Vicksburg and Natchez Mississippi

We are headed to Louisiana and the Atchafalaya Historical District just west of Baton Rouge, but first we stopped in Vicksburg and Natchez to visit historic sites.   After visiting the Blues Museum we headed south from Clarksdale we are taking Highway 61 south thru the heart of the Delta.  We stopped in Vicksburg for the night.        

The Vicksburg siege was the final phase of the Vicksburg Campaign lasting from May  

18 to July 4, 1863.  To make a long story short, General Grant surrounded Vicksburg pinning the Confederate forces commanded by General Pemberton in the city.   After several bloody assaults General Grant decide to out camp the confederates who had ran out of supplies and were starving.   General Pemberton finally surrendered on 4 July 1963.  Legend has it the city of Vicksburg whose citizens suffered terribly, did not celebrate the 4th of July until the start of World War II.   During the siege Union force lobbed 22,000 artillery shells into the city from gunboats and artillery pieces controlling the bluffs around the city.

The Vicksburg Battlefield National Historic Park has a great visitor’s center.  We watched the 20 minute film that explained the battle and its importance to the union war plan.   Vicksburg was the final key to gain control of the Mississippi. "Vicksburg is the nail head that holds the South's two halves together...Vicksburg is the key" – Abraham Lincoln.  The 16 mile driving tour was excellent circling the bluffs above the city.   During the driving tour you must stop at the USS Cairo Gunboat museum.   This gun boat sunk during the battle was raised out of the Yazoo River.   Its reconstruction and separate museum are on the tour route.   It was a time capsule of artifacts sealed in river mud.

After leaving the Vicksburg we made the 80 mile drive to Natchez stopping the Natchez Historical Park.  We toured the Melrose house, it is an 1800’s Greek revival style mansion.    King Cotton for a time made Natchez one of the wealthiest places in the world.  The Melrose house built by the wealthy planter John  T. McMurran owned several plantations in Mississippi and Arkansas.  Melrose house was not a plantation house but the owner’s city home on 80 acres in Natchez.

Well it was time to get on the road and to our destination in Louisiana.   We do need to come back here on our motorcycles and ride this river road.