Being Canadians we didn't know a lot
about the US Civil War. We knew that the southern states fought the
northern states over the issue of slavery and the desire of the South
to be independent of the government in Washington. And that the North
won. And that was about it.
On our drive south we passed many
battlefield sites and memorials so when we got to Jackson Mississippi
and discovered that the Vicksburg National Military Park was just 40
miles away we decided to spend a day there.
When we arrived our luck for getting
things for free held. They were short-staffed and, as the gatekeeper
was at lunch when we arrived, we got in for free. We offered to pay
in the gift shop but they just sold gifts and did not take entry
fees. :)
The 1863 surrender of Vicksburg on July
3 and 4th, along with the defeat of Gen. Robert E. Lee's
army at Gettysburg, July 1-3 marked a Civil War turning point . The
fighting continued for 21 more months, but Federal control of the
Mississippi River helped to ensure the survival of the Union.
Our visit started with a short film
describing the siege (which lasted 46 days) and then we took a 16
mile driving tour of the battlefield:
This picture depicts about 1/3 of the
major field of battle and the driving tour went around it – the
Union side first (I took the picture there) and the Confederate side
opposite. The battlefield is huge. I took the photo above with my
camera's panorama feature. To enlarge it, or any other picture on
this blog, just click on it.
So many lives were effected by this one
battle. So sad:
There are over 1300 monuments in the
park. It would take many days to stop and check out all of them.
There was one of Gen. Ulysses S. Grant
on his horse:
All the states who fought in the war
had memorials to their regiments who fought. This is one of the more
elaborate, for Ohio's Union soldiers:
But the feature of the park we enjoyed
the most was the U.S.S. Cairo Museum:
The Cairo was one of 7 ironclad
gunboats boats build for the North in 100 days.
It was sunk in the Yazoo River north of
Vicksburg in 1862. It is the first vessel ever sunk by an
electrically detonated torpedo (today called a mine).
It is the only surviving Ironclad ship from the Civil War:
Above you see the hole the torpedos made in the ship |
The ship's boilers |
The Paddle Wheel |
Fire Power |
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