Roaming Historic America : A Civil War Odyssey : Inspired by the PBS series ‘The Civil War’, one couple embarked on an 8,300-mile, 22-state journey to visit the haunting battlefields of a country divided.

Like many Americans, my wife, Esme, and I learned early on about Fort Sumter, Gettysburg and Sherman’s march through Georgia to the sea. We savored movies about Yanks and Johnny Reb, read Margaret Mitchell and belted out Dixie and Battle Hymn of the Republic.

But Civil War buffs? Never. Our interests went elsewhere.

So nobody is more surprised than we are to see us now, back from an 8,300-mile, 22-state car trip through Civil War country. We left Pasadena in April with our dog, Logan, and an array of maps for which Robert E. Lee would have swapped Traveller and Ulysses S. Grant sung Dixie.

Our inspiration was the PBS series “The Civil War.” Even now, I’m not sure what impelled us to switch it on last fall. We had never traveled in the Deep South except for a day I once spent in Plains, Ga., interviewing Jimmy Carter, and a few visits Esme paid to New Orleans. Maybe it was the spirit of Esme’s Rebel great grandfather, a Cherokee chief with a Confederacy medallion on his grave. Or my own ancestor and namesake, an Ohio abolitionist who is buried in the prisoner of war cemetery at Andersonville, Ga.

Whatever, we watched every minute of “The Civil War,” 11 hours in all. Kenneth Burns took four years to produce that TV masterpiece and two seconds to capture us. At Christmas, Esme presented me with a full set of the PBS tapes and we watched the series again. At the same time, on our bookshelves, we discovered Shelby Foote’s three-volume Civil War history. These and other books fed our fire.

As the flames grew, we came to realize a personal tour of the South was in order, not only of the battlefields but of much more. We wanted total immersion.

We wanted to inspect Andersonville, the infamous prisoner of war camp, enter Wilmer McClean’s home in Virginia, where Grant met Lee at Appomattox Court House, explore every peripheral to the war we could track down, from houses and hospitals to locomotives and tools to fashions andfurniture. And we wanted to visit our Civil War ancestors’ graves.

So, on April 9, we set out chasing Civil War ghosts, south to Vicksburg, Miss., east to Fort Sumter, S.C., north to Gettysburg, Pa. Wherever we went, our heads so echoed with Ken Burns’ uncanny audio effects--the soldiers’ shouts and yips, caissons, cavalry, cannon,mortars and muskets--we could almost smell gunpowder. We visualized the carnage and imagined the sounds at the other battle sites we visited, too: Shiloh, Chickamaugua, Lookout Mountain, Missionary Ridge (now an exclusive residential district that we found through detective work), Cold Harbor, Petersburg, Harper’s Ferry and Wilson’s Creek, Mo. (We had planned to stay with friends in Washington and make day trips to Bull Run, Antietam, Chancellorsville, Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania, but Esme became ill and we decided to save these visits for a future trip.)

Such ghosts! In the army and out, these heroes, gallants, nitwits, philosophers, scalawags, dandified aristocrats, slaves, farmers, mechanics and tradesmen--well, virtually every man and woman, north and south--peopled a world of passion and sorrow that resonated, one can see now, with something akin to universal truth and folly.

We viewed ourselves as the Civil War Express. Although Esme put Cherokee museums and information centers in North Carolina and Oklahoma on our list and I added air museums in Pima, Az., and Oklahoma City, The War Between the States pervaded our lives for five weeks.

That was fine with the dog. Logan was so happy to evade the kennel she would have followed us to Red Adair’s camp in Kuwait.

Besides Logan, we took another dear companion: A three-box Book on Tape, James McPherson’s “Battle Cry of Freedom,” considered by some experts to be the best one-volume history about the Civil War. As we drove, we listened to 36 McPherson cassettes.

Although most of our maps came from the auto club, we obtained others plus stacks of briefing materials from book stores, shops along the way and archives of Civil War junkies (whose personal guidance we synthesized because no two made the same recommendations.) Jeb Stuart, the South’s great cavalryman and reconnaissance man, would have been proud.

More than 10,000 battles, engagements and skirmishes took place during the Civil War’s four years so there is plenty of choice for a visitor today. While we visited about a dozen sites--and each haunts me--Vicksburg and Gettysburg stick most in my mind.

Vicksburg sticks because it made so much military sense and played out almost like a chess game, with the winner, Ulysses S. Grant, getting control of the Mississipi River after a 47-day siege.

Gettysburg sticks because it made no sense at all (it started by accident), the losses were horrendous (51,000 casualties in three days) and it was the site of Lincoln’s famous address.

