A Confluence of Rivers
03/04/2005
(This article forms part of the Journal that I am writing to describe my impressions of America since arrival in September, 2004. To begin reading this Journal from the beginning, click here.)

I think it is important to remember that Vicksburg was the scene of the most significant battle in the Western theater of the Civil War, even though it was a siege and not a battle. With the fall of Vicksburg, the Mississippi became open to the Union and closed to the Confederacy. From that moment the South was split into two halves and the resources of the West were denied to the Confederate armies still fighting in the East.

That sounds as if I am about to embark upon a treatise on the history of the Civil War. Fear not; I would not presume to attempt such a gargantuan endeavor. It is more that my opening paragraph is a fair summary of my knowledge of the town before our visit and explains why I readily accepted it as a substitute for the long-anticipated deserts and mountains of New Mexico. Kathy decided that it was the wrong time to go West and that we had a better chance of good weather in the Deep South. And she was right; New Mexico had snow and storms while we sampled the more temperate delights of Vicksburg.

We headed through that North Texas that I have seen so many times before and then entered Louisiana at Shreveport. The country is surprisingly hilly and forested in this area and the redbuds and dogwood were flowering to splash the promise of spring through the woods. It is not until Monroe that the country flattens into the wide Mississippi valley and the expected swamps and wetlands of the Deep South begin to appear. This is the northern extremity of the archetypical Southern scenery of our imaginations, the trees standing in water to their ankles, the Spanish moss hung in swathes from their branches and lakes and ponds and pools meandering into the hidden depths of the woods. From Monroe to the Mississippi, a distance of sixty miles, the land is as flat as the imagined country that I have spoken of before and, in the open farmed areas, the fields are bright yellow with wild flowers.

And so we came at last to the great Mississippi, the broad and lazy Ole Man River of folklore. Two bridges span the river at this point, one the older railway bridge and the other alongside carrying the road to the bluffs on the opposite bank. These high bluffs form a wall against the floods with which the Mississippi mocks man's attempt to control it and they are, too, the reason for Vicksburg's existence and importance. They mark a boundary that the river cannot cross and ensure that any changes in its course will happen on the Louisiana bank.

The boundary between the states of Louisiana and Mississippi is a reminder of how the river is always moving and redirecting itself into new shapes upon the land. When that boundary was established, it seemed natural that the river should be the marker but now great loops and bites are taken out of Mississippi and handed to Louisiana, and strangely shaped chunks taken from Louisiana and given to Mississippi, as though the mapmaker's hand was unsteady with drink on the day he tried to follow the line of the river. Ole Man River takes no note of the tidiness of man, making play with the lines drawn so carefully on the chart, and now he cuts a corner here and wanders off there, leaving muddy oxbow lakes where once he flowed so strongly.

Vicksburg itself stands upon the bluffs, cascading down to the waters edge, sometimes on the Mississippi and sometimes on its great tributary, the Yazoo, the rivers at play with each other in the marshes of Louisiana but always hugging the high bank in one form or another. The town goes from prosperity to broke as the mainstream resides with it for a while and then drifts off to leave it in a backwater. Now man has forced the Yazoo to join with its greater sister at the very point where Vicksburg holds the shoreline and the town once again has a position so clearly strategic and important, on a confluence of rivers and a brow of high ground.

On our first morning the cry is for the battlefield: this is the reason for our visit after all. And what a battlefield it is. The bluffs form rounded hills and dales as they recede from the rivers and here the Confederates dug their trenches and defenses in a great ring around the town, the Union forces digging a corresponding and parallel line on their arrival for the siege. These are grassed over now and woods choke the valleys, but the trenches can still be seen and cannons have been placed where once there were gun batteries, stone and metal markers announce the companies and regiments that occupied each position, so that one is transported back to that time of desperate struggle and grim endurance.

We follow the line of Union positions for mile upon mile and, at the end, come to a place where an old ironclad ship has been put on display, a museum alongside. This was the Cairo, sunk by Confederate mines in the river and since raised and restored to squat like a giant turtle near the scene of its defeat. Ancient wooden ribs form a framework for the massive iron shell that covers it and inside the old machinery and guns seem to leave no room for men to move. This, surely, indicates how important was Vicksburg in the war, the Cairo being but one of many such ships that were sent to bombard the town.

