Easy to Draw Siege of Vicksburg Objects
Vicksburg, the Town and the Battle
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April 21, 1991
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ON our first trip to Vicksburg, my mother-in-law, a Mississippi-reared daughter of a Baptist minister, sang "Amazing Grace" while we stood spellbound in the Illinois Memorial at the Vicksburg battlefield. The monument, one of the most tranquil in America, is renowned for its acoustics. One should go to Vicksburg to learn about the Civil War, to appreciate the profound link between rivers and urban life in 19th-century America, to partake of the hospitality endemic in small towns in the Deep South, but singing, or being sung to, in the Illinois Memorial is a powerful reason in itself.
Designed by William Le Baron Jenney and dedicated in 1906, it is a bell jar of white marble atop a majestic hill. A person attains this grand perch -- which affords an excellent view of the beautiful terrain of the battlefield -- by climbing 47 steps, one to commemorate each day of the Civil War siege of Vicksburg, which lasted from May 19 to July 4, 1863. Inside on bronze tablets are the names of the 36,325 Union soldiers from Illinois who fought in the various Vicksburg campaigns as well as the names of two other eminent people with ties to Illinois, their battle commander, Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, and their commander-in-chief, President Abraham Lincoln.
Vicksburg, southern portal to the Mississippi Delta, is tranquil too, a place whose serenity quotient today seems to be an inverse function of the tumultuous Civil War battle for which the town is famous. America's most recent war has brought a flurry of attention to Vicksburg. The siege of this city on the bluffs of the Mississippi has been compared to that of another river city on the Tigris. The name of Ulysses S. Grant has been frequently invoked for his military brilliance in mounting the campaign against Vicksburg. Among Grant's admirers is the commander of American forces in the Persian Gulf, General H. Norman Schwarzkopf.
In the aftermath of Desert Storm, postwar Vicksburg may well provide poignant reminders that laying war to rest is not easy. Vicksburg fell on July 4, 1863. Deeply embittered, the citizens of this war-torn town did not rejoin the fold in celebrating the nation's birthday until 1945. Much of their bitterness was -- and in some quarters, still is -- directed toward one of their own Confederate leaders, Gen. Joseph E. Johnston, who failed, by many accounts, to rescue the besieged city when he might have.
Vicksburgians cling to the memory of the siege. It is now part of the seasonal fabric of this old antebellum river town. Every Christmas at the historic and beautifully restored Balfour House a holiday ball is held that imitates an affair held by William and Emma Balfour in December 1862. Just as their ball was interrupted, so is the replica, by a breathless, rain-soaked courier, racing to alert soldiers and officers at the party that Union gunboats had been sighted on the Mississippi River.
Every summer, in fields outside of town, various battles of the siege are re-enacted for the public, an event that is sponsored by the Old Court House Museum. These battles and skirmishes require a steadfast cast of practitioners who are willing to expire for their audiences in the heat of the Delta summer. At least one veteran of the Vicksburg re-enactments has learned not to die on the spot when his number comes up but to prolong and orchestrate his mock death throes so that he can writhe to the nearest shade tree.
This year the battle re-enactment could not be scheduled because so many of the regular participants were called to active duty in the Persian Gulf. In lieu of it, there will be living history demonstrations throughout the city on the weekend of July 6 and 7. Re-enactment of the battle will resume next year.
The 1,800-acre Vicksburg National Military Park, established in 1899, encompasses the rugged ridgeback of hills where the Confederate army, numbering approximately 29,500, dug themselves in to repel the Union forces, which by June had increased to 77,000. These castellated hills were the ideal stronghold for turning back offensives, which is just what the Confederates did in the early days of the siege in fierce battles like the one at the Second Texas Lunette on May 22. But as the Union army cut off all supply lines into Vicksburg, the hills became a trap.
