I started re-reading an Arcadia book about the history of Oakland Cemetery in Atlanta.  If you haven’t been to Oakland Cemetery you need to go if you are interested in the history of Atlanta, Marthasville, and Terminus.

Atlanta’s late official historian of Atlanta, Franklin Garrett is buried in Oakland.  Here is a picture I took of his and his wife’s marker.

Each time Franklin Garrett’s name comes up I am reminded of our one-time interaction.

During the period I live and breathed family history I called the Atlanta History Society and asked to speak to a Atlanta historian.  Franklin Garrett answered the phone..

I asked him about my ancestor who was wounded in the Civil War during the time the Battle of Atlanta was going on.  I wanted to know what part of Atlanta was his unit at. 

Franklin told me to hold on and put me on hold.  He came back in 10 minutes or so and told me Peachtree Creek, near what is now Piedmont Hospital.  I have read that he was shot in the knee at a spring on Kennesaw Mountain.  I asked him how could that be?  He told me to hold on.

Fifteen or so minutes he came back and told me some units got separated.  That spurned another question.  He said hold on.

He came back in near 20 minutes and told me his theory.

Which caused me to ask another question.

He said something to the effect, “Can you keep you questions and ask them all at one time?  I am having to walk up a flight of stairs for each question and it is wearing me out.”