A War Damaged House of the Civil War | History Traveler Episode 68

so anytime you start talking military history whether it's civil war world war one world war two whatever a lot of focus and emphasis get put on the movements of the armies and the military and the battles and different things like that and one of the elements that commonly gets overlooked is how it affects these civilians in the area where the battle is taking place on the last video we were talking about the the Battle of Franklin and in this one I wanted to talk a little bit more about the civilian element and really there is no better place to do that than right here at the Carter House in Franklin Tennessee [Music] now in the last video we were talking about the Battle of Franklin and one of the iconic locations for that battle is right here at the Carter House so prior to the Battle of a guy by the name of Major General Jacob D Cox who was under the Union command of Schofield stopped at this house really really early in the morning while everybody was still asleep and knocked on that front door of the Carter Family and basically let him know that they were going to be setting up a headquarters there he told the family that they could stay because he didn't think that being on this high position that the the Confederates would actually attack here he thought that they would maybe try some flanking maneuvers he he thought that the family would be safe and turns out it ended up being a little bit of a hazardous area to be [Music] okay so we're approaching the back door of the Carter House here and I'm on the back porch and my gosh right before you even get into the house look at this those are not woodpecker holes those are all made from Confederate bullets that were being fired at the Union lines looks like another little bullet strike right here golly and the family was actually here on the property at the time now look at this so just beneath I'm gonna get it in focus just beneath that wire mesh covering that is the entry hole for a cannonball and just absolutely tore this house up gosh can't even imagine okay so I've just got into the Carter house here and just like everywhere I go if I can find somebody who knows more than I do to show me around then I am going to take full advantage of that so I've got with me Brad who works as a historical interpreter here and also does a lot of the the production work for the Battle of Franklin they've got a YouTube page that has a lot of good information on it so anyway probably gonna defer to his expertise quite a bit as we go through this house okay so we just entered into the Carter house and this is the master bedroom a slash family parlor I mean see if I can get a little bit more light out of this here interesting so yeah kind of interesting having like a bedroom and family parlor ooh and yeah haven't even been in here five minutes and I've already violated the rules so anyway as I was saying this is a master bedroom and parlor which is kind of interesting you know during that time I guess they had to utilize every room that they could but take a look at this this is really really fascinating if you look at the headboard that and focus here right here that's a bullet strike from the Battle of Franklin right above that pillow gosh how crazy is that okay now as with a lot of historic items you know this is a chair and it doesn't seem like much but whenever you know that this chair was struck by a Civil War bullet well it makes something ordinary into something quite fascinating golly okay I'm looking out the window to the south of the Carter house right now and I really like what they've done they've put a picture here to show you what the Carter family's view would have been in November of 1864 this kind of brings you into that moment just a little bit more [Music] okay now one advantage of having a little bit of a contact on the inside to get some access to some places that might not be on the regular tour so I'm able to go upstairs here which you can't do because you know you can't have too many people in this small area but I do want to show a little bit of behind the scenes here at the Carter house this is pretty interesting okay now this is an upstairs bedroom that would have been for the kids or maybe some of the women in the house and you can see it's a really tight confined space now the Confederates would have been advancing from the south side here so rifle fire would have been coming in and take a look at this now this is in the kids bedroom and you can see spots in the wall where there were bullet strikes and then if I go over here to the other side well there you can see where it blasted through golly man that must have been awful [Music] so if you come for two or one of the last things we do is we bring folks down here to the cellar because this is where the Carter Family Shelter during the battle it is to get down here you see it's really it was a knife cellar for the time it wasn't just a root cellar it was enough space you can stand upright it's cooler down here in the summertime there's a fireplace so it's warmer in the winter but we think they use this first area as part of their living space likely as a dining room which is why we have set up like that today but when the Carter Family filtered down here during the battle you get sixteen family members at least seven enslaved individuals who come down here right when the battle begins when the violence erupts the Confederate Army is coming towards them from this direction from the south and so they go to the northernmost room in the house which is straight back through here source we're cleaning through a space that was set up as like a pantry and then this back room we've been used as storage but how we have it set up today is that we have a chair representing each individual who we believe was down here during the battle so all of the Carters in the Carter in law's the neighbor family by the last name of loads who shelter down here as well their house still stands on the other side of the road and the names of at least seven enslaved individuals there might have been more but we think at least seven inside individuals as well they were down here for 10 or 12 hours through all the fighting whatever at everything you want now what we are looking at right here is the original farm office of the Carter House and as you approach you can see that this building just absolutely got peppered during the battle but if you go inside look at that my gosh the head is absolutely insane I don't know that there is any other battlefield of the Civil War that you can go to and see anything like that [Music] okay so I'm now standing on the south end of the farm office so the Confederates would have been firing in this direction and would have been positioned behind me and over here is the smokehouse and again just look at all of the Battle Damage that is absolutely crazy so during the battle one thing that Brad pointed out to me is that go through this gate you would have had Union soldiers positioned right here and right here getting protection from these buildings we'll look at this all along this brick wall anytime you see like one of these little grey marks well that is a lead strike from a Confederate bullet as they were firing on the Union soldiers that were right here in this funnel you can see some more damage over here this place really is incredible had no idea that I'd be seeing this kind of stuff today very very cool okay so again there's the the Carter house and this is the kitchen and as you can see just like the other structures completely chewed up from Confederate bullets man oh man all right well that was the Carter house right here in Franklin Tennessee golly had no idea that this place was here it came to me highly recommended and I'm so glad that I came because you are not going to go to any other Civil War battlefield and see anything like what they have here pretty remarkable very glad that very glad that I came [Music] [Applause]

Channel: The History Underground

Views: 350,217

Rating: 4.952035 out of 5

Keywords: history, history traveler, history underground, travel, civil war, battle of franklin, battle of nashville, confederates, john bell hood, nathan bedford forrest, civil war battle, union army, carntan, tennessee, nashville, franklin, carter house, confederate cemetery, battle damage, war

Id: ElTYT0RhxNE

Length: 13min 46sec (826 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 22 2020