2014-07-21: Day 26 Fort Davidson, Coffman to Centerville, MO

Mileage Today: 60 Total Mileage: 1281

We got back to IT today. That IT with capital letters would be the effort to ride the bikes west. Covered the 60 miles into the Missouri Ozarks without too much difficulty. Quite a bit of up and down but not as strenuous as the Virginia mountains. So far they are more like hills than mountains. But the ride maps show the next couple of days to be more challenging.

A bit of history today. We rode directly past the Civil War battlefield at Fort Davidson today. This area is extremely rich in iron. At the beginning of the war, Union forces quickly moved into this area to keep control of those deposits. In fact this was Ulysses Grant’s first command post in 1861 early in the war. By 1864, the Confederacy in need of resources for the war and in need of a victory sent 12,000 troops to take control of Missouri. The fort was protected by just 1000 Union troops. The South took a beating and while they did get the fort, they lost nearly 1,200 men; The Union lost only 200. The heavy losses caused the South to give up on their attempt to take control of Missouri. I took this picture to show you the nature of this Civil War battle. The weapons and tactics were really not much better than hand to hand combat. Pictured is the actual fort wall which is just a mound of dirt with a moat in front of it. The Confederate soldiers had to drop through the moat and run up the mound to penetrate the fort. It is incredible the advantage that the high ground always gave in battle.