Vicksburg itself is a tarnished gem, a jewel of 19th century buildings allowed to run to seed and decay. Its dramatic setting and hillside slopes give the town authentic character and yet everywhere are the signs of neglect. Too many houses give evidence of poverty and lack of care, too often the eager damp and rust have been allowed to erode at the shells of these old buildings, threatening a final collapse. And this is the town's appeal, that it is old and redolent of history, as few towns in America are. Only on the outskirts are there new and aggressively angular modern buildings; the center remains much as it has been for fifty years.

It is beautiful in spite of its decay. The timber frame houses with their shaded porches and delicate wrought iron decoration are reminiscent of the best parts of Galveston, an echo of that New Orleans of my imagination. The narrow streets, diving off the brow of the bluffs and twisting down to the harbor, have an appeal that is like a smaller and cosier version of San Francisco. In this one small town, America has a concentration of history, elegance and setting that should be trumpeted as another Gettysburg and restored to its former magnificence.

Efforts are being made in this direction. The main street has been cleaned up as a place of restaurants and commerce and some of the old houses have been restored to their state at the time of the siege. They are all different, some imposing mansions of many and high-ceilinged rooms, the town houses of rich plantation owners from the lands around, others simple and unassuming dwellings of the townsfolk. Inside, the furniture and fittings are rarely original, so much having been lost during the years when the town was disregarded, but caring and careful custodians have filled the rooms with antiques of appropriate date so that things are much as they would have been in that time when the town became the focal point of the war west of the Appalachians.

So this was my impression of Vicksburg: a town awakening from sleep to taste the first fruits of the future that it deserves. It will take money and time to preserve the faded glory that remains and there is much to be done. But my faith in these Americans is boundless; they will find the cash and do the work and Vicksburg will once again be the pride of Mississippi, the bright jewel that shines as a reminder of what has been.

But it is the river, or should I say both rivers, that are the essential ingredient of Vicksburg's importance. It is impossible to leave the place without experiencing that mighty and ponderous flow towards the sea. We paid the fare and embarked upon a trip on a tourist boat, up the Yazoo and back down again, into the Mississippi and beyond the bridges, before turning and heading upstream back to the town.

Our guide was an old river rat (as he called himself), casual in his handling of the boat, a knowledge of the waters so evident in his confidence and use of the currents. He kept up a constant patter of information, history and personal experience mingling in his tale of Vicksburg and the rivers. Up the Yazoo we went, the bank on our left Louisiana for once this had been the Mississippi, a great loop of the river having been cut off many years ago. The stream of the river is surprisingly swift and strong and the water is brown and looks cold at this time of year.

As the river bends to the west, we turn too and head back past the town and out into the confluence of the two rivers. Here the waters join in a visible contrast in colors, the darker Mississippi pushing the Yazoo to the eastern bank. And there is proof of the Mississippi's importance as a waterway for there are barges heading upstream and down, our old river rat captain suddenly more cautious and alert as he keeps our little craft from the stream of traffic.

We thread the spans of the bridges and note the scarred stones of their buttresses where inattentive vessels have scraped their sides. The water races and sucks at the bridge supports, four or five miles an hour we're told, yet it looks faster and creates great wakes of currents and eddies that speak of the sheer power of this river. This, more than anything else, brings home to me how the Mississippi can be a smiling friend one moment and an avid destroyer the next.

Once more we turn to drive upstream, to enter the Yazoo and come again to the wharf of Vicksburg. It is, perhaps, a little thing but I can say now that I have been on that river that shaped and created old Mark Twain, feeding him the tales of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn. There is a special magic in these connections to the past, the same urge that draws thousands to Shakespeare's birthplace in my England and its more peaceful yet just as famous river, the Avon.

It is now more than a week since our journey through Texas and Louisiana to Vicksburg and back again. Once more I am ensconced in my beloved dry plains of West Oklahoma, with the spring well advanced, the heat gathering for the summer and battles with the air conditioning in preparation for the oncoming onslaught. It takes time for the sights and sounds of such a trip to settle into a coherent whole in my mind, so that a broad overview of the experience presents itself to me.

Yet already I know that Vicksburg will remain for me a bright memory that speaks new words of America, a part that I had not known before. I'm glad we went; the far west will still be there for another time.

(to go directly to the next entry in the Journal, click here)

Clive

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