Caching in Vicksburg 4/9/2008

On into Vicksburg this morning fro a day of caching and sight seeing. We started with a cache off the Interstate on our way there that wasn't really anything special. We drove into Vicksburg and our next cache was a virtual cache located in the Vicksburg National Military Park. As we entered you do have to pay to drive through and the NPS guard asked us if we would like to buy a lifetime pass, so we said sure, seeing as the entrance fee was $7.00 and the lifetime pass was only $10.00. You don't get bargains like that every day seeing as we visit a park in almost every city we visit. We got our pass and in we went on the 16 mile driving tour through the Park, yes that's right 16 miles. As we drove along the roadside was dotted with monuments, statues, battle markers, cannons and the U S S Cairo Museum. For the cache we had to go to 4 different coordinates and find maybe a statue or a plaque and get information from them. Well we must have stopped 25 times to look at different things along the way to the end. The best part of the whole drive was the U S S Cairo Museum. It was FANTASTIC to see the old Union warship that was the first armored warship to be sunk by an electronically detonated mine. On December 12, 1862, on the Yazoo River, a Confederate torpedo tore open Cairo's bow. The Union gunboat sank in 12 minutes. The torpedo which sank the Cairo was a crude apparatus. Lt. Commander Selfridge may have been less than cautious in waters known to contain torpedoes because so many of the Confederates weapons had been duds. Two Confederate sailors, Acting masters Zedekiah McDaniel and Francis M. Ewing, had cahrge of placing the torpedoes. Volunteers, whose names are lost to history, hid behind the river bank and detonated the explosive with an electric charge. After seeing the museum we were off on our drive. Again we passed many more monuments, battle markers, statues and battle sites. We got the last bit of information we needed for logging the cache almost back at the reception center and we were off to the next cache. It really was a great drive, we saw so much history and we spent about 2 1/2 hours on the drive through the Military Park.
Then it was on to our next few caches a Travel Bug Hotel located at a small restaurant known for its fried catfish with a cute story about who the cache is dedicated to. It was dedicated to the cache owners Dad who is what they call a hand-grabber fisherman. Catfish is a big deal in the South. Fried catfish is about as Southern and as much Mississippi as it can get. Hand-grabbers catch different species of catfish by hand and routinely get 60-70 pound fish, and occasionally even larger fish. They say that if you have a swing set at your house it just wasn't used for swinging, it was used to hang the giant 100 pound fish so they can be skinned. That really sounds like fun doesn't it?
Our next cache was in a cachers front yard near the Military park and our last cache was in Cedar Hill Cemetery. The City of Vicksburg served as a major hospital center in the early years of the Civil War. A section in this cemetery was set aside to provide a fitting burial place for Confederate soldiers who died of sickness or wounds. Known as the "Soldiers Rest" the plot is the final resting place for an estimated 5,000 Confederate soldiers. As most of these men did not meet the criteria established by Congress for burial in a national cemetery, their remains were not moved and still rest today in Cedar Hill Cemetery. This was our last cache of the day as we had spent so much time in the Military Park that it was time to drive back to the RV. We will make another trip to Vicksburg to finish our caches and see the rest of the city.
We got back and had lunch, I did our logs, Mom went to the store to pick up a few things, after I did the logs I showered and swept the RV out. Mom made a Italian pasta salad and I am doing the blog before dinner. We are just relaxing tonight and watching TV so we will say until tomorrow and we love you all.


Picture List:1-25-Vicksburg National Military Park, Entrance, Monuments, the red signs are Confederate related and the blue are Union, 8 & 9-is a Confederate position tablet and the area that it relates to, 14 & 15-Thayer's Approach and the area it relates to, if you click on the picture you can see the smaller red & blue markers relating to where the troops of each army were deployed, what unit they were and where they were from, 17-Campaign, Siege and Defense of Vicksburg 1863, The General Summary of Casualties March 29-July 4. They are broken down into Confederate and Union and each battle that occured in and around Vicksburg. 20,21,22-The Monument that was donated by the State of Illinois dedicated to the soldiers wounded and killed from that state. 25-Monument commemorating the service of the 1st and 3rd Mississippi Infantry Regiments African Descent and all Mississippians of African American descent who participated in the Vicksburg Campaign. 26,27,28-Cedar Hill Cemetery Circa 1866 and some of the grave sites of the 5,000 Confederate soldiers that are buried there.


I WILL POST THE U S S CAIRO PICTURES ON A DAY WHEN I DON'T HAVE TO MANY TO POST. MAKE SURE YOU SEE THEM AS WE SAID IT WAS FANTASTIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!