Return to Yesterday

Have you ever been disoriented and confused, even for a moment! Perhaps after a very tiring wearisome day you make a turn down the wrong way and suddenly your sense of direction is gone and you feel like you’re in a strange land. After a short while your sense of direction returns and you are on your way again! Imagine waking up one morning and discovering everything you ever knew about the world you live in was a dream and that which you thought was a dream is now a living reality.
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You find yourself in a world where the Confederacy had crushed the Union Invading Forces and won its war for independence. You begin to wonder if maybe something was in that hamburger you ate the evening before. Couldn’t happen you say? Well, the next time you make a journey away from home and decide to find a place to stop for the night, take care where you rest your head, least you wake up and find the world you knew the night before, never existed.

Have you ever been disoriented and confused, even for a moment! Perhaps after a very tiring wearisome day you make a turn down the wrong way and suddenly your sense of direction is gone and you feel like you’re in a strange land. After a short while your sense of direction returns and you are on your way again! Imagine waking up one morning and discovering everything you know, ever knew about the world you live in was a dream and that which you thought was a dream is now a living reality.
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You find yourself in a world where the Confederacy had crushed the Union Invading Forces and won its war for independence. You begin to wonder if maybe something was in that hamburger you ate the last evening. Couldn’t happen you say? Well, the next time you make a journey away from home and decide to find a place to stop for the night, take care where you rest your head, least you wake up and find the world you knew the night before, never existed.

My story begins on 5 April, the family and I had traveled to Savannah Tennessee, located about 110 east of Memphis. We would stay overnight and travel through Crump, going west on highway 65 then onward a short distance to the Shiloh Battlefield. We arrived in Savannah plenty early enough, and checked into the local motel, located just as you enter town from the east. The restaurant was a short walk from the motel on the same side of the street, so we quickly headed that way to have a bite to eat before checking in for the night.

A reenactment of the Battle of Shiloh was scheduled, which took place on 6, 7, and 8 April 1862, and we wanted to rise early enough to enjoy the day. The weather looked to be fair, a cool breeze was already in the air and the sky was a beautiful blue, peppered with a scattering of fluffy white clouds. We could hear the chatter about the restaurant, which was focused more on the primary elections then underway more so than the reenactment itself.
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My wife and I wondered whether or not most locals even realized the event was taking place. That was until a family in a nearby booth began to discuss the battle! Then a younger gentleman in his early 30's mentioned he was one of the re-enactors and his ancestors had died in the battle. I turned to him and mentioned that while I was not a reenact or my family also had died in the battle. We had a very friendly conversation that evening, like two lost families of friends separated for a long spell and now reunited.
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But finally time had slipped away and we decided to Part Company. We agreed we'd attempt to meet the next day between activities. We felt uplifted and even smiled as we returned to our motel room, having enjoyed the fellowship of compatriots.

Time Shifts Tracks

After a couple of hours we decided it was time to turn in! We had a very pleasant nights sleep, but it was finally morning and as we awakened everything seemed different, things were now present in the room, which we had not noticed the evening before, and still other items were completely out of place. But irregardless of how it seemed, we passed it off deciding we had been extremely tired from the long hours on the road the day before. We really got suspicious however, when we realized items of clothing were missing. My wife's special shoes and sweater, my battle flag ball cap and Confederate logo shirt, just to name a few items.
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This was too much, so I decided to get dressed real quick and walk over to the lobby and check with the desk clerk. Maybe he knew something. As I walked out of the door, and down the outside walkway toward the lobby, I realized much more was different then a few missing items. The whole world had changed while we were asleep! We had fallen sleep the previous evening only to awaken in an entirely different world from the one we knew. Where we going mad somehow? Or had we in by some quirk of fate slipped into some sort of time warp?
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Perhaps we have been translated into a completely different dimension of time and space! No that can’t be true, all that is the stuff of science fiction! Immediately I paused in my tracks, I looked about me up and down the highway in all three directions When we both turned in last evening, the motel was at the cross roads of highway 64 running east west and 128 was heading south and just east of Corinth, Mississippi, which forms a Kind of 'T' shaped road crossing. The stores and building previously along the route are now gone. Even the route numbers of the highways were different; highway 64 now bears the name 'Forrest Highway' after the victorious General Nathan Bedford Forrest.
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I then turned around again and headed back to the motel room, deciding time was needed to figure out what had happened. Then as I spun around, almost in a mood of anger at the confusing situation, I suddenly came to myself, now everything appeared normal again. As if I had just awakened from a dream! The buildings and roads around me were the same as they were a moment ago, except they now seemed completely normal. The world was now as it should be! What had happened in the interim?

