USA, Trip to the south

Old Feb 23rd, 2017, 07:39 PM
  #1  
Original Poster
 
Join Date: Feb 2017
Posts: 2
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
USA, Trip to the south

My wife and I are from Las Vegas, NV. We are travelling to the south and interested In Civil War History, Southern Mansions and such. We will enter Atlanta and are wondering what to see in Savannah, Charleston and Charlotte. Any suggestions?
mmaurerlv is offline  
Old Feb 23rd, 2017, 08:01 PM
  #2  
 
Join Date: Sep 2003
Posts: 2,763
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Personally I liked the Chickamauga and Chattanooga battlefields, if you get up to that northwest corner of Georgia. I liked the idea that one of the markers for my ancestor's division there was in somebody's front yard today. (I guess it was kosher for me to step a few feet inside their front fence and photograph it... but who knows?

Charlotte is a remarkably modern city... I drove around late one night and contemplated my sense that all of the downtown buildings seemed as if they were built circa 1995. I'm sure Charleston will have some impressive southern homes, old style.

If you are really into civil war history, you can easily find maps of various places of note, and probably make quite the nice trip of just driving around and seeing those.
NorthwestMale is offline  
Old Feb 24th, 2017, 03:23 AM
  #3  
 
Join Date: Jan 2008
Posts: 2,829
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Savannah and Charleston are great for historic homes, and the latter also has several plantations. Here's the itinerary I did in both:

Note that I like full sightseeing days, often done to the exclusion of a sit-down lunch.

I spent two full days in Savannah as follows:

-Day 1. (morning) Savannah History Museum, Telfair Mansion and Museum, Juliet Gordon Low's Birthplace tour, (afternoon) Davenport House tour, Owen-Thomas House tour. Explored the River Street/Factor's Walk area in the evening. All done on foot.

-Day 2. (morning) Ralph Mark Gilbert Civil Rights Museum, Andrew Low House tour, Green-Meldrim House tour, (afternoon) First African Baptist Church tour, Ships of the Sea Maritime Museum, Forsythe Park walk-through. All done on foot.

While walking between the various sights, I also got to see nearly all the squares in the historic area.

Had I had a car, I would have considered spending a third day seeing Old Fort Jackson, Fort Pulaski, and Fort McAlister, all located a short distance away but definitely not within walking distance.

"Garden of Good and Evil" based sights are on some folks's must-see list here, but I had different priorities.

One thing that helps keep things to two days in the historic district is that the Telfair and Ships-of-the-Sea museums are not large. The house and church tours took about an hour. The civil rights and history museums were a little larger.

For Charleston, I did the following:

-Day 1. (morning) Old Exchange and Provost Dungeon, Nathaniel Russell House, Heyward-Washington House, (afternoon) Edmonston-Alston House, walk around The Battery, Gibbes Museum of Art, Old City Market, city bus to and from campus of The Citadel. Otherwise all on foot.

-Day 2. (morning) Drayton Hall, Middleton Place, (afternoon) continued Middleton Place, Magnolia Plantation. Done using shuttle service via Charleston Chauffeur Company.

-Day 3. (morning) South Carolina Aquarium, Ft. Sumter, (afternoon), Aiken-Rhett House, Joseph Manigault House, Charleston Museum. All done on foot except water shuttle to and from Ft. Sumter.

The Charleston Museum is large and can easily take a few hours to experience. The three Ashley River Road plantations definitely take a day. The house tours took about an hour each. The Gibbes Museum is not that large, but has a much better collection than the Telfair.

I did not get to explore some of the other outlying attractions, such as Boone Hall, Cypress Gardens, Charles Towne Landing, the H.L. Hunley Submarine, or Ft. Moultrie.

In short, there were just more things I wanted to see in Charleston.
bachslunch is offline  
Old Feb 24th, 2017, 03:36 AM
  #4  
 
Join Date: Jan 2008
Posts: 2,829
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Re Civil War sites, Fort Sumter is in Charleston and you can take a water shuttle out and back to it. I found it interesting.

Not that I've been, unfortunately, but it looks like there are a lot of Civil War battlefields to tour in northern Virginia between Richmond and Washington, DC (Bull Run, Wilderness, Fredericksburg, etc.), plus Antietam is just over the border in Maryland. Have been to Gettysburg many years ago; it was wonderful, but maybe too far afield for you.

