We arrived in Vicksburg, Mississippi from Greenville at sunrise, although to be perfectly accurate, we docked alongside the river at Letourneau Landing. This area of Letourneau used to be very prosperous with a large factory designing and manufacturing large earth moving machinery and then, later, offshore drilling rigs.
During the 1970s, as many as 7 rigs were under construction by a workforce exceeding 2000. To house the increasing population of employees in Vicksburg, he built a village at Letourneau complete with grocery store, post office, beauty shop, credit union, swimming pool, tennis courts, ball fields, airstrip, and concrete houses with heated floors. The company was sold to various other larger companies and in 2016, it was finally closed in Vicksburg. Some buildings still exist, but the village has largely disappeared.
The plan for the day was to take an optional walking tour of Vicksburg in the morning and then the included tour of the Vicksburg National Military Park in the afternoon.
The walking tour was interesting (and not too much walking). With the introduction to the area from the guide on the coach, we first arrived at the tour company owner’s home which had been constructed by joining to historic homes in the town together. We were given some history of the buildings and then toured the main living areas. We then walked up and into the church (which I think still has a civil war cannonball embedded), to hear more of the history of the siege of Vicksburg which lasted from May 18 to July 4, 1863, and how the townspeople hid in caves to avoid the shelling of the town. We then walked through what once was the commercial area and on to the Martha Vick house, built in 1830 and again, we toured this one, having snacks and a drink to revive us! This home had been given a major renovation by the previous owner and decorated with historic furniture and accessories that he had gathered through his long life. Again, pretty interesting to see how the property had been restored. We did visit the waterfront on the return journey to the boat. I’m guessing that we would have been docked down by the river if the water levels had been higher and it certainly looked interesting around that part of the city with a large series of murals giving a history of the area. All we saw was the scene through the coach windows! Then it was time for a quick lunch before leaving again on the coach to the National Park.
I did expect a little more walking here, but I think the age and infirmity of quite a number of guests on the boat meant that the included tours are very easy for almost everyone. Unfortunately, that means that we saw quite a number of monuments in the park through the coach windows, and (hoping this doesn’t sound too bad) it takes quite some time to get off the coach when we do stop to look at specific monuments. The guide was extremely knowledgeable and had lived in the area all his life. As someone without much background in the civil war, the sheer scale of the casualties from this long siege is difficult to take in, but I’m also struck by how the whole issue of slavery and its aftermath in the Reconstruction years is so difficult to talk about in this part of the world. I’ve lost track of how many times the guide told us that such and such a Union commander had slaves before the war.
The park itself is huge with monuments established by each of the State’s involved in the conflict to memorialize their fallen soldiers. Some of these are very impressive constructions, recognizing, I think, just how many men they lost in the various attacks on the Confederate positions at the tops of each hill.
After the memorials, we went on to visit the USS Cairo – the iron-clad steamship that was used to bombard Vicksburg from the river:
We arrived back at the boat in good time, but this evening, instead of leaving at sunset, we were not due to depart until 10pm. I saw a couple of people jogging along the sand by the river and decided to try for some sunset shots from the riverbank instead of from the boat itself. In retrospect I guess this could have been a little dangerous as I tried to get as close to the edge of the water as I could to get some photographs of the boat, but luckily the sand held, and I wasn’t pitched into the water. The current seems quite strong in the river and although I can swim, I’m not sure how well I would have been able to clamber back onto the riverbank!
But at least I got some nice shots of the boat both from my drone as well as from the water’s edge with my regular camera!
And, with that, it was time for dinner and a rest before we arrived in Natchez for the next location on our cruise! This is one of an extended series of articles about the Viking Mississippi cruise from St Paul in Minnesota to New Orleans. The introductory article can be found here and includes an index to all the individual stories.
