Vicksburg National Military Park ⓘ

These caves varied in size and comfort depending on how the cave was dug and the amount of people they were designed to hold and who did the digging. At the start of the siege cave digging became big business. Following the siege, a wife of a soldier who followed her husband to Vicksburg, Mary Loughborough, wrote a memoir of her experiences during the siege entitled, My Cave Life in Vicksburg. She believed that, “… so great was the demand for cave workmen, that a new branch of industry sprang up and became popular – particularly as the personal safety of the workmen was secured, and money withal.” A typical cave resembled the one Mrs. Loughborough lived in describing the cave as, “… an excavation in the earth the size of a large room, high enough for the tallest person to stand perfectly erect, provided with comfortable seats, and altogether quite a large and habitable abode (compared with some of the caves in the city), were it not for the dampness and the constant contact with the soft earthy walls.” Some caves, like Hough’s Cave, formed a “Y” shape with the foot facing out and the two arms branching out into the hill. Others, like Mrs. Loughborough’s, were “T” shaped with the two branches inside the cave. The caves also varied depending on how many people were expected to take shelter within them. Of course when the shelling started most citizens headed for the nearest available cave and did not concern themselves with the cave’s capacity just so long as they could find some protection. Following the war, the author Mark Twain interviewed a citizen of Vicksburg who remembered that, “Sometimes the caves were desperately crowded, and always hot and close. Sometimes a cave had twenty or twenty-five people packed into it; no turning room for anybody; air so foul, sometimes, you couldn’t have made candle burn in it.” The poor conditions of the caves meant that most people stayed in them only during bombardments and at night. In spite of the poor conditions, most cave owners furnished these temporary dwellings with some of the comforts of home. While this reduced the capacity of the caves, the furnishings provided a semblance of normalcy during the siege.

However they were designed, they were practical but temporary. Scattered throughout the town and the surrounding countryside, these caves appeared to be one of the defining features of the city. Yet despite their seeming abundance during the war, today almost all of these caves have vanished from the landscape. At the end of the siege, the citizens moved out of their caves back into the city, leaving the caves to the elements. By the early 1970’s only a few caves remained mostly intact, with the majority mere depressions on the hillsides. One of them, Hough’s cave, remained in such a good condition throughout the early 20th century that the Mississippi Department of Archives and History nominated it for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972 and approved by the National Park Service on March 14, 1973. Yet only forty years later the entrance to this cave has begun to crumble and one of the arms of the “Y” is inaccessible. None of the remaining caves today are accessible to the public and are dangerous to enter due to their unstable nature. Besides being stuffy and damp to live in, the caves did not always provide the best protection. If hit by a direct shot from a mortar a cave would most likely collapse, burying anyone who had sought refuge in it. Even if a person stayed in the cave all the time, there existed a chance for a life-threatening accident to occur right at the cave entrance.

The Connecticut State Memorial is located at the Grant's Canal Site, near Delta, LA, and represents the contributions of the Ninth Regiment Connecticut Volunteers.

At a cost of $50,000, the monument was designed by Mathieu Memorial and Granite Works of Southington, CT, in conjunction with Royal Melrose Granite of Cold Spring, MN, and is sculpted of polished gray and black granites, sitting on a concrete plaza showing the outline of the State of Connecticut. Through the artistry of Stacy Mathieu, etching artist, and Kerry Sheldon, image artist, the monument depicts etched photos of members of the Ninth Regiment, and scenes of their participation in the Campaign for Vicksburg. The memorial was dedicated on October 14, 2008.

Known as Connecticut's Irish Regiment, due to its predominant makeup of soldiers born in Ireland, the Ninth was mustered in at New Haven, CT, in September 1861. In December, the 845-man regiment arrived at Ship Island, MS, and was among the first Union troops to enter New Orleans, LA, after the city surrendered in April 1862. Two months later, the Ninth was part of the expeditionary force led by Gen. Thomas Williams that steamed up the Mississippi River in the first Union campaign to capture Vicksburg. Lacking sufficient numbers for an assault or siege, the troops were put to work excavating Williams' Canal in an attempt to bypass Vicksburg and restore unfettered navigation of the Mississippi.

The Ninth Connecticut arrived at De Soto Point, opposite Vicksburg, on June 25, 1862, and began felling trees, cutting roots, and turning dirt. Supply problems, lack of drinking water, and temperatures that reached above 100 degrees took a heavy toll as malaria, dysentery, and heatstroke spread throughout the command. With the river level dropping and troops incapacitated by heat and disease, the canal project was abandoned on July 24, far short of completion. Some 153 men of the Ninth died within a four-month period following their arrival at the canal. While the Ninth saw no further action at Vicksburg, it participated in the Battle of Baton Rouge in August, and was then assigned to defenses in the New Orleans area.

