But anyway, today was a day of stray observations and conversations as we winded our way West across Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi. I figured I'd list a few briefly, since we've come across a lot in the hours we've spent in the car (apart from games like High School or Megachurch) and I didn't know how else to get them down:
-Using the outline of your state to mark your state routes works if you have a nice big distinctive state like Georgia or Texas, but when you're Alabama, it just makes your state look fat. Especially when it's a three-digit route number. It looks like the state of Alabama is on the toilet.
-I have seen a grand total of three Catholic Churches, one Synagogue, no Orthodox Churches, no mosques, no Mormon Temples, and approximately infinity billion Baptist Churches.
-One even wanted to make sure they knew where they stood on recent national fast food discrimination debates with a sign that said "Eat Mor Chikin"
-You might be familiar with the sings that you see up North right before you go over a bridge on the highway. In New England, the signs say "Warning: Bridge Ices Before Road". As we moved South, the signs changed to "Warning: Bridge May Ice In Winter", and then once we moved to the Deep South, it became "Warning: Bridge May Ice in Cold Weather". Differences in expectations in winter.
-The cashier at the casino we went to checked our IDs, and remarked at our Massachusetts licenses, "Is it cold up there?" To which we had to say no; it's August everywhere, dude.
-We have passed a Marine Base, an Army Base, a Naval Base, and an Air Force Base. If we pass a Coastie Installation we get to call out Bingo.
-Just so you know, there's still a ton of cotton down here.
-Tobacco too.
-"Stonewall Jackson Bivouacked Here" is the Southern Equivalent of "George Washington Slept Here"
-Selma, Alabama reminded me very much of North Conway, New Hampshire, and I'm not sure who comes out worse in that comparison.
-Amanda remarked that she and Mississippians are mutually unintelligible, and I'm inclined to agree.
-Just so you know, South, Up North we consider it a courtesy to post the new speed limit each time it changes, especially when you leave a town. If the speed limit is 35 and the road becomes a divided highway out of town, I'm assuming the limit goes up to 55 or whatever, but it'd be nice to know. Tailgating the Damn Yankee who doesn't know how to drive is one way to let me know how fast I should be going, but I'm still terrified of being pulled over by a state trooper with reflective aviator sunglasses who will call me "Boy", or "Son".
But anyway, Vicksburg. Vicksburg, much like Andersonville yesterday, represents a very different side of the Civil War. Unlike Antietam and its bloody slaughter in a matter of minutes, or Gettysburg and its valiant, romanticized charges, Vicksburg was a whole lot of planning, counterplanning, and waiting. That doesn't mean there wasn't action, or that it wasn't massively important to the Union's strategy of seizing the Mississippi and cutting the South in two. It just wasn't glamorous in the same way.
On a bluff 300 feet over the river, Vicksburg was transformed into a nigh-impregnable fortress by the Confederates, and try as he might Ulysses S. Grant (I knew we'd run into him sooner or later!) couldn't breach the city's defenses. He tried attacking directly. He tried flanking it. He tried building canals in the swamps upstream to go around the damn place. Nothing worked. Eventually he dug n and had his army start building trenches, and occasionally they'd tunnel up to, and even sometimes underneath, the Rebel lines. Every now and then they'd blow up the tunnels and try and assault the newly formed craters, but even that didn't work. The Confederates were too well defended, and they had a series of forts ringing the city that they could defend with a minimal number of men. So Grant waited.
See what I mean about it not being so glamorous? I'd love to tell you eventually he captured the city with a sweeping attack of tactical genius, but the fact of the matter is he surrounded them with twice the number of cannons, and shelled the city just to be a jerk while they ran out of food. There were even apparently reports by civilians of their horses, and later even their dogs and cats going missing as the Confederate soldiers got more desperate. Eventually dysentery showed up and they had to surrender, on July 4, 1863, just as Grant was digging a new massive tunnel for one final assault. So the day after Gettysburg ended, the Union captured Vicksburg and the Confederates' backs were essentially broken.
Side note: Can you imagine being at the White House for that Fourth of July Celebration? Seriously, Lincoln gets news of Gettysburg, THEN Vicksburg. Dude must have had a cookout for the AGES that day.
There was also a museum within the park dedicated to the USS Cairo (unfortunately named after the city in Illinois, and thus pronounced "Kay-row"), a Union ironclad sunk on the Mississippi during the siege. The Cairo was essentially a traditional riverboat that they plated in iron and armed with cannon, and it was ships like her that helped Grant flank the Confederates and set up a position around the city that let him starve them out.
Anyway, in the 60s they found the remnants of the Cairo in the mud, and raised her. They've rebuilt her rotted parts as well, which lets you walk around the deck and get a feel for the ship. I also learned that after the ship was sunk, the crew of the Cairo was transferred to a gun battery on land, to help with the siege. They became a bit of an entertaining oddity to the Army batteries, since the Navy boys were keen to keep some semblance of shipboard life intact, even after the Cairo sank. They polished the gun platform as if it was a deck, and slept in hammocks they hung from trees. I only wish someone had taken a picture.
It was also at Vicksburg specifically, and in Mississippi in general, that Amanda and I began to feel uncomfortable. It wasn't that we felt harassed per se, but there were little things all day that felt off. At every other Civil War site we've been too, I didn't feel like there were more eyes on me than there should be, given that I've been wearing a Union kepi and have mutton chops. Here, though, I felt like people were staring at me, especially when I spoke and they knew where I was from, and apparently in the gift shop a Vicksburg I was a bit of a sight. I didn't even have my kepi on, but it was noticeable in my hand, and a Mississippi mother put a grey rebel kepi on her kid, and kept loudly looking over at me while she told her daughter how good she looked in it and how it should be a new facebook profile picture. When her daughter went for the blue Union kepis, she was not so subtly steered away and not even allowed to try one on, while her mother kept giving me the stink eye. I hadn't even said anything obnoxious, which I'm wont to do ("I'm here to see what we won", or "Blue kepis are for winners", or somesuch), so I keep thinking that it had to do with the simple fact that I had a Union kepi.
Amanda also felt like eyes were on here at the hotel we're at, because she didn't have eight pounds of makeup on or a whole can of spray in her hair when we were walking around the grounds. I don't mean to seem like a Damn Yankee here, but both of us independently felt weird, and only talked about it later. All in all, as great as the Vicksburg Military Park was (and it was great), Mississippi hasn't done anything yet to dispel our pre-conceived notions about Mississippi. We'll see about tomorrow.
-M
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