When I was growing up, the war that was most real to me was World War II. My dad graduated from HS in 1945 and immediately enlisted in the US Army Air Corps. The war in Europe had already come to an end. But just as he was completing basic training in Biloxi, Mississippi, the US detonated two atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6th and 9th, 1945 respectively. We will never know how long the war might have gone on without the bombs and whether or not my dad would have faced combat. Instead, he ended up spending his military enlistment in Okinawa where Japanese soldiers were still being held as prisoners of war.
Recently, it has become the US Civil War that seems so relevant. While the war has officially been over for 157 years, it no longer seems like a distant memory. I suspect most Americans have spent at least a few minutes over the last few years contemplating what a future civil conflict might look like. We are polarized but not with the clear geographic lines of that past conflict. Since we started our RV travels through the backroads of Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, and Arkansas, I continue to see the jarring site of a flagpole flying both an American and Confederate flag.
Vicksburg is the second of the 17 Civil War National Military parks that I have visited. The first was Shiloh, which is located in Tennessee. Vicksburg National Military Park tells the story of what was an 18 month conflict and a 47 day siege that ended in the surrender of Vicksburg and Union control of the Mississippi River. This cut the Confederacy in two. The surrender on July 4th, 1863 was a crucial turning point in the Civil War and it was many years afterwards before the town of Vicksburg celebrated the American July 4th. The book, “Wicked River, The Mississippi When It Last Ran Wild.” by Lee Sandlin will paint a vivid picture for you of the Vicksburg history as well as the battles.
This is the Illinois Memorial and below is the plaque commemorating the Memorial.
The park is home to the most monuments in the US and maybe the northern hemisphere. There are reconstructed forts and trenches throughout the 16-mile driving tour. The USS Cairo, a U.S. ironclad gunboat sunk by a torpedo/mine in 1862 on the Yazoo River, has been restored and is today on display at the park along with a treasure trove of weapons and personal gear of the sailors who served on board.
It had started in the fall of 1862 when only Vicksburg and Port Hudson, Louisiana blocked Union control of the Mississippi River. General Grant (a major general at the time) was ordered to clear the river of Confederate resistance. Battles had raged for over a year. Federal troops remained in Vicksburg until the end of Reconstruction in 1877. Some townspeople resented the troops but other welcomed them in hopes of a return to normal life. As local rule was returned, thousands of Black Americans came to exercise their new freedoms. Many of the “colored troops” that were among those garrisoned here after the war ended up staying. But their freedom and legal rights remained very limited.
Stay tuned for more from Mississippi and Alabama in the weeks to come.
It certainly is jarring to see the Confederate flags flying in all sorts of places in (mostly) rural America. As far as we've come as a country, we still have so much further to go.