Today was an easy day of travel. We covered a little over 200 miles and was Vicksburg National Military Park at 11:30 AM.
Vicksburg National Military Park preserves the site of the American Civil War Battle of Vicksburg, waged from March 29 to July 4, 1863. The park, located in Vicksburg, Mississippi (flanking the Mississippi River), also commemorates the greater Vicksburg Campaign which led up to the battle. Reconstructed forts and trenches evoke memories of the 47-day siege that ended in the surrender of the city. Victory here and at Port Hudson, farther south in Louisiana, gave the Union control of the Mississippi River.
We spent almost 4 hours in the park, and could have stayed longer. The park includes 1,325 historic monuments and markers, 20 miles of historic trenches and earthworks, a 16-mile tour road, a 12.5-mile walking trail, two antebellum homes, 144 emplaced cannons, the restored gunboat USS Cairo (sunk on December 12, 1862, on the Yazoo River), and the Grant's Canal site, where the Union Army attempted to build a canal to let their ships bypass Confederate artillery fire.
There is no way to properly convey the battlefield in a short blog post, but I will include a few photos.
The Shirley House is the only house which survived the battle.
The Illinois State Monument is one of the most impressive. It has 47 steps, one for every day Vicksburg was besieged.
The Cairo, one of 7 shallow-bottom river iron boats built by the Union was commissioned in 1862 and sank in 1862. It was not until 1964 that it's pieces were dredged from the Yazoo river.
More monuments.
An act by Congress was passed in the late 1800's which allowed any state who fought in the battle at Vicksburg to place a monument. The northern states were fast to begin erecting monuments, some quite elaborate. The southern states, still recovering from their devastating economic losses were much slower and generally erected much more modest monuments.
Georgia's monument - pretty modest...
By 3:30 we were famished and started looking for somewhere to eat. Google again came through! We found Tony's Grill...
Lots of atmosphere...
Kay got shrimp and I had oysters and we shared.
Carl also had shrimp and Janet the catfish. We all agreed it was excellent.
After checking into our hotel, we went downtown to explore. There is a great levy wall with murals.
The old courthouse which is now a museum. We plan to visit tomorrow.
During our walk we met and talked with several people, some local and others visitors like ourselves. Overall it was a great day.
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