Spring Travels: Vicksburg Battlefield

Now the Father of Waters goes unvexed to the sea.

-Abraham Lincoln

The fortified bluffs above the Mississippi River at Vicksburg, MS gave the Confederacy control over this vital commercial and military waterway.  Lincoln knew that to have the US again in control of the river meant that the Confederacy would be divided and and then conquered.  It was General Grant's job to take the high ground at Vicksburg from rebel control and preserve the Union.  

A big part of American History is to be found and explored at the National Military Park at the site of the battle and siege that led to the surrender of Vicksburg and elicited President's thankful quote regarding unvexing the Father of Waters.  I like history. I like honor being shown to those who have displayed bravery and ingenuity.  I love road trips.  I love the experience of pulling so many pleasant elements together.  So the Sunesons and our good friends the McCords, traveled to Mississippi for fun in late March.

We joined the McCords for dinner at their "Blue House" home in the Piney Woods of east Texas on a Tuesday night.  We would be up an out the door in the morning making for Vicksburg, Mississippi.

Unlike Gen. Grant, who risked the destruction of his entire army as he boldly maneuvered 38,000 troops across the Mississippi, telling his commanders that they would have to make due with only the food they carried since they would be cut off from their supply lines; we googled our options for a place to eat lunch once in Vicksburg.  We chose The Gumbo Pot, a good place for fried shrimp special and gumbo. 

Once fed, we had the will to forward march to the battle site for the remainder of the afternoon.

Sue checked with the ranger to see if they had any information on those who fought there, and was rewarded with a print out with some details about her Great Great Grandfather, Lewis Maris.  He was actually captured just before he could get into Vicksburg's defenses.

We drove through the arch at the entrance to the battlefield, tracing the Union lines that were in place in May of 1863.

 Artillery used in the battle was lined up in an impressive display in front of the visitor's center.

DeGueyer's Battery was dug in and pounded the rebel positions around Vicksburg for 34 days before the town was surrenedered by General Pemberton.

The monument and rotunda build by the state of Illinois looms large over the battlefield.  Illinois provided many of the Federal troops than manned the siege lines and of course Illinois is the proud home of the victorious General Grant as well as Mr. Lincoln.

Kirby was able to find the name of his ancestor, John P. McCord, cast in bronze, and listed among the Illinois cavalry and all who served from that state in Grant's campaign. 

Kirby points to the name of one of his ancestors who served in the 5th Illinois cavalry at Vicksburg

Mark at the site of the Louisiana redan, a defensive position that guarded the Jackson Road into Vicksburg

Wisconsin memorial at Vicksburg

I would say the most impressive tribute at the Vicksburg battlefield is the remains of the great Union ironclad gun boat, the USS Cairo, raised the the bottom of the river in 1963, 100 years after she was sunk by a rebel mine.  The reconstructed structure of this impressive new battleship clad in thick iron plates, impervious to cannon fire was on display near to original townsite of Vickburg.

The bow of the USS Cairo
Armed to the teeth with cannon and covered in iron plates above the waterline.
She was sunk by a mine deployed by the rebels that detonated underneath her keel.

Donna looks out from one of the gun ports on the USS Cairo

We were at the Cairo Museum when the hour struck 5 O'clock, which means it was closing time for the battlefield.  We were not quite done with our tour, so we vowed to return in the morning to finish the drive through the historic site.

In the morning we had on our list of 'must see' items, the location of the Texas brigade that stopped the breach in the Confederate line and fought hard and proud.   At the Texas memorial where a bronze Texan stood with his shirt spread open and his chest hairs cast in bronze were proudly displayed, Kirby (a native Texan) remarked; "I am sorry to admit, but the Texas memorial has got to be the tackiest site on the battlefield."  Many in our small party thought the the representative Texian soldier bore a close resemblence to Matthew McConaughey - and it was not just that he was portrayed sans shirt.

Sue and Mark at the 2nd Texas redoubt

Texas Memorial

Can I still be an honorary Texan  even if I do not have a chest full of bronze hair?

With General U.S. Grant accepting the surrender of Vickburg on July 4, 1863, the rebel cause was inevitably lost.  We headed back to the visitor's center to get directions to a place found only by following two-lane country roads that is not marked by any bronze plaques, but a place that looks large in the family history.  Next stop - if we can find it, the site of the Battle at Big Black River Bridge.

