5/18: Flooding in Missouri & Mississippi's Vicksburg Military Park

As we continued our drive from Kansas City, Missouri, toward the Florida Panhandle for our annual summer vacation at a state park, we drove through some of the back roads in the west and central part of the state where we encountered huge swaths of land that had flooded because of the nonstop rains. How sad seeing such devastation to farms and homes.

From southern Missouri we continued heading south through Arkansas toward Mississippi where we broke up the drive by stopping at the Vicksburg Military Park located just over the state's border that we'd last seen ten or more years ago also en route to Florida. The park preserved the site of the Battle of Vicksburg which waged from March 29th to July 4th, 1863. President Jefferson Davis knew how important Vicksburg, overlooking a bend in the Mississippi River, was to the Confederacy at the beginning of the Civil War. The city could also be considered the North's lifeline because Federal troops and supplies could pass into the South by road, river or rail. As the war progressed, Federal naval and military forces gained control of more of the Mississippi River, fighting south from Illinois and north from the Gulf as they moved in on Vicksburg. President Abraham Lincoln knew Vicksburg was the key to the Union, writing that "The war can never be brought to a close until it is in our pocket."

The Memorial Arch was the beginning of our 16-mile long mostly driving tour of the military park.

The Minnesota Memorial:

It seemed almost impossible to contemplate the men having to fight on this hilly terrain to save the city.

The park included a mind-numbing 1,300 plus historic monuments and markers, 20 miles of historic trenches and earthworks and 144 cannons. We weren't such committed history or Civil War buffs to want to take the time to see even a tenth of all of them. We chose instead to get a sense of the magnitude of the battlefield from both the Union and Confederate viewpoints and to learn what transpired during the 47-day long siege of Vicksburg that ended with Union control of the Mississippi River.

During the war, the hillside next to the Shirley House was completely transformed into a vast network of dugouts or makeshift shelters to protect Union soldiers from oppressive summer heat and the threat of nearby Confederate guns. Although the home's owners owned 25 slaves, they were Union sympathizers and their teenage son joined the troops fighting the Confederates on his doorstep. When the siege ended, the home was badly damaged and then abandoned. After being restored to its pre-war appearance, the stately home became the only remaining wartime building inside the military park.

The Illinois State Memorial, dedicated in October, 1906, had 47 steps, one for every day Vicksburg was besieged. It was modeled after Rome's Temple of Minerva Medica and the Pantheon. 

On May 19th, 1863, the 55th Illinois Infantry was pinned down by enemy fire and was running out of ammunition. When 14-year old Orion Howe volunteered to run back and get more, he was severely wounded but was still able to ask General Sherman for the required cartridges. Howe became one of the youngest recipients of the Medal of Honor for his heroic run.

When Union forces arrived at Vicksburg, Union General Ulysses S. Grant chose a wood frame house near here as his headquarters. However, the house was dismantled as the wood was needed to build a bridge over a deep trench for a battle in late May, 1863. Union headquarters was re-established in tents.

The statue honored Grant.

This impressive monument saluted the US Navy's role in the success at Vicksburg. In the spring of 1863, Grant needed to change tactics as he'd failed to penetrate Confederate defenses north of Vicksburg. He wanted to move his large army across the Mississippi River but had no authority over the Navy and the government in DC would likely deny such a bold plan. 

Admiral David Dixon Porter saw the merits of Grant's strategy and agreed to allow his fleet to run past Vicksburg's mighty guns and meet Grant's army south of the city. As Grant's army blocked Vicksburg from the east, Porter's navy sealed off the city along the river side. Navy guns and mortars joined the army's bombardment of the besieged city so that the troops and supplies could be safely transported across the river. 

Porter:

The restored gunboat USS Cairo, also known as the "Hardluck Ironclad," was the first U.S. ship to be sunk by a torpedo/mine. 

Of the nearly 17,000 Union soldiers buried at the Vicksburg National Cemetery that was established in 1866, about 13,000 were unknown. The cemetery, located across from the battlefield, was also the final resting place for veterans of the Spanish-American War, World Wars I and II and the Korean War. Many Confederates who died during the siege were buried nearby.

The Here Brothers Fought Memorial brought home to me how at Vicksburg, and across every Civil War battlefield, men who had once been friends faced off as enemies. Neighbors and even family members found themselves on opposite sides, fighting for different ideals. The Civil War wasn't a struggle to fend off a foreign power, but a war of Americans fighting Americans.

I found the Arkansas Memorial especially moving as it was dedicated to the Confederate Arkansas soldiers and sailors, "part of a nation divided by the sword and reunited at the altar of faith." That, I felt, was a sentiment that could be applied to all the brave men who fought for their ideals on both sides of the war.

Next post: Photo essay of our R&R at a cabin at Grayton Beach State Park on the Florida Panhandle.

Posted on August 5th, 2019, from Littleton, Colorado, a day after hearing of the tragic, sudden death of my friend, Christine, whom I had the joy of knowing for over 50 years and fortunately just saw a couple of weeks ago at her son's wedding in Canada.