Category Archives: Civil War

Vicksburg National Cemetery

On our way to the Alabama coast for our vacation this past summer. We spent two nights in Vicksburg, Mississippi touring the Vicksburg National Military Park there. One of the most sobering sights is the Park’s cemetery. It holds about 19,000 graves including 17,000 from  the Siege.

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During the siege the fatalities were buried all over the place. After the war, the bodies were disinterred and brought to the cemetery. The short headstones are of unidentified bodies. The taller headstones are identified. There are  17,000 Union graves in the cemetery. Including about 10,000 casualties of the Siege of Vicksburg. The rest were re-interred from elsewhere in Mississippi, Arkansas, and Louisiana., 13,000 are unidentified. Until 1961 when they ran out of room veterans from America’s other wars were also buried there. As the  cemetery was for Federal soldiers only, the Confederate veterans were buried in other cemeteries in Vicksburg.

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(Sorry about the blurry photograph. The darker markers look kind of ghostly to me.)

There are only two Confederate veterans buried there, and that was by mistake.

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 In this very peaceful setting it is hard to imagine the violence and misery of the Battle of Vicksburg.

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The Siege of Vicksburg – Firing Cannon

As part of our vacation last summer we spent a couple of nights in Vicksburg, Mississippi which of course is the site of the Siege of Vicksburg during the Civil War. I didn’t really know anything about Vicksburg or the siege or why it was important or really anything at all.

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There is all sorts of great information on the Siege of Vicksburg on the web. Vicksburg was important militarily because of its natural forts overlooking the Mississippi River. The Union wanted free mobility up and down the river. So in 1863 General Ulysses S. Grant ringed the city with 75,000 Union troops and hundreds of cannon. The Union Navy had their mortar barges on the river and for 47 days rained hell on the Confederate troops and civilians in Vicksburg.

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The Confederates of course defended themselves the best they could but finally surrendered the city on July 4, 1863. Vicksburg did not celebrate July 4 until the 1940’s.

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The Vicksburg National Military Park takes up the heart of Vicksburg and even now Vicksburg has the air of an occupied town. The Battlefield is wonderful but there were not that many people there in the heart of the summer.

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It’s a very solemn place. During the battle the soldiers were buried here, there, and everywhere and it wasn’t until after the war that they were dug up and re-interred in cemeteries. I’m sure that they missed quite a few.

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I had been trying to figure out how to post about Vicksburg. There is too much stuff there for just one post so I am going to several.

These photos show local high school and and college students demonstrating, under the direction of a Park Ranger (above right), the teamwork needed to fire a cannon. It was very interesting. He let us get up close until it came time to fire the cannon and we had to back.

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At just a half charge of powder, firing blank, it set the burglar alarms off in the cars in the nearby parking lot and made a ton of smoke. I cannot imagine what dozens of cannons firing together, full charges, would sound  like.

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Damn the Torpedos….. Fort Morgan, Alabama

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During our recent vacation to Alabama we went to Fort Morgan State Historic Site which guards the entrance to Mobile Bay.

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There has been a fort there since before the War of 1812. There is a small information packed information packed museum on site that tells the story. Wikipedia also has information on Fort Morgan. The fort consists of over 40 million bricks most set with slave labor.

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The Fort was important in the War of 1812 and the Civil War, and the Spanish American War, and was manned during both World Wars. I. During all that time the the fortifications were added to and modified so it is quite an extensive area.

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There are lots of underground chambers that are pretty spooky. If only they could talk.

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It was here during the Civil War during the Battle of Mobile Bay that Union Admiral Farragut uttered, “Damn the torpedoes, ull speed ahead!” Torpedoes back then were actually remotely actuated mines. Anyway, it is unclear whether he actually said it or not. But it makes a heck of a story.

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Where the Battle of Mobile Bay raged exists now the huge Mobile Bay Gas Field. It, Fort Morgan, and the surrounding area seem to coexist rather well.

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Snap, Crackle, Pop

I really love exploring cities and towns including where Tulsa where I live.

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Earlier this week I went to Rose Hill Cemetery here in Tulsa to look for a geocache and found the above monument.  Dedicated to the “Veterans of the Grand Army of the Republic.” The Grand Army of the Republic was basically the Union Army during the Civil War. Well that’s good, there are lots of memorials to the veterans of that war, both Union and Confederate. This one was a little different though.

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This was dedicated in 2008, 143 years after the war ended. (It ended as far as the Union is concerned. Many of my friends who live in the South, are still fighting the “War of Northern Aggression.” But I’m getting off track.)

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So my interest was piqued. “Who would spend the money, time, and energy on such a project.” I mean, it is a really nice memorial, about nine foot tall and made out of granite and landscaped.

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So I turn to my best friend Google and find out that it was three organizations. The Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War, The Daughters of  Union Veterans of the Civil War, and the Daughters of the American Revolution. They got together, raised some money and got a monument built in a far forgotten corner of an old cemetery. I think that’s cool. I think remembering is important.

It turns out that of the 35,000 people interred at Rose Hill Cemetery there are about 35 Union Army veterans. It reminds me of one of my favorite Bible stories: The Valley of Dry Bones in Ezekiel. The passage is:

“So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone.I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them.”
(Ezekiel 37: 7-8 NIV)

I loved that passage as a kid and still do. I could see a whole valley of dry bones as they came together. Legs and arms popping into place, the skeletons rattling as they stand up and look around for their missing parts. And then the ligaments appearing then the skin. Somebody ought to make a movie.

Check out my friend Baloney for more pairing of text with images.

Oh, yes I almost forgot, yes I did find the geocache.

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