FORT OGLETHORPE, Ga. – My group of casual bicyclists pedaled through a tranquil scene barely 10 miles south of Chattanooga’s bustling downtown. A breeze whispered through the pines and oaks. The sun warmed acres of open fields. A red-tailed hawk glided through a brilliant blue sky.
The setting was calm and relaxing, but we knew that beneath that day’s serenity lay a dark backdrop stained by the violence and death of one of the Civil War’s critical engagements (34,000 casualties). Memorials to piercing combat stories dotted the landscape as we rolled through the Chickamauga Battlefield, part of Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park that occupies portions of Georgia and Tennessee.
An additional sobering sight was just three miles from where we were bicycling. That was the location of an even earlier trauma – a staging area where the native Cherokee people waited to start the Trail of Tears in 1838…