Road Trip, Part 3

Welcome to HOT Mississippi! (But at least it’s not humid…) Today we traveled through the battlefield/siege of Vicksburg. It has to be the largest battlefield I’ve ever seen, excepting Gettysburg. The road the circles by most of the important parts is sixteen miles in length. And it is beautiful.

So a little bit of history first. Vicksburg is on the Mississippi River. It was an extremely important piece of the Confederate nation. For months, Yankee armies and navies had tried to take it from one side or the other. Grant finally decided on a risky venture. He marched his army towards Jackson and then back to Vicksburg in order to take it from the rear. This brought him away from his supply base, but he encouraged Admiral Porter to try once again to get supply boats past the Vicksburg cannons. With Porter’s success, Grant marched his army in.

It’s hard to say Grant accomplished a victory in Vicksburg. For every time he sent his troops towards the well barricaded city, the Rebels repelled him. His troops tried everything from artillery, to running right at it, to digging trenches and blowing up holes behind the Rebel lines in order to rush troops in behind. Nothing worked. So, he set up for a siege.

Vicksburg was attacked/on siege from March 29, 1863 until July 4, 1863 when the Confederate General Pemberton raised the flag of surrender. His troops were sick, lacked supplies and could not longer last – he felt he had no choice. The Yankees claimed a grand victory – as if they won a great battle as their fellow troops did that same day in Gettysburg. But they didn’t fight. They sat. And won.

Vicksburg is one of the most amazing battlefields I have ever seen. For one, at the visitor’s center we learned that at the time of the battle, there were no trees to be found on the field. Between the Rebels fortifying their heights and camp fire needed, not a tree could be found. Now there are trees everywhere. Secondly, the landscape has been entirely changed on account of the six-foot trenches the Yankees built and the heights the Rebels fortified. Thirdly, the USS Cairo is something to see. A Northern ironclad, the Rebels sunk it in the Yazoo River. One hundred years later, it has been raised and placed at Vicksburg. It’s something to see. (Although was an ironclad during the time when “Ships were made of wood and men were made of iron”? For it’s mostly wood, but the outside is iron.)

And, lastly, well…we experienced something of what those troops had to endure – heat. Let’s just say I’m glad I wasn’t there in 1863!

The stately park entrance.

A part of the battlefield landscape forever changed by the armies.

The USS Cairo, a Yankee ironclad.