Today visitors can drive the 16-mile loop through the wooded and now quiet hills and dales. The landscape speaks easily for the events; one does not have to be a military genius to grasp the stages of the siege. About 750,000 people visit here each year, but the park is large and the hilly terrain concealing. At any other time but summer, when the bulk of pilgrims come, a visitor can achieve the sense of solitude that is conducive to musing over this battle in particular and war in general.
Throughout the park are classical monuments erected by different states to honor their fighting men. The site of Grant's headquarters is designated with an imposing bronze statue of the commander astride his beloved horse Cincinnati. The sculpture, by Frederick C. Hibbard, captures the short, bearded, simply clad individual who comes across in "Grant," the Pulitzer-prize-winning biography by William McFeely, as a military man who was not absorbed by the ornamental trappings of war.
The National Cemetery, on the northern edge of the park, contains the somber white gravestones of 17,000 Union dead, 13,000 of whom are unknown soldiers. About 5,000 Confederate dead, 3,400 unknown, are buried in the Vicksburg City Cemetery, which is near the park at the intersection of Sky Farm Avenue and Zollinger.
ADJACENT to the National Cemetery is the restoration of the Union ironclad gunboat, U.S.S. Cairo, which was sunk in the Yazoo River by Confederates in December 1862. (The Cairo was the first vessel to be sunk by an electrically detonated mine.) The raising of the Cairo is a legend in the annals of historic preservation, and it is a fine, handsomely restored remnant of 19th-century American naval history. Many artifacts pulled up with the boat -- ordnance, commissary provisions, clothes, apothecary items, personal effects -- illuminate daily military life during the war. These are in the museum next to the gunboat.
Before descending to the Cairo and the National Cemetery, make a point to pause on the bluffs at Battery Selfridge. Here are views of the broad and serpentine Mississippi River and its confluence with the smaller tributary Yazoo. With the help of this vista, a visitor can pull back from the close focus on the Civil War and see what Vicksburg was before the war and is now: a river town.
Spanish settlers got a toehold on these marvelous bluffs in 1790 -- they called the place Nogales, for the walnut trees -- but it was a perspicacious Methodist minister, the Rev. Newit Vick, who bought up a thousand acres along this stretch of the river about the same time that steamboats began to ply the Mississippi. He laid out a town on part of the land in 1819, promptly died along with his wife of yellow fever, and consigned to his 13 children a handsome real estate investment.
The population of Vicksburg today is about 33,000; about 3,300 of them work for the Army Corps of Engineers, the largest employer in town, which is in charge of flood control and navigation on the Mississippi River. Vicksburg is sleepy in the best sense of that word. The old part of town, exclusive of the encrustations that have formed along Interstate 20, perches in stairstep fashion on the bluff. A much-recommended tour, by foot or car, would begin at Old Courthouse Museum, at Jackson and Cherry, and meander southward through neighborhoods of late-19th-century Victorian homes. Practically every block boasts a Civil War-era structure or one that possesses its own arcane charm. The Biedenharn Candy Company and Museum of Coca-Cola Memorabilia (1107 Washington Street) preserves the site where the first Coca-Cola was bottled. A map of the historic places is available at the Tourist Information Center.
One of the finest old properties in Vicksburg today is the circa 1830 Martha Vick House, home to one of the Vick daughters and the only extant family fixture in town. It is a modest red-brick Federal-style home, with nods in the direction of Greek Revival, an excellent place to go for relief from antebellum excess. The Vick House is one of nine or so in town that are regularly opened for tours. It is also on Vicksburg's annual Pilgrimage, the spring house tour that occurs this year from March 23 to April 7. The Vick House proprietors cater lunches, dinners and parties.
Vicksburg is a haven of bed-and-breakfast homes. The next time we visit, we want to stay upstairs in the Balfour House. This will give us the privilege of ascending one of the most beautiful spiral staircases we've ever seen, and climbing, with the help of a step stool, into the eight-foot-wide family bed.
