A Confederate Soldier's 1864 Visit to Cave Spring Cave

A CONFEDERATE SOLDIER’S 1864 VISIT TO CAVE SPRING CAVE
Contributed by Marion O. Smith

In mid-May, 1864, after the Confederates were forced by Sherman’s army from Rome,
Georgia, some of their military units slowly withdrew toward the south and then west into
Alabama. During this movement, Thomas Hart Benton Lovelady, a citizen of McKinney,
Collins County, Texas, and a private in Company K, 6" Texas Cavalry, took time on May 24" to
tour Cave Spring Cave and to record his impressions in his diary:

Taken up the line of march, came to Cave springs & got a light to view the Cave.
When I went to the entrance looked very skerry. I moved on a short distance & looked
to each side, then overhead I could see the works of nature. I moved on down the 2"4
steps, then turned to the right. I went down to the spring, a beautiful fountain, boiling
up, I cast my eyes to the left about 15 ft. above the edge of the water, on a little pinnacle
& there was a lion about the size of a dog. They had a presentment like the ice pinnacles
that hang from the crags of rock; that are ever visable on the North side of the Rocky
Mountains. I then turned back to the steps & turned to the left, went down the 3" case of
stairs. I was then in the larger room, went on through, as I went on I found that the
stream of water was running through the right side of the room. I then looked overhead.
I could see the beautiful works of nature. I went into another entrance, in the father side,
did not go far until I come to the water, come out & went around the other side of the
wall, turning left all the time, when I got near the steps I saw a large entrance into the
right. My light was failing. I came out & got a fresh torch. I went back, when I got to
the foot of the 3" steps, I turned to the left & found this to be another room. I went on
through & went in at a small entrance. I went into a nice parlor. There was the beautiful
works of nature. The corner post appeared like it had been turned & placed in by a
mechanicle workman, the carvings around the walls & overhead was to beautiful to
mention. I turned back in the room & found another small entrance to the right. | went
in & found it was the finest room of any that I had seen. It was too beautiful to mention.
I came out & left Cave Springs... .

SOURCE

Thomas Hart Benton Lovelady, "Civil War Diary," Georgia Division of UDC, Confederate Reminiscences and
Letters 1861-1865 (15 vols., Atlanta, 1995-2000), 15: 134-35.