Our travels through Mississippi took us to two places of note. First, we stopped for a couple of days in Vicksburg, MS in order to tour the Civil War battlefield in that town. Then, on our way to Nashville, we stopped for a few days at a very nice state park in the Northeast part of the state, Tishomingo State Park.
Visiting the Vicksburg battlefield was a great experience for me and the girls were kind enough to humor me by allowing me some significant time to experience it. For those of you who are not Civil War buffs, Vicksburg was one of the key battles of the western campaign during the war. U.S. Grant marched a large army on Vicksburg in order to seize control of the Mississippi River, which was protected by a massive gauntlet of Confederate guns. The campaign in Mississippi lasted for several months in the summer of 1863, culminating with a siege of the town of Vicksburg, during which time the Union forces starved out the Confederates and took control of Vicksburg. This was a huge strategic success for the Union and also was one of the campaigns that drew Lincoln's attention to Grant, ultimately leading to Grant's ascension to the head of the entire Union army. The battlefield is very well preserved, with the relative positions or the armies well identified and beautiful monuments to the divisions from each state that provided soldiers.
There is a great audio tour drive through the battlefield, a front that was several miles long at its zenith. It was very informative and is highly recommended if you are in the area.
This image is a good overview of one of the key battle areas. The zig-zag shaped depressions you see leading up the hills are the remainders of the Union trenches. As the Union tightened the noose on the siege, they would tunnel closer and closer to the Confederate lines (which in this case are on the top of the far hill) in preparation for a final assault which never came. General Pemberton, the Confederate commander, ultimately surrendered his forces after 6 weeks of siege.
2 comments:
Jay,
I am secretary to a military history group here in Brainerd so I have had a longstanding interest in the Civil War along with all military history. I have seen almost all of the Civil War battlefields in the east but never Vicksburg. Thanks for showing this. Someday, I hope to get there.
"Grandpa John"
John, we have the audio cd of the drive plus a lot more photos to share with you this summer.
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