It\u2019s a 2 hour drive from Clarksdale down to Vicksburg.\u00a0 The road is pretty straight and extremely flat.\u00a0 This is all flood plain for the Mississippi River.\u00a0 The inhabitants just borrow it to grow cotton and soybeans.\u00a0 It\u2019s harvest time out here right now.\u00a0 We see lots of large tractors and combines out picking the crops.\u00a0 It\u2019s busy out here.\u00a0 You can tell where there is work because of the dust clouds that hang over the machinery.<\/p>\n
Today\u2019s temperature was going to be about 89 degrees.\u00a0 With the river close by, the humidity was also expected to run pretty high.\u00a0 The sun was beating down as we drove.\u00a0 By noon, we had turned on the air conditioning in the car again the humid, hot weather.\u00a0 A battlefield in these conditions would be a little bit of a challenge.<\/p>\n
At the park visitor\u2019s center, we stopped to talk to one of the rangers for more information.\u00a0 We got printouts for the regiment.\u00a0 A memorial stone to the regiment is located in the area where they were stationed.\u00a0 The ranger marked up the map for where three of the Union signs are to indicate Battery E\u2019s locations.\u00a0 The Illinois state memorial is also marked on the map.\u00a0 Michael\u2019s name appears on a roll of the Battery inside.the rotunda.<\/p>\n
The park opens with a large military archway.\u00a0 The drive is through very hilly landscape with a lot of ravines.\u00a0 I can\u2019t image trying to fight your way forward through this.\u00a0 Signs tell us that there were no trees in the area.\u00a0 The Confederate forces had stripped the landscape of anything that could be used to erect barriers against the advancing Union army.<\/p>\n
Amazingly, there are pictures from the time period.\u00a0 There is not one tree or bush.\u00a0 There is barely any grass out there.\u00a0 The dusty dirty in the dry weather would have choked everything around it.\u00a0 In our pictures, it appears very lush.\u00a0 You just have to image the hills and dales totally bare of anything.<\/p>\n
The drive winds through the Union lines with the various regiments from each of the states involved.\u00a0 We see Wisconsin, Illinois, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Iowa, Kentucky and several more.\u00a0 We make sure to stop at the Michigan monument.\u00a0 With the blue skies as a background, it is a beautiful memorial to the lives put on the line and those that were lost in service.<\/p>\n
At Graveyard Road, we finally come to the locations for Battery E.\u00a0 We find the first one with no problems.\u00a0 It is amazing to see the round, earthen mound that protects the gunners.\u00a0 The barrel of the cannon peaks over the edge and is pointed directly as a Confederate held hill in the distance.<\/p>\n
On the map, the next marker appears to be on Union Avenue, so we continue around.\u00a0 We\u2019ve been seeing the rotunda on the Illinois memorial from the battlefield.\u00a0 The road leds directly to its front door.\u00a0 Here, there are the renovated Shirley house, which sits on its original site.\u00a0 The Shirley family owned the farmland that become the site of the siege.\u00a0 The Union army camped around the house and destroyed a lot of the land and house to provide protection for the troops.\u00a0 It\u2019s nice to see this example of farmhouse restored here.<\/p>\n
Walking up to the Illinois memorial is impressive.\u00a0 They wanted to overwhelm you to make sure the sacrifices here were not taken for granted.\u00a0 The marble stairs led to a rotunda also of marble.\u00a0 On the floor is a seal for the state with the dedication date.\u00a0 There are pictures that should a large crowd attending the dedication.\u00a0 It is amazing to see all of these people.<\/p>\n
Rich finds the Battery E roster in the bronze plaques on the wall of the rotunda.\u00a0 Listed in the roll call is the name of Michael Mason.\u00a0 We take plenty of pictures of the plaque and around the memorial.\u00a0 Inside, the acoustics are so nice.\u00a0 I can see why the choir director was in the park office trying to bring a group in to sing.\u00a0 He was turned down on the basis that this is a memorial and not public site for that activity.<\/p>\n
We continue the drive around the park.\u00a0 Using the map, we can\u2019t locate the other Battery E sites.\u00a0 They don\u2019t appear in the locations that the ranger marked for us.\u00a0 In frustration, we continue around the road through the battlefield.\u00a0 We see a site marked Thayer\u2019s Approach.\u00a0 This is an impossible site at the foot of a very steep hill over extremely rough terrain.\u00a0 The sign explains that Thayer was trying to stop mining efforts by the Confederates at this site.\u00a0 We see blue Union markers going up the hill.\u00a0 They didn\u2019t gain their objective, but they did a good job of making there up to the top with little causality.\u00a0 They were repulsed at the top of the ridge for all of their efforts.<\/p>\n
