The Battle of Fort Sanders

The Battle of Fort Sanders
Location: McClung Museum


This exhibit was anticlimatic to say the least. I was suprised primarily by the size and set up of this exhibit. There is a banner hanging on the front of McClung Museum advertising the Fort Sanders exhibit as well as the Sacred Beauty exhibit. Both banners are equal in size and would lead one to assume that both exhibits would be almost equal in size too. Then, as you walk in McClung, the Sacred Beauty exhibit is immediately on the left in the very first room. The exhibit appears professionally done, has dramatic lighting, and contains very impressive religious artifacts. On the other hand, the Fort Sanders exhibit is not on the main floor but on the floor below. Luckily some wonderful museum staff member put a sign up in the lobby directing people downstairs towards the exhibit. Otherwise, I would have had a lot more trouble finding it. As I walked down the stairs, I still thought I might find an exhibit of equal size and pomp as the Sacred Beauty exhibit, although I was beginning to wonder where exactly such an exhibit could be held in the basement of McClung. Then I saw the Fort Sanders exhibit...an experience that was altogether underwhelming.


It's interesting that the Fort Sanders exhibit is even labeled as an exhibit because it's more of a display. It was located in the downstairs hallway of the museum, the hallway that leads to the auditorium which is used for classes. I have had many classes in that auditorium, and until today I never realized that the display cases in the hallway were used for actual legitimate exhibitions. I thought the museum staff merely filled the cases with random museum objects so that they wouldn't look empty and forlorn. The hallway is dark and a little bit creepy, and the display cases are not especially large or fancy. They remind me more of trophy cases. But today I learned that they were not trophy cases. Not only were the display cases being used, they were filled with an exhibit worthy of being advertised by a large banner on the front of the building.

Although the area chosen to display the exhibit is not the most impressive space in McClung, the exhibit itself was nicely done. The contents of the exhibit were interesting and presented well, especially considering the conditions of the space in which they were displayed.


Inside the display cases were pictures and artifacts such as the walking cane of Abe Lincoln. There were also lots of Civil War artifacts, which was fitting since it was an exhibit about a battle during the Civil War. The exhibit would be a Civil War enthusiast's dream. Although the artifacts and pictures were presented nicely, the descriptions were a bit too lengthy for me. Often, I could not stay interested long enough to read the entire description, and by the end of the exhibit I was merely looking at the objects and ignoring the written descriptions almost entirely. I did like the pictures which were displayed above the display cases. They showed Knoxville around the time of the battle. Their placement above the display cases was a good use of space, and seeing Knoxville in the photographs helped me to realize that this battle really occurred here.

My favorite part of the exhibit was the light-up map. The map showed the location of key events related to the battle and also contained little lights indicating where things were located today in Knoxville. This part of the exhibit really helped me to grasp that this battle had actually happened within a few miles of where I was standing. I really liked having these points of reference. Knowing where the battle actually took place helped me to think about it as a real event and not just some story from the past.

Although the exhibit was disappointing, especially in comparison to Sacred Beauty, it still contained some interesting artifacts. Generally, I don't find exhibits at the McClung Museum to be very impressive. Compared to most other exhibits at the McClung, The Battle of Fort Sanders actually ranked fairly high on the scale of impressiveness.