on my way to new orleans, i stopped by the vicksburg battlefield. it was pretty cool, it is a huge amount of territory covered by the park. it is also the 3rd most monumented battlefield. every yankee unit marked their position with a big stone monument, and each state with soldiers engaged at the siege placed a large monument. the actual battle was a siege, so there were trenches, earth works, and things like that. so, 160something years later the battlefield just looks like a hilly park. which makes it harder to figure out what was going on. my favourite exhibit at the battlefield was the USS Cairo, which was the first warship to be sank by an electrically detonated mine. there is a rough outline of the skeleton of the ship including several pieces of iron armour to give the look of the ship when it was in service, but it also displays much of the original wood that the ship was constructed of.
one of the best monuments was my texas monument dedicated to the texans at the battle, and on the site where waul's texas legion repulsed a yankee attack on some alabama and arkansas troops. the yankees won at vicksburg, but not because they breached the lines and made it into the confederate fortifications, they only won, because the confederates were unable to continue the struggle when they ran out of food and ammunition. i think, if i would have had a battlefield tour guide, i would have understood the positions a lot more, as it was, it was basically going and looking at a lot of hilly terrain covered with monuments and cannons.
on my way to new orleans, i stopped by the vicksburg battlefield. it was pretty cool, it is a huge amount of territory covered by the park. it is also the 3rd most monumented battlefield. every yankee unit marked their position with a big stone monument, and each state with soldiers engaged at the siege placed a large monument. the actual battle was a siege, so there were trenches, earth works, and things like that. so, 160something years later the battlefield just looks like a hilly park. which makes it harder to figure out what was going on. my favourite exhibit at the battlefield was the USS Cairo, which was the first warship to be sank by an electrically detonated mine. there is a rough outline of the skeleton of the ship including several pieces of iron armour to give the look of the ship when it was in service, but it also displays much of the original wood that the ship was constructed of.
one of the best monuments was my texas monument dedicated to the texans at the battle, and on the site where waul's texas legion repulsed a yankee attack on some alabama and arkansas troops. the yankees won at vicksburg, but not because they breached the lines and made it into the confederate fortifications, they only won, because the confederates were unable to continue the struggle when they ran out of food and ammunition. i think, if i would have had a battlefield tour guide, i would have understood the positions a lot more, as it was, it was basically going and looking at a lot of hilly terrain covered with monuments and cannons.
