| Submitted by: Mark R. Leeper United States |
| Submission Date: 15 February 2005 |
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Then we went to the Visitors Center and saw a short film, mostly covering what was in the lecture.
It takes about a half hour to drive the loop that shows you the important places of the battle. The effect is a little damaged by the large ugly refinery off in one direction and the boats on the canal in another.
After touring the battlefield I realized that I did not know how many British were killed in the battle. A total of about 2000 were killed or injured, but I had no idea of the breakdown. There was a ranger there and another woman. I asked what the breakdown was and was somewhat surprised to find out that a park ranger stationed at the battlefield did not know how many British were killed in the battle. It seems like one of the basic statistics. They should at least have some place to look it up. But they didn't want to guess and had no idea. Some of the other National Parks had people there who really knew the subject matter, but these were apparently more caretakers than experts.
We had been warned that it would be difficult to get rooms in Baton Rouge because of the game, but it seemed to be easy enough. We just tried Motel 6 and got it. After looking up and down the road we went to a Greek and Lebanese place for dinner in a shopping center. It is called Kabob's. I ordered the lemonade, but I have to start saying that I don't want much ice. What I got was a glass of ice with a little lemonade in the holes.
We walked around the shopping center looking for a place to get TV Guide, but did not find one. Back at the room I researched Vicksburg for the next day and worked on the log.
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09/06/97--Vicksburg, Mississippi:
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There was a Waffle House behind our motel. I had never eaten at a Waffle House. It was okay, though I didn't get a whole lot. I guess that is okay also.
Our first stop of the day is the Louisiana State Capitol Building. This was build during the administration of Huey Long, a.k.a. the Kingfish. Long was one of the great corrupt populist politicians and demagogues of American history. He did a lot of good for Louisiana, a lot of bad for Louisiana, and a lot of good for himself. He robbed from the rich and gave to public works programs. He raised the poor from poverty to slums. He left a legacy of stone, stone roads and the stone Capitol building. The roads gave him kickbacks or contracts went to friends. But when possible he put the road someplace useful. He just kept winning elections. Of course, if you got a government job you were expected to donate 10% of your salary to the Huey Long campaign fund. And if you already had a government job you had to think about what you wanted to do in your next job which you could start looking for as soon as you stopped giving 10% to the Huey Long campaign fund. Huey Long was the kind of guy someone should have shot. Even Huey Long thought so. And eventually someone did.
You enter the state house and realize it was intended to be more magnificent than the National Capitol in Washington. Everything is a lot larger than life. The front hall of the building has thirty-foot ceilings with fifteen-foot chandeliers. There are twelve-foot high marble statues, huge murals, marble floors.
Evelyn was a little disappointed that they really do tell you where and how Long was shot in the elevator lobby behind the main hall. She had a book called Unauthorized America which tells you about the places kept secret. It turns out this was not suppressed information after all. It was not forbidden fruit.
But the book did tell in more detail how it happened. It was a young ear, nose, and throat specialist whose father-in-law was gerrymandered out of a political appointment. He got mad and shot the Kingfish. I guess I would be remiss not mentioning the film version of the whole story, All the King's Men starring Broderick Crawford. The first time I saw it was for cinema class at UMass. Halfway through they stopped the film and said they had to evacuate the building because of a bomb threat. A bunch of people were willing to risk our lives to see the rest of the film. I have seen it since.
Drive away from the State House and just a block away you are in slums. A lot of Louisiana seems to have slum living with dignity and perhaps a little class.
As we drive along the roads we pass the restaurant chains we have at home. Oh, if you really look you can find some regional restaurants, but you mostly see the same places you eat at home. Makes you feel really comfortable. I put on the radio. As I scan the radio bands I hear the same music and stations that sound the same as the music we have at home. Oh, if you really look you can find some regional music, but you mostly hear the same music you hear at home. That makes you feel really comfortable too. Travel is becoming less and less important. When I get home I will have some Domino's Pizza delivered, turn on the radio, sit under a sun lamp and I'll be back in Louisiana.
One thing that is characteristically South is bugs. It sounds like rain hitting the windshield and you get in a few seconds literally hundreds of bug smears. I picture our car making a large tunnel through a swarm of bugs.
I love these country music lyrics. 'Pardon me, you left your tears on the jukebox, and I'm afraid they got mixed up with mine.'
In a wooded drive we cross the line to Mississippi. It is another hour or two to Vicksburg. We went directly to the park visitor center and got the orientation information.
Key to either side's victory in the Civil War was transportation and supply lines. And the most important object in supplying either side was the Mississippi River. For the South it was the highway to being forces and supplies north from Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas. For the North it was also a highway of supplies and at the same time a means for driving a spike right through the heart of the South, separating it into two pieces of nearly equal size. But Vicksburg stood on a bluff overlooking a bend in the river and was like a 'Gibraltar of the West.' Vicksburg had a four-mile stretch of cannons aimed at the river. For Grant to capture would have been to turn the South's most powerful weapon against the Confederacy, and that was exactly what he determined to do. The Union captured fort after fort on the Mississippi until only Vicksburg and Port Hudson remained stubbornly unobtainable.