In addition, the National Park Service, whose employees impressed us everywhere with their courtesy and expertise, made it easy at Vicksburg and Gettysburg to picture those battles unfolding. In fact, the Park Service has done such a fine job everywhere we visited I began to feel better about how our tax dollars are spent.

Vicksburg was our first major military site, and we battled spring thunderstorms getting there, driving from New Orleans with a respite from rain at Port Gibson, an antebellum town of charming homes and graceful streets that Grant is quoted as describing as “too beautiful to burn.”

Over Vicksburg Military Park’s lovely 32-mile drive, along rolling green hills, past old earthworks, parapets, thickets and forests, with occasional stops at one of the hundreds of monuments to units of both sides, we connected with the landscape in a personal, peaceful way.

One gets the sense that Titans battled over these vast expanses.

If for no other reason, I would want to return to Vicksburg to see again the raised and restored USS Cairo, an ironclad Union gunboat sunk on Dec. 12, 1862, on the Yazoo River north of Vicksburg, the first vessel ever destroyed by an electrically detonated mine. Salvaged in 1964, with hundreds of well-preserved artifacts now visible in the ship’s museum, the USS Cairo reminds the visitor that the Civil War left naval warfare changed forever by making wooden war ships obsolete.

From Vicksburg, we were bathed in intermittent squalls through Tennessee (for the Chattanooga battle sites), North Carolina and Georgia, grateful for Logan’s sake for the cooling rain. After Atlanta, skies steadily cleared and we headed on lesser roads toward the site of the notorious Andersonville prison camp, far from anywhere.

Andersonville spooks. The largest prison camp in the South, it was built during the war’s final year and confined 32,000 Union prisoners--of whom 13,000 died in captivity of disease, malnutrition and exposure. After the war, the camp commander, Capt. Henry Wirz, was tried by a military tribunal as a war criminal, found guilty and hanged.

From photographs of the emaciated and dying prisoners and other evidence, you get chills even today. “It is cold inhumanity,” Esme said, who likened Andersonville to photographed scenes of Hitler’s concentration camps.

Recreated is a portion of the original stockade, a shadeless enclosure of 15-foot-high logs in a rectangle 1,620 feet long and 779 feet wide with a little stream running through it that provided the P.O.W.s their water for drinking and bathing under the Georgia sun.

My father’s family in Ohio included abolitionists and a total in the 19th Century of four Robert Gibsons, one of whom fought with an Ohio regiment in the Civil War, was captured, imprisoned at Andersolle and died of diarrhea.

In the cemetery office, Esme discovered his name, unit and grave location on a computer printout. We paid our respects.

From Andersonville, we headed for the coast, making quick work of spiritless Savannah to get to Charleston, South Carolina, a delightful sea city whose Fort Sumter site we considered a mandatory stop. Here, at 4:30 a.m. on April 12, 1861, a Confederate mortar arched over Charleston harbor, exploded directly over the Union-held island, forced Lincoln to mobilize 75,000 troops and started the Civil War.

And what a tourist’s gem: The Sumter trip begins with a delightful launch ride across Charleston harbor, an hour on the island’s grounds for a look at the restored walls, original cannons and a museum with the original, struck U.S. flag, then a return ride to Charleston with its pearl of an old historic downtown district.

From Sumter we made our way in glorious sunny weather through North Carolina to Virginia, where we stopped at Williamsburg and Petersburg before arriving at headquarters and symbol of the Confederacy, Richmond.

First, we went to the Confederacy’s White House where Jefferson Davis and his wife and children lived during the war. To my surprise, the home today gives the feeling that is is occupied. To a remarkable degree the curators have succeeded in retrieving original furnishings and drapes, the finest Mrs. Davis had been able to order from Europe, and replicating much else.

In Davis’ modest office, on the second floor, one gets the feeling that the occupant has just left the room. To this place Lincoln came--and sat briefly at Davis’ desk--after Richmond fell.

Next to the Rebel “White House” stands the modern Museum of the Confederacy, which contains the nation’s largest collection of Confederate weapons and artifacts, including field uniforms and personal belongings of Lee, Stonewall Jackson, Jeb Stuart and Joseph E. Johnston.

Driving further through gorgeous Virginia countryside we came to Appomattox Court House, the end of the line for the South. Here, Lee surrendered and his depleted rebel ranks stacked arms before lines of Yankees, who then passed out rations to the hungry Condederates.

With rangers and guides in period dress to answer questions, the Park Service presents Appomattox as living history with village buildings--Meeks’ store, Woodson’s law office, Clover Hill Tavern, the courthouse, jail and other structures--open to public view.

