22.6.2012 – 22.6.2012  34 °C

Early start today with us spending the majority of our day in the Vicksburg National Monument. Vicksburg was the site of one of the longest and bloodiest campaigns during the civil war. Vicksburg (the town) needed to be captured by the Union forces to enforce the blockade of the southern states by making the Mississippi River in-navigable for Confederate forces. The Union had already taken New Orleans and St Louis (so effectively controlled the top and bottom of the river) and the army was now working its way up and down the river, with the army converging on Vicksburg. Vicksburg had always been an easily defended town (due to its height above the river) and was heavily fortified so it was expected to be very difficult for the Union forces to defeat the soldiers in this city.

At first, General Ulysses Grant (Union general), had tried to attack the city from the north, with no success. He then tried to dig channels around Vicksburg (effectively making the town obsolete in its defence of the Mississippi river), again unsuccessful. He then tried an extremely risky manoeuvre. He sent troops inside iron-clad ships from the North down the Mississippi, past the Vicksburg fortifications with a plan to land troops on the southern shore of Vicksburg (behind Confederate lines) and attack the south of the city. This was successful, so General Grant now had the whole town surrounded. It then took him nearly a month to oust the Confederate soldiers. Grant tried frontal attacks (and lost thousands of men), digging trenches under the fortifications and just bombing the heck out of the town to get the Confederates to surrender. Eventually, the Confederate soldiers (and the civilian townsfolk) had to call for an armistice as they pretty much ran out of food and knew that no help was going to arrive. The siege was lifted and Vicksburg was in Union control.

From this point onwards, the Confederacy was effectively cut in half (Arkansas, Texas etc) to the west and everyone else to the east. The supply lines for the Confederacy were cut and eventually this lead to the defeat of the Confederate forces. All in all, in excess of 20,000 men died during the Vicksburg campaign..

The National Monument is this large park that has been preserved to honour those men who sacrificed their lives for what they believed in, succession or unionisation. The park has a 16 mile driving path that takes you around and thru the battlefield so that you can get a sense of the scale of the month long siege. We spent a couple of hours driving around and the biggest thing I think I took away from the drive was how senseless the whole war (and every war) probably was! I’m still unclear as to why the war began.. The Confederates were fighting to keep slavery (and therefore retain their mega profits), the Unionists were fighting to keep the succeeded states apart of the Union (I guess again for monetary reasons) and later to abolish slavery… Really, on the information I gathered today I can’t see why the war began in the first place if it wasn’t for money!

The other really interesting thing about this civil war monument is that the park has on display an Iron Clad Steamer. These were basically steam boats that were clad in iron (in many cases railroad tracks) and were loaded with cannons. The boat on display is the USS Cairo and it was a Union boat that was sunk in the Mississippi by an early version of a sea mine. The boat is in amazing condition, considering it was on the bottom of the Mississippi for well over a hundred years. The parts of the boat that are missing have been recreated so that you can get a real feel for what an Iron Clad boat would have been like.. (If an “Iron Clad” boat seems familiar and you can’t remember from where, think, Clive Cussler’s Sahara—it’s also a movie with Mathew McConaughey).

Our day finished with us heading downtown to have a look around. The downtown area of Vicksburg is pretty disappointing (at least after seeing Natchez it is!). In some ways this is because Vicksburg was so badly damaged during the civil war (so very few remaining Antebellum houses) but also because many of the shops and businesses downtown have closed down. When we got to Main Street (there’s one in every town in America—and no, I’m not joking!) we parked the car and started walking as I wanted to find an antique coin. After I had my coin (and M bought a pair of earrings) we did the “strip” and were really surprised to find that we were the only people out shopping and that most of the shops had closed down. I’m not sure how high unemployment might be in this town but if the main street is anything to go by I’m thinking quite high!

We finished off our day with a picnic in the local riverside park here in Vicksburg. Our picnic was spaghetti bolognaise (the best thing about our setup is we can cook good stuff anywhere!) and it really hit the spot. We watched the sun sink into the west bank of the Mississippi before we headed back to our hotel with a quick stop at the neighbouring outlet stores for some more clothes (we’re working on the premise that as soon as our clothes get ratty or uncomfy we just find another outlet store and buy ourselves some more gear!)

Song of the Day– The Band, The night they drove old Dixie down