Vicksburg, Mississippi

Below is a picture of the Mississippi from one of the bluffs in Vicksburg. It was the city's location - high above the river that made it virtually impossible for the Union forces to take the city. Thus the 46 day siege which reduced the city's population to living in caves and eating mules and rats. These were the famous rats of Gettysburg (my mother's English in 1945 was not up to Vicksburg) that she was told about by a US army captain. I grew up hearing about these rats! Good to finally visit them.

the Mississippi from the city.Here it was really all about the war. it is the Vicksburg National Military Park that interested Nick (from an engineering point of view) and so we finally visited a battlefield. We drove sixteen miles of siege lines.

Guns and fortifications

The Illinois Memorial - The terrain is studded with artillery pieces and 1,500 statues and memorials, about half of them commemorating troops from Illinois. Above is the main Illinois memorial, the other 700 are smaller and identical. Illinois must have gotten a quantity discount!

The Gunboat Cairo

One of the things that interested Nick especially was the gunboat Cairo. It was sunk during the siege and raised in 1994. There is a separate museum just for the Cairo; it is quite interesting to see the various items that were brought up from the vessel. All in good shape. Of course, the most amazing thing about the sinking of the Cairo is that no one drowned. the boat itself is reconstructed (to some extent) as can be seen below. The wood at the bow is original, brought up from the bottom of the Mississippi.

The picture above shows a reconstructed section of the ship, complete with guns. Probably not original. Those are inside the museum.

Vicksburg does have things to see other than leftovers from the "recent unpleasantness" - There are some attractive old houses, but we only drove past them - there was only so much time! Below is the rather elegant former trainstation.

And here the pièce dé resistance: The original store where Coca Cola was first bottled and dispensed! Below the Biedenharn Coca Cola museum Coke was invened in Atlanta, but Joe Biedenharn in Vicksburg pioneered bottling the stuff. Before that you could only get Coke at Soda fountains. The rest, as they say ...

After discovering this earthshaking bit of history we returned to our palatial temporary home in Natchez.

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