Thursday, April 9, 2009

Vicksburg, MS

We visited the Vicksburg National Military Park and hired a NPS guide to show us around the enormous park (over 16 miles of roadway). He drove our car and gave us a complete, detailed story of the entire Civil War battle as it unfolded throughout the area. There were numerous monuments, statues and plaques throughout the park with most of them sponsored by the Federal states (they did win after all).

Near the end of our three-hour tour, we stopped and looked at the U.S.S. Cairo - an ironclad ship that was sunk during the war and was recovered from the Mississippi River in the 1970's (almost exactly 100 years after it's sinking). The original guns, engines, and most of the hull were used to make the reconstructed ship. The tour was very informative indeed.

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