To us Wilmer McClean’s reconstructed home was a treat not only as the site of Lee’s meeting with Grant but also because of the irony of poor Wilmer’s life. At Bull Run, troops had overrun his farm. Upset, Wilmer McClean had moved out of harm’s way--to Appomattox.

“The war began in his back yard and ended in his front parlor,” an historian noted.

For us, just as Gettysburg marked the high water mark of the Confederacy, it stood as the capstone of our battle field visits.

Of all the sites, Pennsylvania’s Gettysburg is the most elaborate restoration with more than 35 miles of road running through 3,850 acres, with 1,300 monuments, markers and tablets and a whopping total of 400 cannons. At the information center an electric map with displays of colored lights shows troop movements during the three-day battle. It also has The Gettysburg Cyclorama, a spectacular 356-foot-long painting of Pickett’s Charge. Nearby, a tower offers a breathtaking view of the battlefield.

As we drove along Union and then along Confederate lines at the scene of Pickett’s Charge, accompanied by a purchased audio tape, it became clear what an appalling decision Robert E. Lee had made to send 15,000 men across that Gettysburg field. After two hours, only one out of three came back, bodies of the others littered the field and Gettysburg was over.

After Lee’s defeat, the Southern general staggered with his forces back from Pennsylvania into Virginia to lick his wounds.

We were moved by the wording on Pennsylvania’s monument to all the troops who gathered at Gettysburg: “Here brothers fought for their principles, here heroes died to save their country and a united people will forever cherish the precious legacy of their noble manhood.”

Earlier, on our way from New Orleans to Vicksburg, we had stopped during a break in the rain near Woodville, Miss., to view Jefferson Davis’ boyhood home, the Rosemont Plantation, where we had gotten the feeling of a young aristocrat farmer leading a genteel life but close enough to the soil to send down roots. Throughout his life, Davis returned here to visit.

For contrast, we wanted to see where Lincoln spent his formative years even though it was a bit out of our way in Southwest Indiana. We enjoyed it, but our dog Logan got a shock.

A wooded trail takes one to the replica of a log cabin that stands on the original spot of the old Lincoln homestead. In these woods, about four miles west of Santa Claus, it is easy to see how the boy became a rail splitter. With forests as thick as these, axe handling must have been second nature.

Mr. Lincoln’s boyhood home site includes a defunct smokehouse, an empty stable and a chicken house with six live chickens. It would have been an otherwise peaceful scene except that city girl Logan had never before seen a chicken.

She lost her composure. I had never seen her in that pitch, squealing at their sight and barking, with the chickens going from clucking to something beyond. As the cacophony escalated, I picked up Logan, squirming, with Esme following at a distance in our wake.

(For dog owners who may be wondering about Logan, I should report on how we managed to keep both a dog with us and peace in our relations with motel keepers and other strangers.

First, Logan is a gentle, well-trained Australian terrier. She now has left her mark on some of America’s most cherished landscapes, including, appropriately, Logan’s Approach at Vicksburg, Miss. But Logan reacted so well to Esme’s “Design for Dogging It” that we left nothing but happy innkeepers in our wake.

The design was fairly simple: First, we took along Logan’s crate and toys and placed them in the motel room each night. If we had to leave her alone--something we tried to avoid--we turned on either CNN to keep speaking voices in the room or one of those gospel preachers that give ‘em hell, which Logan seems to enjoy more than the news.

As reassurance that we would return, we put some laundry on the floor. After turning on the air conditioning and hanging out a “Do Not Disturb” sign, we would leave and Logan would remain as silent as a suckled lamb.

Naturally, we avoided motels that said no pets. When it was possible--about half the time--we stayed at motels that explicitly welcomed pets. If no policy was stated, our own policy went into effect: “If they don’t mention pets, we don’t mention Logan.”)

In Pryor, Ok., Esme didn’t have to use the well-worn index cards to locate her great grand father’s grave. The sexton knew exactly where it was and drove us to it.

Everyone in Pryor seems to know that Samuel Houston Mayes was the last principal chief of the Cherokee tribe to preside over Indian Territory before they turned over their land to the U.S. government as Oklahoma and closed the tribal rolls. Mayes County is named for him.

But not everyone knows about his early manhood. When the future chief was 15 he ran away from home to join Stand Watie’s Cherokee regiment fighting for the Confederacy. But after his age was discovered Samuel was mustered out of service and sent home.

But Mayes served proudly, having good reason like all Cherokees to resent the federal government. The Trail of Tears was still a fresh memory. At his tombstone stands a medallion inscribed “CSA”--for the Confederate States of America.