Spring Travels: The Hinge of Family History

At the the Vicksburg visitor's center I consulted with a knowledgeable Park Service employee, and asked her about locating the sites of the two battlefields where General Grant fought the rebels forces, over-running them and forcing them to retreat into their defensive perimeter around the town of Vicksburg.  The two sites of keen interest for us were the Battle of the Big Black River Bridge and Champion Hill.  In Sue's genealogy research, Lt. Lewis Maris of the 3rd Missouri Cavalry (CSA) was captured either at one of these two battles, separated by less than 24 hours and about 12 miles.  With a hand-drawn map on the back of a government publication showing bifurcating county roads and single-lane back country routes, we headed east to while history unfolded before our eyes.

If Great Great Grandfather Lt. Maris would have been killed in the fighting, there would be no Great Grandmother Rosa Sophia Maris Woodcock and then no Grandmother Lucile Woodcock Mott which would have precluded the existence of Dr. Helen Mott, her own mother.  All of family history as we know it hinged upon the fate of Lewis Maris on May 17, 1863.  Would the cavalry lieutenant be killed in action, would he retreat with his comrades to Vicksburg and be in harm's way during more fighting and then only to endure the Union shelling during the 34 day siege, possibly killed?  Or would his fate be to be removed from the fighting and bloodshed to survive, preserving his memory and his seed far into a distant and unforeseeable future following the Civil War?  

There is something primal about standing on the very ground, made hallow by utmost devotion and bloodshed from those who came before, and gazing back 154 years in contemplation of the web of events, coincidence, luck and fateful decisions that bring us back up through a tortuous history of twist and turns to the point where a great great grand daughter could return and stand at the spot where all the hopes, dreams and trials of four succeeding generations all hinged.  Standing beneath the railroad trestle crossing the Big Black River, an ordinary looking brushy river bank of no beauty, yet we felt small before the immense tide of human history and time that we feebly recognized had passed before our arrival.  Who among those who fought here in 1863 could have imagined, much less dreamed, of what future generations would see and accomplish after them?  

Sue stands before the remains of the railroad bridge over the Big Black River,
Site of the battle where Great Great Grandfather Lt. Lewis Maris was captured, May 17, 1863

 Sue, looking over these photos said she was reminded of the plot of the movie, Back to the Future, where the main character Marty McFly has a photograph of him and his family where he fades from the photo as events in the past are altered to conspire to keep his parents from meeting, thus precluding his existence in the future.  Sue felt that if some little thing, say, such as a Union artillery shell, landed somewhere else on the day in May, 1863, she would not exist.

The fact that I have a full, non-faded photo of my wife, proves that Lt. Lewis Maris did survive the Civil War.  As General Pemberton retreated to the stronghold of Vicksburg, he left three brigades to defend his rear on the east side of the Big Black River.  After defeating the confederates at Champion Hill, they next encountered Pemberton's rear guard east of the Big Black River.  Once again as the rebel positions were overrun, the rebels pulled back across the river and the order was given to torch the railroad trestle to slow down the Union advance.  The wooden bridge had turpentine soaked cotton bales tied to its structure in anticipation of needing to destroy it prevent Grant's army from using it to pursue the enemy, however, as fate would have it, the bridge and three steam boats used as another bridge were destroyed before all of the confederate forces were able to make it to the west side of the river.  Reports of many confederate soldiers being drowned as they tried to swim the Big Black in flood stage, and the record show another 1,700 rebel soldiers captured. One of the 1,700 was Lt. Lewis Maris, 3rd Missouri Cavalry, Co. D.  Lt. Maris would be a POW imprisoned on Johnston Island in Ohio for the remainder of the war.  

Released in February 1865, Lewis would return to Savanna, Missouri where he would farm on the Platte River and and raise a family with his wife.  Growing crops, raising livestock, taking a wife and nurturing a family, all the mundane daily endeavors of an ordinary life; but from our vantage on the sandy banks of the Big Black River looking back four generations, it could easily have never been so ordinary.  We are feeling... what - fortunate? Insignificant? Blessed? Responsible for the coming generations?  It is a place of feeling, but which one is dominant or true.  Like the future, it is undecided.

Now we are feeling a little hungry, how about an ordinary lunch in Raymond?  We all agree on that.

A descendant of Lt. Lewis Maris surrenders to her emotions
Modern railroad trestle over the Big Black River

   

Mark at the strategic cross roads of Champion Hill
where General Grant gained access to the road to
his military objective, Vicksburg.

