Vicksburg; Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Mississippi River

Dear all,

On New Year's Eve, M. and I went to Vicksburg, Mississippi for a brief retreat. Vicksburg is famous as the site of one of the Civil War's largest military campaigns, the Siege of Vicksburg, when Union forces surrounded the hilltop merchant town of Vicksburg. The resulting 47-day siege was, to put it lightly, messy. (For example, with its supply lines cut off, the city's dogs, cats, and mules were suddenly elevated to the realm of haute cuisine.) The Confederate forces finally surrendered on July 4, 1863, hoping that the holiday would serve as a symbol of goodwill, a reminder of something that both Union and Confederate forces held dear. (Turns out, it didn't do much.) Because of the surrender, Vicksburg didn't celebrate the Fourth of July for one hundred years.

Lesson learned: Never underestimate the ability of people to carry a grudge.

Anyway, it was a nice trip. Here are the pictures:



The Vicksburg battlefield is now a part of the National Park Service, and they've done a great job preserving everything (while still making it accessible). There is an eighteen-mile road that runs around the park, and monuments and battle sites line each side.



You can visit the actual artillery positions used during the siege. The markers along the road are either blue (for the Union) or red (for the Confederacy). This was a Union position.



Each state that participated in the campaign has a large monument dedicated to it, in addition to the many smaller monuments along the main road. I can't remember to which state this monument corresponds, but it was actually one of the smaller monuments, if you can believe that. (It might not have been a state's monument at all, now that I'm thinking about it...)



There are also a whole bunch of cannons. Everywhere.



This is a tunnel that the Union forces built to get closer to the Confederate positions. They also dug tunnels underneath the walls of the city, and stuffed the tunnels with gunpowder, which they detonated. Even though the tactic gave them temporary access to the city, they were ultimately repelled.



One state monument that was particularly impressive was Illinois'. (Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant were both from Illinois.)



I felt like we were going to consult the oracle at Delphi.



Inside, all the names of the servicemen from Illinois are listed. The floor features extensive mosaic work...



...focusing on Illinois' state seal in the middle of the room. Above...



...the monument is open to the sky. Everything inside was dripping.



Next to Illinois' monument stands "Shirley House," a house that had the misfortune of being built on what would later become a battlefield. (If you think defaulting mortgages can lower the value of a neighborhood's real estate, try cannonballs.) Both armies used it as a reference point during assaults. It's a miracle the place survived at all.



These are the remains of the U.S.S. Cairo, a Union ironclad that was sunk in the Mississippi River during the campaign. The salvage effort in the 1960s was a Sisyphusian process, but it's really something to behold now. (I'm squinting, by the way, not saluting.)



The road wound its way through a national cemetery, and many Union soldiers (in addition to U.S. servicemen killed during later conflicts) are buried there.



After touring the battlefield, we explored Vicksburg. Here I am on the banks of the mighty Mississip'. That's a gambling ship in the background, since Vicksburg appears to still obey the law that gambling is only allowed on water. (Down on the Gulf Coast, I think Hurricane Katrina relaxed things a little.)



On the grounds of the town's old city hall, M. saw an ancient magnolia tree, and she thought its roots were pretty nifty looking.



Cruising around town, we found a pawn shop with cement gorilla statues outside. It wasn't the best neighborhood, so we kept the car running, jumped out, took the picture, and jumped back in.



I'd never stayed in a bed-and-breakfast before, and I knew that M. liked B&Bs, so we stayed the night in Baer House, a 140-year-old mansion restored and run by a couple from Slidell, Louisiana. They lost everything in Hurricane Katrina, and they determined that life was too short to be working at something they didn't love. (He was an airline executive at the time.) Thus, they opened the B&B. Here we are by the inn's enormous Christmas tree.



The house was really something, full of the so-called "Old World" craftsmanship you'd expect in an old mansion (quartersawn oak flooring, etc.). This rug made us think of Brent and Nancy's house.



Each of the rooms had a name, with names drawn from Gone With the Wind. We stayed in the Pineapple Room, but, having never seen Gone With the Wind, I'm afraid that means nothing to me. Here's the upstairs hallway.



These are on sale down at IKEA, in case you're interested.



Having visited a cemetery with a predominantly Union-based orientation the day before, on New Year's Day, we visited a Confederate cemetery. The cemetery featured a section for each state, in addition to a section for Confederate generals.



The infamous "Stars 'n' Bars" that we usually call a "Confederate" flag was actually the Confederacy's battle flag; the national flag can be seen (with some difficulty) slightly in front of my chest--it looks vaguely like a normal U.S. flag, but with only three stripes.



Here lie the graves of unknown Confederate soldiers.

All in all, it was a very enjoyable trip, if sobering at times. Around 17,000 soldiers were killed during the Siege of Vicksburg. And while it is easy to look down at the Confederate-era Southern states for their secession and their endorsement of slavery, visiting sites like this illustrates the difficult--and often contradictory--choices faced by those who lived during the Civil War (or, as many of the monuments call it, The War Between the States). For example, the South's endorsement of the slave system was, surely, reprehensible, but the North, while technically anti-slavery, certainly wasn't lacking when it came to racism. Emancipated slaves fought for the North, but black men also fought for the South. Yes, the North fought for a morally defensible position, but they did so via tactics of total war, directly targeting the civilian population of the South.

And then you have to consider economic issues, issues of states' rights, etc. It's enough to give you a headache, you know?

Plus, it is easy to look back on the Civil War with the benefit of hindsight, but visiting Vicksburg made me think--once again--how the Americans of the Civil War didn't live in a vacuum; they inherited the beliefs, prejudices, and assumptions of their generation. Indeed, who knows but what my descendants, living the Law of Consecration, may think of me, a participant in--and a fan of--capitalism?

I'm not excusing anyone, of course, or condemning. It's just something to think about.

-J.