Every hour on this trip, it seemed, morsels of data from information centers or National Park rangers and guides came at us and lodged in our minds like wild bullets.

For instance: At Cold Harbor, Virginia, on the approach to Richmond, Grant’s forces took 7,000 casualties in 30 minutes!

Another: After Cold Harbor, Grant said those losses accomplished nothing.

Another: The Civil War cost 620,000 military lives, more than combined U.S. losses in all our other wars from the American Revolution through both world wars to Korea and Vietnam.

Another: South Carolina’s Fort Wagner is off the books. Remember the movie “Glory”? Fort Wagner was the Confederate position for which the 54th Massachusetts all Black regiment was sacrificed.

Nobody we talked to had heard of Fort Wagner. Even inquiries at two National Park Service offices in South Carolina resulted in blank looks. After the war, apparently, it vanished.

DROP CAP

When we got back to Pasadena after 36 days on the road, having saturated all the facts we could find at all the sites we could hit, we realized that we had had a wonderful time discovering our own country after many years of mainly traveling overseas.

While pleased with our Civil War trip, we found at the end that we had a ton of facts and impressions and an awful jumble in terms of context. Now we needed perspective.

But we have solved that problem.

We pulled out our set of “The Civil War” tapes and we finished viewing the program last week for the third time. On July 31, KCET will begin reruns of the entire “Civil War” series. Even though we have the tapes at home, I have a strong suspicion I’ll be peeking from time to time to see how it’s going.

GUIDEBOOK

Civil War Country

Driving and lodging: In April and May, the conditions were perfect for nomad motoring, improvising the itinerary as we went along, booking a room in advance only on weekend nights as insurance. It was cool enough to leave our dog in the car while we took a meal. Early fall, when the summer crowds have deserted the historic sites, would also be an ideal time to roam Civil War country.

Except for two nights at the Dauphine Hotel in New Orleans’ French Quarter, we stayed in motels, and I think we tried at least one from nearly all of the big chains.

On the whole, we found them satisfactory and reasonably priced, averaging about $48 a night. But we were thankful our country changes so much from region to region--because the motel rooms all looked the same.

Eating: In digging into the 19th Century, in the food department we cheerfully stayed in the here and now. And while I enjoy adventures in high cuisine, I am also on a perpetual quest for the world’s best barbecue and biscuits and gravy.

In Atlanta, friends led us to Thelma’s Kitchen, a soul food cafe that serves chicken and dumplings and fried okra cake. They were sublime.

On our own, we found the finest biscuits and gravy I ever have tasted at Robidoux, a truck stop in Lafayette, La. The search for perfect barbecue goes on, but the Cattle Call in Amarillo, Tex., Johnny’s Smoke Stack in Rolla, Mo., and Jim Oliver’s Smoke House near Monteagle, Tenn., on the way to Chattanooga led the pack.

Civil War sites: Where to call or write for more information:

Vicksburg Military Park, 3201 Clay St., Vicksburg, Miss. 39180, telephone (601) 636-0583.

Andersonville National Historic Site, Route 1, Box 85, Andersonville, Ga. 31711, (912) 924-0343.

Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park, Fort Oglethorpe, Ga. 30742, (404) 866-9241.

Ft. Sumter, 1214 Middle St., Sullivan’s Island, S.C. 29482, (803) 883-3123.

Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial, Visitor Center (on Indiana 162, four miles west of Santa Claus, Ind.), (812) 937-4541.

Gettysburg National Military Park, Gettysburg, Pa. 17325, (717) 334-1124.

Richmond National Battlefield Park (includes Cold Harbor), 3215 E. Broad St., Richmond, Va. 23223, (804) 226-1981.

Petersburg National Battlefield (includes The Crater): Superintendent, P.O. Box 549, Petersburg, Va. 24134, (804) 732-3531.

Appomattox Court House National Historical Park, P.O. Box 218, Appomattox, Va. 24552, (804) 352-8782.

The entire PBS series “The Civil War” will be rebroadcast on Wednesdays at 8 p.m. on KCET starting July 24. In San Diego, the reruns begin July 17 at 9 p.m. on KPBS.

Civil War Odyssey 1. Jefferson Davis’ Boyhood Home 2. Vicksburg 3. Shiloh 4. Chickamauga / Chattanooga Military Park 5. Andersonville 6. Charleston / Ft. Sumter 7. Petersburg 8. Richmond 9. Appomattox 10. Cold Harbor 11. Harper’s Ferry 12. Gettysburg 13. Lincoln’s Boyhood Home 14. Wilson’s Creek