Saturday, April 13, 2013

Jenkins' Ferry: Born in the Saline Bottoms
















Site near the Union Army's pontoon bridge crossing (off to the left), Jenkins' Ferry, Arkansas. In the battle of April 30, 1864, Union and Confederate casualties amounted to about 1,500.

"The ground was thickly strewn with ghostly, mangled forms. It was almost too horrible for human endurance. No conception of the imagination, no power of human language could do justice to such a horrible scene." -- "BATTLE OF JENKINS' FERRY," The Grant County Museum, 521 Shackleford Road, Sheridan, AR 72150.


Yeah you know I was born in the bottoms
Down by the Devil's Den
Yeah I was born in the bottoms
Down by the Devil's Den
Yes you know I ain't seen my home
Whoah yes since the Good Lord knows when. . .
Lightnin' Hopkins, "Born in the Bottoms" (Strikes Again, circa 1960).

Smoldering leaves at Jenkins' Ferry.

The end of the road. Buckling pavement near the site of the Union pontoon bridge crossing.

Today's Rune: Initiation.

2 comments:

jodi said...

Erik, that place looks haunted. And I knew upon reading those words that they would make a great blues tune!

Charles Gramlich said...

The comments of someone who was there, reminds me of Boston Yesterday. How little we have changed.