We four wended our way through small rural lanes, past burned out single-wide mobile homes and hound dogs resting in the shade of pine trees for another 12 miles to get to Champion Hill, the site of a battle that preceded the one a Big Black River Bridge.  Champion Hill is still own by the Champion family, and is prominently marked as private land, no trespassing.  While seeking direction at Vicksburg, we were told to respect the private property rights, and we agreed and we did.  However, there is a sign dedicated to the carnage on the shoulder of the road and so we stopped to read of the ferocious fighting were men stood nearly toe-to-toe for hours firing into one another's face, as it was described by a Union officer.  





By circuitous route we found ourselves at the southern edge of the battle line at the Coker House, a structure used by both sides as a field hospital.  Where large camellia bushes and wisteria now stand, there once was piled amputated arms and legs of the stricken soldiers being treated inside the walls while under artillery fire.  Trying to place today's flowering countryside next to images of detached limbs and the moans of the dying rattles and warps the imagination.

Sue sits on the porch of the Coker House.
The landscape now a picture of tranquility, but
once a site of carnage and hostility.

The Coker House subjected to artillery bombardment
and used as a field hospital by first the
Confederates, and then by the Union.

Sue and Donna admire the camellias beside the Coker House.

The sweet smell of wisteria blooms near where once amputated arms and legs of
wounded combatants were piled.

Camellia at peace in a place of a violent past

Spring Travels: The Natchez Trace

The Old Natchez Trace, a forest trail that leads from Nashville, Tennessee to Natchez, Mississippi connected the American interior to the Mississippi River and was of historic and vital route in the early days of the American frontier.  In fact, if you walk far enough back on the Old Trace, you will probably find it being used in 700 AD by prehistoric peoples, including the mound building tribes like the Natchez Indians.  Today, the Natchez Trace is maintained by the US Park Service along it 444 miles of idyllic two-lane, slow-paced travel through verdant woodlands.  

Traveling with the McCords in our 4Runner, we caught the Natchez Trace in Raymond, Mississippi about 75 north of Natchez, MS.  The idea was to cruise in our vehicle the now paved path that has been traveled by foot and horseback by the likes of Meriwether Lewis, Andrew Jackson, Spanish explores, French soldiers, pirates, frontiersmen, traders, scalawags, boatmen, all precede in previous millennia by the earliest of peoples on the North American continent.  We are walking in all of their footsteps, but instead of walking we are motoring at 50 mile per hour.  Our plan is to at any place of interest along The Trace and explore, ending up in the evening at The Routhland, a antebellum mansion B&B in Natchez.

Remnant of the Old Natchez Trace forest trail traveled by Indians, frontiersmen, Spanish, French and American explorers traders and soldiers.  Yes, they trod upon this very place on their way to the Mississippi River - just as we were doing.

The sign in the side of the road directed us toward a sidetrack where the actual pathway, worn into Mississippi soil from countless footsteps of travelers making there way to the Mississippi River.  This ground has seen the passing of members of a mound-building civilization (perhaps dating back to around 700 AD), Andrew Jackson to fight the British at New Orleans, Spanish explorers and French priests among thousand of others from the pages of history.  We stopped to walk the Trace ourselves.  Donna could not resist taking off her Trace-walking shoes and wading in the the small, clear creek beside the Trace.

Our traveling companion on the Old Trace, Donna McCord takes a trip through a brook
flowing beside the historic Natchez Trace. 

Sunlight through a springtime leaves along the Natchez Trac

 A little further down the Trace we come upon Rocky Springs ghost town.  A settlement boasting of 3 churches, artisans, stores and 25 square miles of farms tended by 2,000 slaves.  Rocky Springs thrived along the Natchez Trace from the 1780's into the early 20th Century, but a devastating infestation of boll weevils destroyed the economy and today all that is left is a Methodist Church and its graveyard, a few cisterns and several safes (long ago cracked open) rusting in the woods. 

Tree roots fight erosion at Rocky Springs ghost town

Spanish moss drapes from trees
surrounding an old Methodist Church

Rocky Springs Methodist meet still meet here on occasion.

Rocky Springs boneyard under spanish moss 

It is getting toward dusk and we need to check in to our B&B suite at the Routhland Mansion in Natchez before our hostess goes to her bridge party.  We leave the ghosts of Rocky Springs behind, but we are assured there will be more ghost awaiting us in Natchez as we scurry down the Trace like so many others before us.

