2026 April 11: Chickasaw State Park and Shiloh National Military Park

Our next stay would be at Chickasaw State Park in Tennessee. This took us through the “Land Between the Lakes” (sorry, no pictures.)

We saw the Batman building as we drove through Nashville…

There were also these orange symbols all over the place: sides of barns, on signs, everywhere!

Along the way we took a short detour to visit the Shiloh National Military Park. Shiloh was a pivotal battle in the Civil War. The Confederacy surprised the Union forces on day one, causing the Union forces to retreat throughout the day to Pittsburg landing on the Tennessee River. Reinforcements joined the Union troops during the night, and the Union staged an early morning counterattack on the Confederacy. The Confederate forces thought that day would be mopping up the Union forces, so they were caught by surprise with the counterattack. The Confederacy spent that day slowly retreating, losing all the ground they had gained the day before. This was one of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War, with over 23,000 casualties during the two days. After this battle the Confederacy retreated to Corinth, which fell to a Union siege. The loss of Corinth meant the western Confederacy couldn’t use trains to connect to the eastern Confederacy.

We didn’t want to stay too long at Shiloh, it was getting late. Vicki went into the visitor’s center and watched the 45 minute film about the battle.

Steve watched some of the film, and took Lexie for a walk to Pittsburg Landing, which was next to the National Cemetery.

Road to Pittsburg Landing w cemetery to the left and Tennessee River in background
Steve at Pittsburg landing
Shiloh Military Park geographic background
Lexie resting at Pittsburg Landing (Shiloh)
Shiloh Military Park memorial
Shiloh Military Park visitor center

So our stay at Shiloh was short but informative. Well worth the drive (even if our Google maps gave us a wrong turn along the way!)

Our stop for the night was at Chickasaw State Park. Steve had to dig through old emails to find the campsite number since there was no registration or check-in office.

But the site was in good shape even if we needed to take a small hike uphill to get to our picnic table.

Chickasaw SP campsite from entrance
Chickasaw SP campsite showing distance to our picnic table
Chickasaw SP campsite

The next morning Steve took Lexie for a hike through Fern Creek Trail, a short one mile hike through the woods. Lexie must have been confused because she wanted to walk around a little more afterwards. Lexie has been happy with shorter and shorter walks these days, a sadness to Steven who likes company on his long walks.

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