The Illinois State Memorial is located on Union Avenue at milepost 1.8, tour stop #2. Dedicated on October 26, 1906, the monument was transferred to the United States by Governor C.S. Deneen and accepted by J. S. Schofield of the United States War Department. It was erected by the firm of Culver Construction Company with William B. Mundie contracting the designers and sculptors. The design was by W. L. B. Jenney and sculptor was Charles J. Mulligan. Jenney served with distinction as a major in the Union Army during the Civil War as an engineer. Jenney himself is honored for his military service at Vicksburg through a bronze relief portrait on Graveyard Road, sculpted by Theo. A. R. Kitson in 1911.

'In designing the memorial, the decision was made to construct not only a grand and imposing commemorative structure worthy of the State of Illinois, but a temple of fame as well, within the walls of which will be preserved in enduring bronze and stone the name of every soldier from Illinois who participated in that memorable and decisive campaign and siege."

The Indiana State Memorial is located on the south loop of Union Avenue at milepost 14.3 of the park tour road. It features a 12 and 1/2 foot tall full bronze statue of Governor Oliver Perry Morton, who served as the wartime governor of Indiana during the Civil War. The statue commemorates Indiana's contributions to the Vicksburg campaign with 24 infantry regiments, 2 artillery batteries, and 2 companies of cavalry marked by 16 granite markers throughout the siege lines. Today, Indiana is the only state with a prominent memorial of an individual person in Vicksburg National Military Park. However, there are several state regimental markers located throughout the park. The statue was erected by the State of Indiana in Indiana Circle near the current park visitor center and dedicated June 16, 1926. Acceptance for the Federal government was by Capt. William T. Rigby, resident commissioner of Vicksburg National Military Park. The sculptor was George T. Brewster of Staten Island, New York.

As part of the central flyway of the United States, the Mississippi River Valley has become a major habitat corridor for migrating and breeding bird species. The area around Vicksburg, and particularly in the park, has been designated an Important Bird Area (IBA) by the National Audubon Society, and presents a mixture of hardwood forest, riparian, grassland, and edge habitat. Bird surveys conducted by the Audubon Society from 2003 through 2005, have identified over 180 species within Vicksburg National Military Park, including several species of conservation or high conservation priority, such as the white-eyed vireo, worm-eating warbler, hooded warbler, orchard oriole, Swainson’s warbler, and Kentucky warbler.

Year-round species in the park include barred owls, cardinals, pileated woodpeckers, and a rather larger population of wild turkeys. Both park visitors and staff enjoy the antics of these haughty birds, as they patrol the tour road and carefully tend a new brood of poults each summer.

The river is a major migration corridor, and bird-watching enthusiasts can see Mississippi kites, bald eagles, red-tailed and red-shouldered hawks, and black and turkey vultures soaring on the thermals over the bluffs. Many songbirds, although infinitely harder to spot, are found throughout the wooded and open areas of the park, including indigo buntings, summer tanagers, prothonotary warblers, kinglets, mockingbirds, and red-winged blackbirds, just to name a few.

The unique landscape attributes of Vicksburg National Military Park have created an area rich in avifauna, providing a rewarding experience for both the serious and casual observer.

Vicksburg National Military Park has become a place of natural beauty, providing habitat for vast numbers of plant species. The unique loess bluffs coupled with the meandering and ever-changing Mississippi River created a landscape filled with bayous and backswamps, natural levees and deep ravines, all nourished by the sediments and silt deposited by wind and current throughout the enormous Mississippi Delta. Areas that did not drain became havens for semi-aquatic forests of bald cypress and tupelo, while those swamps that did dry, filled with tall stands of willow and oak. Where the water of the river did not rise high enough during spring floods to top the natural levees, the area became prime cropland. It was this rich soil that enticed European settlers to the area, who in turn, cleared the tall hardwood forest from any site capable of allowing man, mule, and plow to turn over the soil without danger of falling into a ravine.

During the Civil War, any remaining timber was cut to build and supplement the tremendous fortifications surrounding Vicksburg, while the ravines were allowed to fill with tangled scrub, canebrakes, and catbrier, becoming an integral part of the defensive works. The landscape around Vicksburg became a treeless, open grassland, dotted with rolling hills and steep gullies.

The second-growth forest now present throughout the park was planted in the 1930s by the Civilian Conservation Corps in an effort to curb the devastating erosion of the once cultivated ridgetops. This effort is now known to have been only partially successful, and efforts are now underway to implement more efficient methods of stabilizing the landscape, using grasses which are resilient and quick-growing.

The park is also home to many wildflowers, ferns, and grasses, as well as several species of mushrooms and fungi. Over 200 species of wildflowers have been photographed and documented regarding their current resource value, as well as their historic significance, many once used as foods and medicines, and in clothing and dyes. Included in this collection of wildflowers is a Mississippi species of special concern, the Prairie Nymph ( Herbertia lahue ). A member of the iris family, this purple trilobed flower, although classified as uncommon, is locally abundant in Vicksburg National Military Park, carpeting large open areas along the tour road during springtime, and creating an exhilarating experience for the park visitor.