I spent last week in Vicksburg, MS with my son, researching for an upcoming title for Globe-Pequot Books. Bill Serrat of the Vicksburg Chamber Visitors' Bureau graciously showed me around town and appointed veteran Battlefield Expert Harry McMillan to show me around the National Military Park.
I have often written that the two most Southern places on earth are The Citadel Military College and Beauvoir, Jefferson Davis' final home in Biloxi Mississippi. I must now add to this a third location: Vicksburg's Old Courthouse Museum. More on that, and the reasons for this designation, in a later post. For now, I want to give some overall impressions of what Union and Confederate troops came to call "The Gilbraltar of the South."
Vicksburg sits high above the bluffs above the Yazoo River today. In 1862-1863 when US Grant was trying everything he could think of to take the fortress city, the river was the Mississippi. Built on the inside curve of a hairpin turn, Vicksburg gave its occupants the chance to see boats coming and going for miles. During a portion of these miles, Vicksburg could see the boats traveling quite slowly as they backpaddled to a snail's pace to navigate said turn. Hence, as long as Confederates held Vicksburg, they could keep Union boats from traveling south from the Midwest to the Gulf of Mexico. (To be continued...)