Which Reality is Real?

While returning to our room, I notice on the door, our room number had previously been 110 and now was 123, but I disregarded the matter, figuring in a while it would all come back to me. As I entered our room my wife asked what was wrong. I told her the whole story, and she replied; "You had a nightmare last night and even talked in your sleep. The South has never been occupied, we won the war, don't you remember, or perhaps you also have amnesia?"
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Well," I said, "maybe a temporary touch of disorientation!" My wife continued; "You must surely remember that 123 has always been our room number...we arrived here last evening to celebrate the smashing victory over the Yankee Army at the Battle of Shiloh; don't you recall? The history of the surrender of General Ulysses S. Grant to Generals P.G.T. Beauregard and Albert Sydney Johnston has always been your favorite. Since your own ancestors fought in the battle! You yourself told me the Yankee army suffered devastating losses!"
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I excused myself for a moment and walked away to think about it, the South's loss of 'The War' and nearly a century and a half of occupation, subjugation and cultural genocide had been more than a dream, it had been horrible. Like my wife said, it had been a nightmare! But now it was coming back to me, I felt happy and relieved. I turned to my wife with a smile and said, "Let me see if I have regained my senses. The Confederate States of America is our country, and we are a free and independent nation.
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The United States was reduced, because of the war, to where all they now have left is the five New England States. We have 41 continental States in the Confederacy and have since 'The War' becomes a world superpower. The two Virginias were rejoined into greater Virginia, and the entire Arizona Indian Territory, up to the Colorado River is one large State. The 'D.C.' part of Washington D.C. was dropped and the city is now referred to as Washington City. The Capital of the United State was moved to New York!"

The World of the Confederacy

Both of us having finished getting ready, we decided to walk down the street to a nearby restaurant, as we did so I ask my wife; "Would you like to visit the Confederate Capital next time we have a vacation?" My wife answered back; "Perhaps you mean Jefferson C.D. meaning 'Confederated District!" The city is named after Jefferson Davis, our first president of course!" The city of Savannah is a small town and nearly everything convenient to walking! We had lived not far down the road many years before and knew of a quaint little restaurant not far away. Upon arriving I noticed it was called the ‘Johnston’s’ after General Albert Sidney Johnston, rather then ‘Johnson’s’ as I had known it before.
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Still further down the road in the opposite direction we could see a large sign, which read ‘Morgan’s Inn’ after General John Hunt Morgan. I also found that it was only about 40 miles to the out skirts of Jefferson Confederate District and the towns of Sheffield, Florence, Muscle Shoals and Tuscumbia Alabama have never existed. That entire area is the home of the Confederate States Capital City! Then suddenly it all came back to me; "Yes I am all here now," I replied; and the capital is located just down the road where Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee come together. Each state had donated a small portion of land to make up the territory for a sorely needed capital city.
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We were now in the second year of President George Randolph Calcurry’s term. The 24th president, Confederate States of America! Every State in the Confederacy celebrates our national holidays and holds quarterly Southern Ball Dances, which are extremely popular. Our history, heritage and culture is openly practiced and advocated! The rich heritage of our Southern Accent has completely survived basically unchanged! Visitors come from around the world to enjoy our great nation, as well as the richness of the Southland. Thankfully, my dream was just a horrible nightmare; the upside world where the Southland had been conquered, occupied and subjugated, had never taken place!"

God save the Confederacy