Atlanta itself has several attractions if that's of interest:

Reposted from an earlier thread I replied to with a couple changes:

I spent five full days sightseeing in Atlanta. There's a surprisingly large amount of stuff here. If memory serves, I did the following:

a. one day at the Stone Mountain Park complex. (Note that it's about a mile walk from the end of the bus line to the park entrance).

b. one day seeing the MLK Complex, Oakland Cemetery, Grant Park, and the Cyclorama/Civil War Museum (note: this last may now be closed for renovation and relocation to the Atlanta History Museum).

c. one day seeing the Downtown area attractions, such as the Georgia Aquarium, CNN Center, World of Coca Cola, and Underground Atlanta.

d. one day seeing the Midtown area attractions, such as touring both the Fox Theater and Margaret Mitchell's House, Piedmont Park, Atlanta Botanical Garden, and the High Museum.

e. one day seeing other city attractions, such as the State Capitol, Jimmy Carter Presidential Library, Jewish Heritage Museum, and Michael Carlos Museum at Emory University.

And I didn't even get to the Fernbank Science Center, Fernbank Museum of Natural History, Atlanta History Center, or the Zoo. So yes, one could spend a week sightseeing here.

While I can't say that I found Atlanta to be an especially appealing city in and of itself, there are a lot of attractions there. Some good eateries, too.

I did not use a car and stayed in Midtown, using MARTA and a couple bus routes. Staying at the airport makes car-less Atlanta sightseeing possible as well.

NOTE: did revisit Atlanta more recently, with the primary objective being to go to a Braves game. But also went to the Atlanta History Center (excellent), Center for Puppetry Arts (okay if you like this sort of thing), and the Natural History Museum (okay).
bachslunch is offline  
Old Feb 24th, 2017, 06:31 AM
  #5  
 
Join Date: Dec 2008
Posts: 2,445
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Chickamauga and Chattanooga were important Civil War Battles, and Chattanooga is an interesting southern city on its own, although it does not many old mansions that I know of.

As noted by bachslunch, the Atlanta History Center has a very good permanent exhibit on the Civil War in the West.

Also, Atlanta was the scene of a number of Civil War clashes, which together added up to perhaps the most important result in the Civil War: the fall of the City of Atlanta to Sherman, and you could easily spend a day looking at the various areas, although the city has developed so much that you really have to use your imagination: Peachtree Creek, the "Battle of Atlanta" (east Atlanta), Ezra Church (probably the easiest to vizualize what happened), Utoy Creek, and Jonesboro.

If you will have a car, drive out to Madison, GA, on your way east. Madison has a lot of ante-bellum mansions, few of which permits visits, however, but they are all quite interesting to look at.
dwdvagamundo is offline  
Old Feb 24th, 2017, 09:33 AM
  #6  
Original Poster
 
Join Date: Feb 2017
Posts: 2
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Thank You all for your wonderful replies!
mmaurerlv is offline  
Old Feb 24th, 2017, 11:34 AM
  #7  
 
Join Date: Jan 2003
Posts: 16,876
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
I don't think you said how long you will have but I don't' think Charlotte is a stop--UNLESS you fly into it to see Charleston and Savannah, which I would recommend.
And yes, I love and live in Charlotte and bemoan the fact that our city has always embraced new South. There are great things to do here.
Gretchen is offline  
Old Feb 28th, 2017, 03:04 PM
  #8  
 
Join Date: May 2007
Posts: 49,521
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Sounds like Vicksburg, MISS is out this trip but it is an amazing battle field. It is one of the most important war sites as it was the turning point of the war.

https://www.nps.gov/vick/index.htm
nanabee is offline  
Old Feb 28th, 2017, 04:44 PM
  #9  
 
Join Date: Jun 2010
Posts: 721
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
For Civil War trails info, the webiste http://www.civilwartrails.org/ has a lot of useful information. However, SC isn't part of it.

I would visit Charleston, SC because it's the start of that war.

If you arrive in Atlanta, you could do Sherman's march to the sea to Savannah.
sallytakemyhand is offline  
Related Topics
Thread
Original Poster
Forum
Replies
Last Post
cjml
United States
19
Feb 14th, 2019 02:34 PM
aggiegirl
United States
5
Oct 21st, 2018 06:50 AM
StuQ
United States
8
Feb 28th, 2013 04:50 AM
sbfrench1
United States
8
Mar 18th, 2012 12:28 PM
fergie
Road Trips
3
Apr 1st, 2009 11:40 AM

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is On
Trackbacks are Off
Pingbacks are Off
Refbacks are On


Thread Tools
Search this Thread

Contact Us - Manage Preferences - Archive - Advertising - Cookie Policy - Privacy Statement - Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information -