Finally - "Parade of Unity"

 Location: Paulk RV Park (city-owned); Fitzgerald, Georgia

Two days ago, I put the Atlantic coast in my rearview side mirror and headed west towards Louisiana. After 325 miles of "thinking", "head-clearing", "soul-cleansing" (wow, I built that up pretty big uh?) towing, I stopped at a city owned campground in the city of Fitzgerald, Georgia. It was a good tow on descent roads with nice fuel/rest stops. It seems as though a traveler needs drives like those just to let time catch up and put some things in perspective.  As I've said before, I'll pick something to think about during the day and wear a colored silicone ring to remind me of it. The words of the day, for the tow, was "faith" and "gratitude". My daughter is who suggested "faith". It was a good day. 

Represents the South Carolina/Georgia border area

It turned into a pretty day with puffy white clouds and blue sky.

Campsite #2. Full hook-ups and not crowded. The campground feels more open and exposed than my normal COE or NFS campgrounds. It was OK, but I doubt I'll be back. 

Fitzgerald is located about 150 miles south of Atlanta and the only thing I knew about the town was it had a museum named "The Fitzgerald Blue & Gray Museum". That sparked my interest enough to stop here for three days and take a look. When I started exploring the museum, I was very surprised by what I found out. 

I've traveled a lot over the last 11 years, and I've explored many Civil War museums, battlefields, cemeteries and memorials. I've explored Fort Sumter where it all started and Appomattox Court House where it ended. I've walked on the battlefields and felt many lost souls in places like Shiloh, Vicksburg, Gettysburg, Corith etc. In each place, I could sense how the information being presented was skewed/tilted in one direction or the other. In non-weasel words, it was either a Yankee or Rebal place, but they always said a few nice things about the other side mainly just to placate visitors. As with almost everything in this life, you can listen to whatever they want to tell you, but you have to do your own research and figure it out for yourself. If you don't, then you can be easily mis-led. Sometimes, you will figure it out wrong and that's OK because you were following yourself, not someone else. The vast majority of the time, you will be right. I did this in my career and am still during it in my retirement. In all of those places and all of the research I did, I never heard of Fitzgerald or any of the other places that are similar to it. Here is the towns story as briefly as I can tell it. 

A man named Philander H. Fitzgerald was an editor/owner? of the newspaper, Indianapolis Tribune, in the late 1800's. During the Civil War, he was a drummer boy for the Union Army. After the war, he noticed the Yankee Vets in the mid-west (Illinois, Indiana, Ohio) were having a tough time due to drought conditions and very cold winters. Around 1895, Fitzgerald got an idea about how to help them. He formed the American Tribune Soldiers Colony Company and sold 50,000 shares for $10.00 a share. With this money, he went shopping for land in the South so as to have better weather. What he bought was 100,000 acres of pine forest and a small settlement named Swan. The local industry was tapping the pine trees and making turpentine. Fitzgerald bought everything around and had the place cleared to make room for the veterans who bought shares and even those that didn't. The place was on its way to becoming a Soldier Colony (a term I just found out about). They laid the city out in squares and named the streets after some Civil War Generals making sure that each side had the same number. The first four were Lee, Grant, Sherman and Johnston. Before the city was laid out entirely, he looked around and there were 2,700 Union Vets and 600 Confederate Vets. Everyone mostly got along just fine. If someone acted up, the peer pressure of the rest of the people would put them in their place. The town was mostly self-sufficient, but they realized a railroad would be needed to bring some things in and their products out. So, they built a railroad. It wasn't long before tickets were being sold to tourists in Atlanta and the other big southern cities saying, "Take a train ride to Fitzgerald and see the Yankees". 

A couple of years after the city was incorporated, they planned a big shindig to highlight what they had accomplished. It was going to be a Thanksgiving Harvest Parade. The plan was to have the Confederate Vets and their band go first followed by the Union Vets and their band. All of the parade members and bands gathered in the very large Corn and Cotton Palace building. When the music began and the doors swung open, the bands and vets had combined into one and marched, together, to the National Anthem. That parade became an annual affair and known has the Parade of Unity. 

This town, which was created for veterans from both sides, having come together in reconciliation is something that I needed. I needed it to make all of my civil war explorations come together. I'm satisfied. 

This is the only picture I took inside of the museum. It is located in the old Train Depot and the mantle/fireplace is original dating back to the late 1890's. The state flags represent the states of the residents of the town. Impressive. 

Tomorrow is moving day and a much shorter tow. 

Ya'll take care of each other. Maybe I'll Cya down the road.