Spring Travels: Builder of Mounds

On the outskirts of the modern hamlet of Natchez, Mississippi is an ancient site documented by several 17th Century French explorers and priests who visited the New World and journeyed up the mighty river to find what they referred to as "The Grand Village of the Natchez".  Modern archaeologist now believe that this site of three earthen mounds served more as a ceremonial gathering location, while the majority of the population of Natchez Indians were scattered about the region in small communities that raised squash, corn and beans.  But at the Grand Village of the Natchez, the Great Sun, paramount chief and his nobility resided in a dwelling atop the one of the mounds and another mound was topped by a temple where a fire was always kept burning in homage to the Sun.  The nobles were served the by the "stinkards" of the lower caste. 

We visited the museum that outlined the Natchez society rituals of human sacrifice of their own children and the hierarchy as observed by contemporary French accounts.  As the French settlement and fortification encroached upon the indigenous people, the Natchez turned on the French in 1730.  The French counter attached and claimed to have wiped out all of the Natchez, but there are those who claim that at least some warriors escaped and joined with the Creek and Cherokee Nations.

Ascending the "Temple Mound" at the
Grand Village of the Natchez

 A few miles up the Natchez Trace from the Grand Village is the impressive Emerald Mound. An 8 acre mound (the second largest such structure in North America) that stands above the Mississippi flood plain about 40 feet.  It took several generation of laborers working with baskets and digging tools of sticks and antlers to build such a high standing monument, beginning around 1200.  To think of the effort that went into the construction can not help but fill one with admiration for the efforts and toil of these antecedent people of the Plaquemine Culture, the mound-builders. 

The Great Sun mound (chief's dwelling) atop the south end of the 8 acre Emerald mound

Kirby and Sue climb to the Great Sun's mound at Emerald Mound
along the Natchez Trace

The view across Emerald Mound, a prehistoric ceremonial site built over generations.
From the top of the Great Sun Mound you can see the Temple Mopund on the far end of the raised Emerald Mound complex.

View across Emerald Mound from the steps ascending
The Great Sun's Mound and Dwelling

Emerald Mound from half-way up the steeply constructed slopes that
rise to a flat surface on the top of Emerald Mound

Spring Travels: Antebellum Natchez

As we came off of the Natchez Trace Parkway and entered Natchez, we began to search for the Routhland Mansion. a Bed & Breakfast where we would stay the two nights and using it as a base from which to foray on various local adventures.  The first adventure was to locate the B&B.

We eventually deduced where the address and GPS guidance wanted us to be and turned onto an inconspicuous driveway that wound up the slope to the Routhland estate.  Our hostess met us and filled us in on the routine and gave us our passes to breakfast to be served in the carriage house of the Dunleigh  B&B a quarter of a mile away.

Routhland Mansion
Our Natchez home for 2 nights

We Sunesons and McCords shared a single bathroom and a 2-room suite.  One room had a queen bed with a severely concaved mattress, the other room two single beds.

In the front of the Routhland estate was a magnificent old oak, dripping with Spanish moss and hosting ferns growing from its low-slung massive limbs.

Large and beautiful oak standing in front of Routhland

All afternoon a stiff breeze was pushing moisture up from the Gulf of Mexico, and I could feel we were likely going to get some electricity in the air.  Not disappointed, I settled into my strange sheets and pillow as I could hear distant rumbling growing closed through the wee hours of the morning.  I thought it fitting to have the raucous atmosphere pounding around us as I detected lightning through my shut eyelids.  I enjoyed the storm from inside the big, antebellum house.

In the morning, the grass was well drenched with last nights rain, and as the sky cleared, we strolled out to the majestic oak still standing before us, bearing silent witness to unknowable numbers of electrical storms and hurricane winds since it days as a seedling.  I was honored to stand below its boughs.

A little frivolity on top of even lesser amount of hair.
I 'moss' look fabulous!

Spring Travels: Dining with Ghosts

In planning the trip to Natchez, Kirby had researched a few spots that made claims to be haunted.  Now, I think it must be good for business if a restaurant makes a paranormal claim, and it seems that if the lights once flickered in the kitchen in 1993, then the place advertises a ghost on the premises.  I lean towards skepticism for most of these specific ghost claims, but - through recorded history, people say they have seen ghosts, so maybe their is something universal and true to the existence of spirit apparitions. Just maybe.