Back in the car, we continue down the road to the next stop for the U.S.S. Cairo Memorial.\u00a0 This side of the park runs pretty close to the Mississippi River.\u00a0 The U.S.S. Cairo was one of 7 ironclad ships built to operate on the Mississippi by the Union Army.\u00a0 The Cairo went down during the siege and was later located and raised.\u00a0 The remains are in a protective cradle and covered from the elements.\u00a0 The remains are mostly the hull of the ship.\u00a0 Replacement pieces were added to show structure.<\/p>\n
The memorial has walkways so you can look down onto the remains and see the internal structure.\u00a0 It is very cool to get this look into an ironclad.\u00a0 The original iron plates, boilers, and other metal structures are in their places throughout the ship.\u00a0 If you love history, this is a great exhibit.<\/p>\n
Coming out of the Cairo memorial, you go past the National Cemetery here.\u00a0 There are rows and rows of stones dedicated to the Union and Confederate soldiers and sailors who lost their lives in the conflict.\u00a0 At the top of hill, you are behind the Confederate lines.\u00a0 At the top of the hill is the command center that looked down on the conflict.\u00a0 This is the highest point in the battlefield.<\/p>\n
Our first stop was at the top of the ridge above Thayer\u2019s Approach.\u00a0 From this point, we can see all of the blue Union markers for the groups trying to take the hill.\u00a0 The last of the markers are about 25 feet from the top of the ridge.\u00a0 Miraculously, the number for those killed in the ascent was small.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know how though.\u00a0 They were looking right up into the gun barrels of the soldiers over them.<\/p>\n
Because we couldn\u2019t find the last Battery E markers, we decided to drive down Graveyard Road to attempt to locate them.\u00a0 But first, we stopped at the top of the hill to get a view down on the Union lines.\u00a0 It was amazing to look down and see into the batteries and lines of the Union spread across the hills.\u00a0 I looked down from the top and at the foot of the hill was the last of the Union position.\u00a0 They were literally right under their noses.<\/p>\n
We could see the first Battery E position out at the far end of the field.\u00a0 We assumed the other two would be somewhat in a line across from them.\u00a0 Back in the car, we drove out to that area and parked.\u00a0 Across the road, we found the Battery E memorial stone.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t on Union Avenue at all!\u00a0 We got some good pictures as proof of the find.\u00a0 From here, we walked up the hill to check for another Battery E position.\u00a0 That marker wasn\u2019t Battery E, but we could see yet another position hidden from view.\u00a0 This was the second Battery E we were looking for.<\/p>\n
Searching around the hillside and through the weeds and trees, we couldn\u2019t locate the last position.\u00a0 We assumed it would be in a line or at least located close by the first two.\u00a0 That didn\u2019t prove to be the case.\u00a0 We had to give up and be satisfied with what we could find.<\/p>\n
We went back to the Confederate line and finished the road back to the Visitor\u2019s Center.\u00a0 This was only one half of the park.\u00a0 We never made it across the road to the next set of sites.\u00a0 It was late in the afternoon and we were more interested in food than battle sites.<\/p>\n
In the parking lot, we went through our options.\u00a0 Turns out, The Gumbo Pot where I was planning to eat didn\u2019t open until 5:00.\u00a0 It was 3:30 and we were starving.\u00a0 Nothing else seemed to jump out at us, so we chose the Rowdy\u2019s Family Restaurant.\u00a0 Great choice.\u00a0 There was one family inside so we had the place to ourselves.<\/p>\n
Rich ordered catfish and I went for the shrimp and grits.\u00a0 Lo and behold, no shrimp and grits to be had since they ran out the night before.\u00a0 I ordered the shrimp and chicken platter then.\u00a0 Darn.\u00a0 I had my heart set on that.\u00a0 The food took a bit.\u00a0 But then when they cook just for you, it does take a while.\u00a0 The wait was well worth it.\u00a0 Everything was delicious and fresh.\u00a0 Of course, it didn\u2019t hurt that we would have eaten anything at that point.<\/p>\n
Then it was time for the long drive back to Clarksdale.\u00a0 We left the hotel about 10 this morning.\u00a0 It was about 8 when we got back in our room.\u00a0 Needless to say, it was time for a hot shower and some time to kick back and relax.<\/p>\n We are back in the land of southern comfort food and humid temperatures.\u00a0 I love it! Today, we decided to explore the Vicksburg battlegrounds and site of the famous siege that broke the Civil War.\u00a0 I\u2019m a history nut and read a lot of histories.\u00a0 The Civil War has been a particular time period that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4039"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4039"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4039\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4053,"href":"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4039\/revisions\/4053"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Array](\"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/Array-of-cannons.jpg\")
<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a>