Two of Vicksburg's bed-and-breakfasts are perched side-by-side on the toe of the bluff just beneath the central part of town. The more lavish mansion, Cedar Grove, can claim its own Civil War cannonball lodged in the parlor wall, while the Corners, an only slightly less ornate antebellum home, possesses a fine front porch with a view of the river. Both were built by John Alexander Klein, who presented the Corners to his daughter as a wedding gift. One thing that recommends these hostels, besides the fact that they are preserving integral parts of Vicksburg history, is that they are both near the waterfront. Take a morning walk through the neighborhood of shotgun homes with flourishing front-yard gardens and listen to the huff and puff of tugs on the river and the bustle of traffic on the dock. You will be reminded of what the terrain intended Vicksburg to be. VISITOR'S GUIDE TO A TOWN STEEPED IN HISTORY Information
The Vicksburg Tourist Information Center, Clay Street and Old Highway 27 across from the Military Park, (601) 636-9421 or, out-of-state, (800) 221-3536, has maps and brochures pertaining to every conceivable site or event in Vicksburg.
The staff at the Old Court House Museum, 1008 Cherry Street, (601) 636-0741, is steeped in the city's history and eager to answer questions. This beautiful neoclassical building witnessed the siege of Vicksburg. There are numerous exhibits, including a chair that belonged to U.S. Grant and one that belonged to the Confederate President, Jefferson Davis. Upstairs, the handsome courtroom with an impressive wrought-iron dais for the presiding judge. Call for details about the living history demonstration to be held on the weekend of July 6 and 7.
The Visitor's Center at the Vicksburg National Military Park, I-20 and Clay Street, (601) 636-0583, has exhibits, artifacts from the battlefield and a film that explains the siege. The entry fee to the park is $3 a vehicle or $1 for people on foot. A cassette tape that explains decisive events in the battle can be rented for $4.50. From June to mid-August, a cadre of park employees and volunteers return to the battlefield trenches, where they portray the life of the Confederate soldiers during the siege. There are also rifle and cannon demonstrations. Places to Eat
Top o' the River, 4150 Washington Street, (601) 636-6262, is a crowded, convivial place that serves excellent farm-raised catfish and fixings, which include hush puppies, french fries, greens, coleslaw and a regional peculiarity, fried pickles. Dinner for two with beer is about $20.
Velchoff's, 1101 Washington Street, (601) 638-8661, housed in an 1850's wholesale grocery store down by the river, is noted for its oysters on the half shell, oyster po' boys and she-crab soup. Lunch for two, $12.
Delta Point River Restaurant, 4144 Washington Street, (601) 636-5317, has fine views of the Mississippi and is as close as Vicksburg comes to elegance. It serves multicourse dinners featuring veal and beef, and dessert flambes are set afire at tableside. Dress is casual. Dinner for two with a bottle of wine, $55. A champagne brunch on Sundays, $12.25 a person. Places to Stay
Vicksburg offers an array of standard motel accommodations, including Days Inn-West, I-20 and Halls Ferry Road, (601) 634-1622; Best Western Magnolia Inn, 4155 Washington Street, (601) 636-5145, and Holiday Inn, 3330 Clay Street and I-20, (601) 636-4551. Rates for a double room range from $25 to $75.
Devotees of bed-and-breakfast have an excellent selection of old Vicksburg houses to choose from. The circa 1836 Balfour House, 1002 Crawford Street, (601) 638-3690, has two rooms appointed with fine period furniture. Double occupancy with Continental breakfast is $85. The 1873 Corners, 601 Klein Street, (601) 636-7421, is a beautiful Greek Revival home with five rooms and a suite. A big Southern-style breakfast is served in the formal dining room. A double ranges from $75 to $130 and includes breakfast.
Across the street is the circa 1840 Cedar Grove, 2300 Washington Street, (601) 636-1605, with seven rooms in the mansion and eight in the carriage house. Double occupancy ranges from $75 to $130 and includes a Southern breakfast. -- S. W.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/1991/04/21/travel/vicksburg-the-town-and-the-battle.html
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