The Jefferson Davis gave General John C. Pemberton command of 50,000 men with orders to keep the Mississippi open, though he was to take his orders from General Joseph E. Johnston. Giving Pemberton two masters to serve would have dire effects.
Grant tried fighting his way to Vicksburg from the north with naval support. He was always repulsed before he could get close. Nothing worked for him. Then Grant thought of a bold plan. He wanted to attack Vicksburg from the south. He marched his men south, flanking Vicksburg on the west. To do this he had to have a 1700-man army attack Pemberton's supply lines in a maneuver that was only a diversion. By the time Pemberton realized Grant was to the south of him there was not much he could do but puzzle about why Grant even wanted to be there. Pemberton was not alone. Grant's friend W. T. Sherman under Grant's command could make no sense of it either. There Grant was without any supplies or support. The commander had gone to a lot of effort for no apparent benefit.
Grant then ordered Admiral David Porter to try to sneak his gunboats past Vicksburg on a dark moonless night. The fort saw and sunk one navy transport but missed most of Porter's gunboats. Grant was cut off from supplies, but he was fighting his way north instead of south.
Grant's men lived off the land stealing whole farms clean. One story says a Southern farmer rode up on a mule to complain to a division commander that his bluecoats had picked the farmer's land clean, leaving him nothing. 'They weren't my men,' insisted the general. 'I'm sure they were.' 'Nope, my men would not have left you that mule.'
The defenses to the south of Vicksburg were weaker and Grant was able to fight his way, using Porter to ferry his men when necessary. On May 17, 1863, Grant beat Pemberton's last defensive forces back into Vicksburg. Now Grant could attack the city. Sherman was just amazed. To him it looked like a long chain of random and haphazard moves on Grant's part. But when they were over there was Vicksburg and there was Grant right next to it ready to attack it. The strategy gave Grant what seemed impossible before, a shot at capturing Vicksburg and with it the Mississippi. For Sherman it was like watching an episode of Mission Impossible would be for us. But now Grant was in proximity of the city had to take it.
Twice Grant tried direct frontal assaults on the fortress city and twice he failed. He later said that he knew frontal assault would never work, but that his men would never have put up with his next step if there was a more direct alternative. Grant determined that he could not go to the defenders of Vicksburg, they would have to come to him. He instituted a siege against the city. For a month and a half Grant lay siege to the city while Pemberton and his men went hungry unable to get food into the city.
The city became desperate for food. Mule and rat meat started appearing in the market when it was available. Pea-bread replaced normal bread. It was made from bean flour. The outside was rock-hard while the inside remained mushy. Dogs and cats disappeared mysteriously.
People took to hiding from the fire in manmade caves on the hillside. They were hot and mosquito infested. Vicksburg prayed for deliverance to come, but it never did. An army under General Johnston was nearby but dared not challenge Grant. Pemberton sent messages to Johnston asking for relief. Johnston ordered Pemberton to join him outside of Vicksburg to fight Grant. (It is a matter of speculation what Johnston's plan was and if it would have worked. Johnston was a master of the indirect.)
Grant had attacked Johnston earlier in the campaign, but only to cover his real plans which were now unfolded. Still Johnston would not face Grant without Pemberton and Pemberton would not leave Vicksburg to Grant in order to join Johnston. Pemberton at first promised the town that Johnston was coming, but he never did. Pemberton's men started threatening mutiny.
On July 3, the forty-seventh day of the siege, Pemberton asked to discuss Grant's surrender terms. Grant would make no terms but unconditional surrender. Pemberton refused. The two men separated. But in communication by courier later that night they came to an agreement. Grant offered terms that all the men had to agree to fight no more unless exchanged for Union soldiers. Mounted officers could keep a horse and sidearms. The next day, July 4, at 10 AM, Pemberton surrendered. In one day the Confederacy had lost at Vicksburg and at Gettysburg. From that day on the South would be fighting a losing war.
It stung Pemberton and people in Vicksburg terribly that they surrendered on July 4. However the Union soldiers who entered their city showed little but awe at the courage of the defenders of Vicksburg and readily shared their rations. They opened the storehouses of hoarders and speculators and fed the rebel soldiers in good spirit. At least this is what James McPherson tells us in his book Battle Cry of Freedom. Southern reporter Alexander St. Clair Abrams reports that the city objected strongly to Pemberton's surrender and that the first of Grant's men to enter the city were little more than looting vandals. Later Federal troops that came were much more respectful, at least those above the rank of private.
Grant would later claim that with the fall of Vicksburg, the fate of the Confederacy was sealed. |
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