With an appetite for haunting possibilities and not to mention, dinner; we had King's Tavern on our list in hopes of good food and just maybe a few see-through guests passing by our table, chilling our spine and our water glasses.  King's Tavern is the oldest standing building in the Mississippi Territory, dating back to at least the 1780's (possibly older).  Adding some credence to the hauntings of this place is the documented excavation of three human skeletons in the 1930's when the tavern's fireplace was being repaired.  Bricked into the back of the chimney were the bones of a woman and two men, replete with a mysterious jewel encrusted dagger, the presumed instrument of their demise.

Long before the gruesome discovery behind the bricked-up back of the chimney, reports of ghosts within King's Tavern had been made.  Richard King, the tavern's early owner had hired a young bar maid named Madeline. the employer/employee relationship was rumor to quickly become one of a lovers affair.  Soon, Madeline disappeared and it was rumored that King's wife is said to have gotten suspicious and hired two henchmen to murder young Madeline.  Other visitors have reported the sounds of a crying infant coming from a vacant upstairs room.  This is said to be the ghost of a fussy baby that was taken from the arms of its mother by 'Big Harpe', a notoriously cruel bully in these parts, and slammed the baby into the wall and killing it, then Big Harpe returned to the bar to drink in quiet.

Donna and Sue look as if they'd seen a ghost while
waiting for dinner at the purportedly haunted King's Tavern

The ghost of Madeline (the missing bar maid and lover of the Tavern's proprietor) is said to be haunting the tavern along with the murdered infant who some say its cries can still be heard.

We selected a table in the corner, but the ladies suggested we move out to the back patio to dine in the pleasant twilight.  When I asked the our waiter about the spirits of the place, he mentioned that the three skeleton were discovered in the chimney wall, in the very corner that we had just vacated. Ooooh, creepy.

 The sun had now set and we found ourselves in the dark awaiting our dinner, mine was a crawfish pot pie - recommended.

As we completed our meal, Donna and I, each carrying cameras, left the table to pay off the tab, when Ricky, the wise-cracking proprietor, stopped us; "Hey you guys with the cameras [obviously tourist], where are you from?"  I mentioned "Dallas-area".  He repeated, "Dallas-area - fess up, where in the 'Dallas area'? You know I ran a couple of clubs in Plano and in Dallas..." and he named them off.  He filled us in on the story of his professional club and restaurant career, never giving a straight answer to any of my questions.

Then looking at our camera, he asked in a disappointing tone, have you been upstairs?  We allowed as to how we had not even known it was open to the public.  Oh he said, you get your butts up there right now.  We climbed the stairs lined with portraits, culminating with a portrait of Madeline herself on the landing on the 3rd floor.

Madeline watches all who ascend the stairs
and enter the upper room that is frequently cited as
Madeline's favorite haunt

 In the up-most chamber, the wall was lined with newspaper accounts of the discovery of the bodies embedded in the brick wall and the jeweled dagger plunged into the ribs of the lady's hidden bones. Another framed clipping was an eye witness story published by a newspaper reporter who was run out of the upper chamber by the mysterious swing of of Madeline's portrait hanging on the wall and the gyrations of a dangling chain that changed it direction of rotation when Madeline's ghost was challenged to make it do so, the trembling reporter.  The reporter and her photographer husband flew down the stairs and informed the proprietor that they would not be spending the night there after all.

I took photo of Madeline's portrait too, hoping that upon viewing I would notice a disembodied diaphanous woman hovering inside the room.  But, I saw nothing, I heard nothing and I felt nothing.

Once we descended the stairs, Ricky said he had something to show us.  He had his bartender pull up a video on his phone that was down-loaded from the tavern's security camera.  The backstory was that this video was from a Monday when the place was closed, and with nobody around.  There is a video recording of the refrigerator door opening by itself.  The bar tender demonstrated the good vacuum seal around the door and the high unlikelihood that it would just fall open.  Ricky added his opinion, "I am basically a skeptic of the paranormal stories I hear, but I am not so arrogant as to say it definitely could not happen to be true.  There has been some strange shit  happening around here."

Madeline keeps an eerie eye on those who come and go

 Having seen the video and heard the and read the stories, we bade Madeline and all of the ethereal tenants of King's Tavern good-bye.