Civil War sites may hold up Rome-Cartersville corridor
Right of way acquisition for the long contemplated Rome- Cartersville Development Corridor could get underway as soon as July of 2021.
Now, a group of Civil War history buffs across the state is learning that the proposed route does have some contact with at least three sites relative to the May 1864 campaign at Cassville and Cartersville.
Archaeological surveys done in conjunction with the road project have recommended that the earthworks should be avoided.
Two of the sites are near the current junction of U.S. 41 and U.S. 411 just west of Cartersville. Confederate lines from action in May of 1864 are still discernible, according to information published in the November newsletter of the Georgia Battlefields Association.
“Previous surveys couldn’t agree on exactly who built one of them or whether it was used by both sides,” said Charlie Crawford, president of the GBA.
The November GBA newsletter speculates that the construction of the existing intersection years ago probably resulted in the loss of a lot of the evidence of the trenches.
Charlie Crawford, President of the GBA, said the archaeological consultants recommended that the sites be avoided as much as possible and the GBA concurs with that recommendation.
“If they leave things exactly as they are, in other words they don’t touch them, that’s sufficient preservation to one degree,” Crawford said. “But the purpose of preserving in many instances is to use it as an outdoor classroom. So you know only preserve but you interpret and put a sign there.”
Crawford said the down side to the latter is that it can often lead to relic hunting. He suggested that there has already been a lot of relic hunting at those site.
The third site the GBA is interested in is nearly midway along the new route of the corridor. Earthworks there are believed to have been constructed by Federal troops during action closer to Cartersville in May of 1864.
“In this particular case, we were fairly sure they ( archaeologists) were going to run across something,” Crawford said.
According to Crawford, all three sites are one the very fringes of the proposed right of way for the highway.
“They (the archaeologists) provided extensive amounts of justification for what they did, they can’t very well say don’t build the road,” Crawford said. “If you just leave them alone in this case that will be fine.”
For information about the Civil War action in the Cassville area, go to https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/cassville-line.