Film 04 · The river
The Cumberland: A River Story
Doreen's home water, from a 460 million year old sea floor to Donelson's flotilla, steamboats and dark-fired tobacco, Fort Donelson and Fort Defiance, Clarksville and the Screaming Eagles, and the Corps locks and dams.
1:58 · Sound on
Illustrations are illustrated reconstructions made with AI image tools, styled after period engravings. They are not photographs and show no real people. The two Civil War images are from the Library of Congress (no known restrictions). Narration is an AI voice reading our script, and the music is AI-generated.
Sources
Every date and number in the film comes from these. Where sources differ, like the river's length (687 to about 700 miles), the film says so.
- Tennessee Encyclopedia: Cumberland River
- Tennessee Encyclopedia: Clarksville
- Tennessee Encyclopedia: Montgomery County
- MTSU Center for Cedar Glade Studies: Glade History (460 million year old sea, limestone)
- Britannica: Cumberland River (length, course)
- Kentucky Historical Marker 2045: Naming of the Cumberland River
- ExploreKYHistory: Naming of the Cumberland River
- Tennessee State Library and Archives: John Donelson's journal, 1779 to 1780
- NPS Fort Donelson: The Battle
- NPS Fort Donelson: Dover Hotel (Surrender House) and the Grant to Buckner letters
- NPS: Grant at Fort Donelson
- Surrender of Clarksville historical marker (Fort Defiance, Feb 19, 1862)
- U.S. Army: 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault)
- Fort Campbell: 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault)
- U.S. Army Corps of Engineers: Barkley Dam
- Library of Congress: Storming of Fort Donelson (1862)
- Library of Congress: Gunboats on the Cumberland River near Nashville (1862)
More films and all 24 shop photos are in the build gallery.