Vicksburg & Natchez

After a few days in Little Rock, it was time to head back over to the Mississippi River as we followed it south towards the gulf. Our destination was Vicksburg where we’d stay for a week while we explored the area along the Natchez Trace. We camped at the Ameristar Casino campground (because it was cheap) but never actually even made it over to the casino.

Our first day, we explored around Vicksburg itself. Our first stop was the Lower Mississippi River Museum (it’s free!) where we learned about how the river has changed and shaped the landscape over the years. For instance, at the time of the Civil War, the entire city of Vicksburg sat on a bluff overlooking the river. However, in the 1870’s flooding caused the river to change it’s course and much of the city is no longer on the shore of the river.

We also took a tour of a river tug that used to work the river.

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Next, we moved up the street and visited the Beidenharn Candy Company. This is now a museum dedicated to the history of bottling Coca Cola. You might wonder why this museum is in Vicksburg when everyone knows that Atlanta is the home of Coca Cola? Well come to find out that Mr. Beidenharn was actually the first person to actually bottle the beverage. Before then, the syrup was sold by Coke and then it was mixed at soda shops with soda water and served by soda jerks. Mr. Beidenharn figured out a way to put the syrup and then the carbonated soda water into glass bottles and then sold them in the surrounding area. Thus, he became the first official Coca Cola bottler.

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This operation was done by hand and since the mixture was under pressure, the operator had to deal with exploding bottles as part of their job. Thus you will note in the picture above, the use of a mask to protect the worker’s face.

There are many planation homes in this area of Mississippi and we decided to visit a more unique home. We took a drive south to Natchez to visit Longwood. The timing for this home was very inopportune in that it was begun in 1858, just three years before the Civil War. It was planned to be the largest brick octagonal home ever built, having 3 main floors, each about 10,000 square feet. Artisans were brought in to help build the huge brick home which included making all the needed bricks on site. Unfortunately for the owner, the exterior was just being completed as war broke out. The family rushed to complete the ground floor which was actually below the main floor and was initially planned to be the gentleman’s “man cave” of the time. Instead, the entire family moved into this bottom floor. The spoils of war meant that the family business never recovered after the war and the home was never completed beyond the ground floor. As stipulation when the home was handed over to a non-profit, it was agreed that the home would remain as it was during the war, leaving the unfinished floors as testament to the waste, lost dreams and destruction that was left by the war.

In the pictures above, the living quarters were actually below the front porch and had to be reached by a side entrance. The brick and wood seen inside is original from the 1860’s and is how the home was left. No pictures were allowed in the ground floor living area but it was dark with low ceilings, nothing like the grand open rooms of the upper, unfinished rooms seen here.

After the tour of the home and a stop for lunch in Natchez, we hopped onto a portion of the Natchez Trace Parkway. This road traces the route people took in the early 1800’s and runs from Nashville to Natchez. In those days, boats only traveled downstream on the river and thus when cargo was delivered at Natchez, workers would have to walk back to Nashville for their next run. This created a sort of walking “highway” complete with rest stops, stores, etc. along the way.

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Of course, you can’t visit Vicksburg without visiting the neighboring National Military Park. Vicksburg was the site of a key siege during the Civil War. Abraham Lincoln himself noted that Vicksburg was the key to controlling the Mississippi and the North needed to hold that key. After several attempts to take Vicksburg by force, the North determined it would be better to put a siege around the city instead and wait them out. The South, in the mean time, had also realized the need to hold Vicksburg at all costs and invested months of work in building up fortifications along an 8 mile line around the city. The siege lasted 47 days with the South surrendering on July 4, 1863, the same day the battle of Gettysburg ended with retreat for the South.

Since the battlefield was made up of siege lines with little movement, the battlefield remains have been retained well in some areas. In addition, due to the help of veterans from both sides, the lines have been clearly marked so it is easy to travel along both sides of the siege and get the visual perspectives of the combatants.

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Continuing the Civil War theme, we also visited the ironside ship, the USS Cairo. This ship was built in 1862 and attempted to run a blockade of the river at Vicksburg. Even though the ship was well armored above the waterline, there was little in the way of protection for it’s hull and it was sunk when it hit mines laid in the river by the South. The ship remained hidden in the river muck for 100 years before it was located and it was eventually salvaged and a museum was established with its remains set up for viewing. They have done a wonderful job of placing the planks, machinery and other parts as they would have been before the ship was sunk. Included is much of it’s boiler system, the paddle wheel mechanisms, much of the armor including railroad rails added by the crew for extra protection, and part of the hull including the rudders.

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Our final tourist activity was to visit the McRaven house. This house was built over three eras with the first portion constructed in 1797, the 2nd in the 1820’s and the final section in the 1840’s. All three sections can be seen and it is interesting to see how they built onto each preceding home. This is also known as the most haunted house in Mississippi but we can’t say that we saw or felt anything while visiting.

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Obviously there was a lot to do in the Vicksburg area! We really enjoyed our time in the area but after a week it was time to follow the Mississippi farther south to New Orleans.