Kirkwood will host the B*ATL FRONT LINES HISTORY ENCAMPMENT.  The living history  soldiers arrive in character in real-to-history uniforms and spend the day performing their military duties.

 The Frontlines display area is one of the more popular features of BATL and has as its centerpiece over 85 feet of breastworks. On Saturday starting at 10am the soldiers will begin their soldiering activities with regular interpretive talks. This year the lines will be fortified again with a functioning cannon. East Atlanta neighbor David Furikawa will return to the camp playing the part of a Union medical officer. He comes equipped with authentic battlefield surgical implements and an already bloody patient. Mothers and children are on hand nearby to give visitors an idea of what homelife was like. The structures and frontlines trenchworks are built to match historic photos from the Library of Congress from the battle. Soldiers will lay wreaths at the East Atlanta monuments for General McPherson and General Walker who lost their lives in the Battle at scheduled ceremonies.

 

Click the image above to see the 2007 Frontlines Photo Gallery.

History comes to life on July 20th when BATL commemorating the Battle of Atlanta brings “Civil War to Civil Rights” to the East Atlanta Village. When the Battle of Atlanta took place in East Atlanta and other parts of this area, there was no village where Glenwood crosses Flat Shoals. Those roads and others were there in some form at the time of the battle, but the area was made up of plantations, farms, mills and woodlands along the highway that began as a Native American Trail.

Historic Georgians will be visiting the Village on that Saturday to recreate and tell the stories of their lifetimes. Mary Combs, Robert Mable, Mary Gay, Hunter Bell, Dolly Sumner Burge and Daughter Sadie, Scynthia Catherine Stewart, Pete Rutherford, Zora Faire, Soloman “Sam” Luckie, Carrie Berry, Blind Thomas Bethune, Allie Travis, Madison Reynolds, Kathleen Adams, Arthur Idlett, Carrie Steele Logan, William Fuller and James Bell of the Great Locomotive Chase, Alice Adams, and Homer Nash are just some of the characters who will be recreated by a bevy of living history actors in authentic costumes on our special stage in the village.

“If you don’t recognize at least one of these folks you owe it to yourself to visit and hear what made their lives important to ours, “ offered Stephanie Parker who is working on scheduling for the event. “From prison guards to millionaires, this list is full of interesting folks.”   To find out more information about these and other Georgians follow this link to the New Georgia Encyclopedia, a project of the Georgia Humanities Council.

Event sponsors include The Georgia Humanities Council, the and The City of Atlanta.

B*ATL is raising money to restore the existing monuments to National Park standards and erect and maintain National Park-like display signs across the battlefield area to augment existing historic markers. The new signs would have graphics and maps to involve readers more and provide a 365-day-a-year B*ATL experience for visitors as well as area residents.