The Antebellum Trail

Antebellum means 'before the war' and in the US it refers to the period before the Civil War, especially in the Southern States.

The Antebellum trail begins in Athens and ends in Macon, but the cities of Atlanta and Augusta are also included, maybe even some other, as well. On the one hand, it represents the romantic old south, but on the other, the fact that it was the time and place of slavery and abuse of human rights should never be forgotten.

We visited Madison, a quaint little city. In Milledgville we went for a short tour of Lockerly Plantation, which isn't so grand as Belle Meade. In Macon we visited the Indian mounds at the Ocmulgee National Monument and in Eatonton we saw the Rock Eagle Effigy, which is supposed to have been built thousands years ago, but as usual, no one has the faintest idea why and by whom it was built.

Another interesting question that can be raised here is: What town did Sherman NOT burn? William Tecumseh Sherman was a Union general who burned down towns and villages on his march through Georgia and the Carolinas. Today some of those that weren't burnt, such as Madison, boast of being the only town that Sherman didn't burn, one of the reasons being his girlfriend who lived there. Others, like Augusta, used to have an inferiority complex - because they felt they were so irrelevant that Sherman didn't want to be bothered.

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