Jack and I are enjoying a winter RV trip. Our summer trip was short due to health problems and by Autumn, cabin fever hit hard. So, I signed up for two Winnebago View/Navion (aka skinny Winnies) rallies - one in Quartzsite, Arizona in January, and another in Paso Robles wine country in California.
We left home on Sunday mid-afternoon, heading west, picking up I-20 that would be our route across the country, intersecting with I-10 near El Paso. Stayed in western Georgia at A. H. Stephens State Park Sunday night. Monday we continued through George and Alabama, stopping for the night at Roosevelt State Park in Mississippi. The campground was practically empty and we were able to get a great site on the lake, where we enjoyed a beautiful sunset.
Wednesday, we did some RV housekeeping and planned a stop at Vicksburg National Military Park. We saw a movie in the visitor center to give us background on the importance of the Vicksburg battle, which ended a few days after Gettysburg. The Union looked to block the Confederate shipments of supplies and troops on the Mississippi and to split the Confederacy in half by capturing Vicksburg.
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| Entrance to the 16 mile auto tour of the Battlefield |
Vicksburg is on a high bluff over the River, and the Confederates completely controlled the high ground all around. General Grant failed multiple times to take the city and eventually decided to attack from the east. Steep ravines and rolling hills made it extremely difficult for the Union forces to storm the dirt fortifications surrounding the city, so they attacked with canons and besieged the city. Eventually, lack of food and deteriorating conditions forced the Confederate General to surrender. 22,000 men died.
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| The green section top center was Confederate dirt fort. The Union's attack required climbing these hills with 30,000 Confederate guns shooting down on them. The blue signs indicate Union advances. |
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| The original dirt fort is now grassy to prevent erosion. The red signs indicate Confederate lines. |
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| One part of the battery used to bomb the fort directly across these rolling hills. |
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| Hundreds of monuments are in the park - this is General Grant. |
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| This beautiful monument is for the Illinois troops. Most Union troops were from the midwest: Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio and Iowa. The first African American troop fought so valiantly, they earned acclaim from both Confederate and Union Generals, paving the way for the North to enlist hundreds of thousands of freemen and former slaves. Every state had beautiful statues or monuments. |
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| This is the iron-clad stern wheeler, the USS Cairo. It hit a mine and sank, found in the late 1950s and salvaged from the river in the 1960s. |
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| Rear sternwheel of the USS Cairo |
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| The large National Military cemetery overlooks the Mississippi River where veterans from the Civil, Spanish-American, WWI, WWII and Korea are buried. |
We left home on Sunday mid-afternoon, heading west, picking up I-20 that would be our route across the country, intersecting with I-10 near El Paso. Stayed in western Georgia at A. H. Stephens State Park Sunday night. Monday we continued through George and Alabama, stopping for the night at Roosevelt State Park in Mississippi. The campground was practically empty and we were able to get a great site on the lake, where we enjoyed a beautiful sunset.
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