History 2019
  
 

Day 12

May 27

  
   
  This will be just another 'grind it out' day on I81 then on I40 into Nashville. As I figured, Sissy has fled in the night and is somewhere between here and her house.  
   
  As soon as we seen the Shoney's sign light up, Andy and I clear the room and ride over for some more pig meat and hen fruit.  
   
  With enough grease and fat to lubricate my internal motors, we are soon on the final day of the ride.  
   
  We are out early enough that traffic is pretty slim which suits us just fine. We have already talked about how we will probably get separated going through Knoxville. We both know the way home and trying to stay together in traffic poses its own hazards.  
   
  As we near the Tennessee border, I always enjoy passing this church that is not afraid of letting the world know that the Cross is the path to Victory.  
   
  Soon I see my beloved state sign and know it's only another 300 miles or so to my Holler.  
   
  We make one more gas stop knowing this should be our last one. I go ahead and give Andy a good-bye hug as we probably won't be able to stay together from this point.  
   
  And sure enough, the traffic gets crazier and crazier the closer we get to Nashville. Andy gets stuck behind a parade of about 20 cars that can't make up their mind what speed they want to travel. I find one that wants to move right along and I follow it for quite a ways.  
   
  Soon I am back in my beloved Holler and I pull Frost into her place alongside the other three girls.  
   
 

It's been a wonderful, interesting ride unlike any other one I have ever done from many perspectives. I haven't clicked my heels three times and said 'There's no place like home' to get here, but indeed -

'There's No Place Like Home!"

  
   
 

***FOOTNOTE***

Many years ago I dropped by the Sons Of Confederate Veterans headquarters in Columbia, TN just to browse their records. They have alphabetic lists of all of the Confederate combatants in books. This gives you what unit and company they fought under. They may have records for Union combatants but I don't know. So I looked for my surname and other related family surnames and found JKP Lowrance and knew I had a match.

After the Civil war, trained copyists transferred all the muster records from both sides on to a standardized form (my guess for pension purposes). Somewhere along the line, these forms were microfilmed. If you have an interest and an ancestor that fought, you can contact the National Archives and request their 'muster' records. The archives will send you a PDF of those microfilmed forms. Knowing their name is good, but knowing which 'side', unit and company greatly increases the possibility for match. Muster records tell you where they were, on what dates, and various other stuff. Once you know that, you can usually trace their unit history and create a timeline when your ancestor was involved. When I got the ones for JKP, they were free but I did have to sign a document stating I was a direct descendent.