout Mountain, the site of much fighting. “I haven’t been able to find it yet,” says Hodge, “but there’s an interpretative marker [somewhere on the mountain] where my ancestors fought with the Fourth Alabama Calvary.”

Head toward Atlanta, to the Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park, located just before the city beltline. It’s surrounded by suburbs, but is easily accessible. Considered one of the events with the most needless waste of troops, the series of battles led by General Sherman saw 3000 Union and 1000 Confederate soldiers die without any ground gained. In the city, Hodge recommends the Atlanta History Center. For him, museums are about the “stuff” that make the history books and battlefields real, and the history center is filled with enough “stuff” to bring a tangible connection