Vicksburg, Part 3

 On this trip down the Mississippi, I carried a small notebook and scribbled notes furiously. Visiting this national park, I was especially overcome by the enormity of this battle. The notes are mine and the facts as I understood from our guide.

After the battle, some 17,000 Union dead were buried in a cemetery near the battlefield, now part of the Vicksburg National Park. We were told that the upright stones were for the identified soldiers and the “stubby flat” stones were for the 13,000 unidentified. The Confederate dead were buried in trenches.

The Vicksburg National Military Park was established on 21 February 1899 to preserve and protect the areas associated with the defense and siege of Vicksburg. The park covers over 1800 thousand acres. During the battle, the hills were stripped of trees. During the 1930s, the CCC men replanted many trees. In 1917, veterans were invited to return to the site and point out just where their units stood and fought and some 8800 showed up! Markers were placed at these designated sites.

As men came from 28 of the then 34 states, each participating state was invited to place a monument at the Park. Each state monument is planned and paid for by the state and then given to the Park to be placed. Most Union monuments were erected by World War II. The Confederate states’ monuments were placed much later (they were financially decimated remember).  Some Southern states have yet to place a monument; neither has Vermont.

Vicksburg Trivia:

I've read that more Americans died in the Civil War than all other American wars combined; the slaughter was that terrible.

The Confederate President was Jefferson Finis Davis….. he was the last of ten children; hence the “Finis.” His only descendant was a granddaughter.

Mary Todd Lincoln’s brother, David Todd, fought for the Confederacy.

Often the Union and Confederate lines were “merely a stone’s throw apart.”

The average age of the Civil War soldier was 27.

The northwestern part of Virginia pulled early from the Confederacy to fight for the Union; this was 18 months before West Virginia became a state in 1863.   

Kentucky and Missouri were split states…….. men from these states fought for both sides.

The Illinois monument, modeled after the Roman Pantheon, has sixty unique bronze tables lining its interior walls, naming all 36,325 Illinois soldiers. Our guide explained that it was erected in 1904 when the citizens of Illinois taxed themselves to finance the project.

The Alabama monument, placed in 1953, is the only one showing a “fighting” woman. It was meant to show the women’s support of their men during the conflict.

When Grant realized that the Confederates were filling their canteens from a certain creek, he dumped dead animals into that creek to pollute the water; it worked and caused many a Confederate to die a miserable death.

Joke:  Difference between a Confederate and Union cannon? The way it’s pointed! So quipped our tour guide.

While I did thoroughly enjoy learning the history of the Mississippi River and its connection to the Battle of Vicksburg, I certainly did realize I was treading and viewing hallowed ground when I was privileged to visit the Vicksburg National Military Park during my cruise on the Mississippi River (from St. Paul to New Orleans) in October 2022.  

Vicksburg, Part 2

 On this trip down the Mississippi, I carried a small notebook and scribbled notes furiously. Visiting this national park, I was especially overcome by the enormity of this battle. The notes are mine and the facts as I understood from our guide.

Soon after Christmas, 1862, Grant, under orders from President Lincoln, came down personally from Memphis “to get the job done!” His 43,000 man army was on the west side of the Mississippi and it took two days to ferry the troops, horses and armaments, across the river.  It did help Grant’s cause that the Confederate generals were in-fighting; Johnston abandoned the town of Jackson as Grant approached. But Pemberton’s troops were well entrenched in a semi-circle around Vicksburg. As well as the Confederate army, there were 3500 citizens there. As the Union forces fought their way to Vicksburg, the net closed around the town, the resistance and battlements repulsing Grant four times. But Grant had way more men and Lincoln was re-supplying him with everything and anything he needed… “with bodies for the fire.”  Finally, after losing many men, Grant decided upon a siege as his only option.

On 25 May 1863, the siege of Vicksburg began. Grant held the superior position; he could call for help. Pemberton was just the opposite; his army was trapped and he had all those civilians to think about. Grant had 200 canons and they commenced firing one by one, every fifteen seconds around the clock. The 3500 non-combatants fled the city down to the bluffs along the river to live in tents and caves, anything to avoid the canon fire.  Survival was on their minds, not battles nor politics. (Pause to imagine life in a muddy cave, with nothing to eat or drink, hearing cannon balls tearing your home and city apart.)

First the cows disappeared, then the horses. Next were the dogs and when, after 47 days, the troops and the citizens were reduced to eating rats, Pemberton surrendered on 4 July 1863,  the same day as the Battle of Gettysburg ended, signaling the end of the war. Union deaths from start to finish during the taking of Vicksburg were about 10,000 men. The Confederates lost about 9000.  These figures might reflect men killed, wounded or AWOL.

After Vicksburg, Lincoln realized that Grant had the guts to fight, versus so many other of his appointed Union generals (due to in-fighting and politics) that Lincoln appointed Grant to be General of the Army to finish the job of causing the Confederacy’s will to fight to crumble.

This is the field our guide was referring to. As we bus-toured the Vicksburg battlefield, our very knowledgeable guide paused at one point to help us imagine it as it was: Imagine a hilly-up-and-down field covering several football fields in length. You are told to charge (RUN!) from here to there in the sweltering July heat, into the afternoon sun, carrying your nine pound rifle, being rather weak from too little food, and with iron balls fired from both sides raining down on you. The slaughter was horrible, “utter insanity,” said the guide.

(( TO BE CONTINUED))