Very long XC Story

Sure Jay.

The battle field is filled with markers from the states that sent units
there. Iowa had quit a few people there and consequently a lot of markers
there are from Iowa. My wife ancestors are from Iowa so we searched for the
35th Infantry regiments markers and were not disappointed. We found where
the 35th encamped (marked), put their picket lines (again marked) and lastly
where snipers were located (also marked). This meant we walked away really
feeling we were following in their footsteps and helped us to imagine them
at this location during that time. The Illinois memorial is very large and
contains the names of all those form Illinois that were killed during the
siege. Many of the other memorial only list numbers. Several of the memorial
and markers have their own stories too. For instance the Wisconsin memorial
is topped with a bald eagle named Old Abe. Old Abe has a very interesting
story that is still being written today as it is he who is pictured on the
101st Airborne Divisions 'Screaming Eagles' unit patch.

In addition to the markers there are also a lot of color coded signs
detailing what happened at each location. Blue for the North and Red for the
south. On these markers there is placed a description of the events that
happened in that general vicinity. These help visualize what occurred, which
at sometime can be hard due to the changes in the topography from a siege
that took place 140 years ago. There are now many more trees than were there
originally. In fact, many of trees that were there were removed by the
armies to help set up the various fortification that were needed. Those
markers I also mentioned do outline the directions the troops took during
attacks so that you can actually follow in their footsteps and see the folly
of some of the actions.

There is also one marker near the 'Surrender Oak'. It was here that
Confederate General Pemberton met with Gen Grant to discuss the terms of
surrender on 3 July 1863, the next day was when the actual surrender took
place. A drive through the park or a combination drive and hike will allow
you see all the most famous parts of the siege and will be a good several
hours long. We ended up spending most of Saturday and half of Sunday
visiting and looking up various pieces of info.


--
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Scott F. Migaldi, K9PO
MI-150972
PP-ASEL-IA

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"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
news:yLPfd.258195$wV.206582@attbi_s54...
The town was great too and we even found where on the
battlefield my wife's
relatives had encamped and fought.

We've talked about going to Vicksburg to visit the battlefield memorials
there.

Can you talk about them a bit more? We drove through there 20 years ago,
and I remember quite a few monuments, but we didn't really have time to
poke
around much...
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"