A Photographic Tour
Of
Civil War
Vicksburg
Like a spirit land of Shadows
They in silence on me gaze
And I feel my heart is beating
With the pulse of other days;
And I ask what great magician
Conjured forms like these afar?
Echo answers, ‘tis the sunshine,
By its alchymist
Daguerre.
Caleb Lyon, Photographic Art Journal, 1851
Jefferson
Davis remarked after the fall of Vicksburg “The clouds are truly dark over
us,” and I believe this is a most apt description of the impact the fall of
Vicksburg had on the war. Through the photographs
that follow I will try to transport the viewer to that “Spirit land of
Shadows” and walk the streets of wartime
Vicksburg. All of the photographs in
this tour are from the collections of the Old Court House Museum.
Vicksburg
Circa 1860
This photograph
is one of the earliest known views of the Hill City.
Founded
by the Reverend Newit Vick in 1819 and incorporated
in 1825, by 1860 Vicksburg was a
major transportation hub that catered to steamboats and the railroad. Boats left daily providing connections to the
major towns in the Mississippi River Valley, and rail service linked the city
with Monroe, Louisiana to the west and Jackson, Mississippi to the east. In 1860 Vicksburg had a population of 4600 and
was the second largest city in the state after Natchez.
The
rugged hills of Vicksburg made the city a natural defensive point on the
Mississippi River. One Union soldier on
seeing the terrain for the first time wrote his sister, “Tis
the opinion of all that Vicksburg is the strongest fortified place in the
Confederacy.”
Corner
of Washington & Clay Streets, Circa 1864
Note the Washington Gallery Banner
upstairs over William Tillman’s Saddle Shop – it was one of many photographic
establishments operating in Vicksburg during the Union occupation of the city.
Photography was invented by
Frenchman Louis Daguerre in 1839, and his invention spread very quickly to
America. The earliest documented
photographer in Vicksburg was a Mr. Gibbs who owned “Gibbs Sky-Light Gallery”
on Washington Street in 1849.
Trick
Image by Vicksburg Photographer
Henry J. Herrick, Circa 1860.
Among the photographers who came to
Vicksburg was Canadian Henry J. Herrick in 1854. When the war started Herrick closed his shop
and joined a local unit, the Warren Dragoons, as a First
Lieutenant.
Most of the
local photographers in Vicksburg joined the army like Herrick, or were forced
to close because of the scarcity of supplies; thus photographs of the city
during the time it was held by the Confederacy are almost non-existent. But with the surrender of the city on July 4,
1863, a number of photographers entered the city with the victorious Union
army. These men made their living by providing
their art to both soldiers and civilians alike, and they contributed to a rich
visual legacy of life in Vicksburg during the occupation.
View of Vicksburg taken from the top
of the Court House looking to the southwest.
In the distance with the tall spire
is St. Paul’s Catholic Church, and just opposite on the lofty
prominence was the home Sky Parlor Hill,
known for it’s wonderful view. During
the siege
citizens went there at night to watch the
Union shells in flight over the city.
Watching
the action from Sky Parlor Hill was exciting, but it could also be dangerous:
The other day while standing on Sky Parlor Hill a shell
exploded and pieces struck in the flagstone near the steps. This was from a machine. Then a parrot shell from the eastern side
passed over us and into Washington
Street – between them a shot from a gunboat missed the batteries and struck the
hill just below where we were standing – at the moment
there was firing all around us – a complete circle from the fortifications above
all around to those below and from the river.
Mrs. Emma Balfour
Vicksburg A City Under Siege
Four Mile Bridge on the Southern
Railroad, four miles east of Vicksburg, circa 1864.
Note the Union soldiers camped on
the far side of the bridge.
West of Vicksburg a small railroad line began at Monroe,
Louisiana and terminated on the banks of
the Mississippi River.
From there passengers and freight were brought into the city on ferries,
transferred to railroad cars and sent to points east. Vicksburg
was the funnel through which men and supplies flowed from the Trans-Mississippi
into the eastern Confederacy.
The Marine Hospital Battery at Vicksburg, taken after
the siege.
Located in the southern part of the
city, this battery was one of the most
powerful in the river defenses, mounting
three 42-pounder smoothbores, two
32-pounder smoothbores,
and two 32-pounder rifles.
To maintain control of the Mississippi
River in front of Vicksburg,
the Confederates built a series of artillery positions along the Vicksburg
waterfront. Mounting 37 heavy guns and
stretching for over three miles in length, the Confederate River Batteries made
certain that any Union vessel attempting to pass Vicksburg
would have to run through a gauntlet of fire.
Steamboats docked at Vicksburg, circa 1866.
As long as the Confederacy controlled Vicksburg,
they could deny use of the Mississippi River to Northern
shipping.
Steamboatmen
who follow a legitimate business, and who
have manhood enough to attend to their own business, without carrying into our
midst the weapons of destruction, wherewith to murder our citizens and destroy
our young Confederacy, will ever be allowed, without let or hindrance, to
navigate the free waters of the Mississippi...
Vicksburg
Evening Citizen, January
31, 1861
Mr. Tom Lewis standing in front of a
cave on Grove Street, Circa 1890’s.
To escape the hail of iron being
thrown into the city during the siege, citizens dug caves into the sides of the
hills for shelter. The caves did their
job very well – during the siege less than 20 civilians were killed by the
bombardment.
The cave was an excavation in the earth the size of a
large room, high enough for the tallest person to stand perfectly erect,
provided with comfortable seats, and
altogether quite a large and habitable abode (compared with
some of the caves in the city) were it not for the dampness and the constant
contact with the soft earthy walls.
Mary
Webster Loughborough
My
Cave Life in Vicksburg
One of the most unique homes in Vicksburg – The Castle,
circa 1863.
Note the Union soldiers camped on
the lawn.
The Shirley House, circa 1863.
Known to the troops as the White
House, the Shirley home is the only wartime structure
in the Vicksburg Military Park.
Behind the house is the camp of the 45th Illinois Infantry.
Owned by James and Adeline Shirley,
before the couple bought the home it was described in the Vicksburg Weekly
Whig as “a most desirable residence in a healthy location.” During the siege the home was in anything but
a healthy location; the house was located directly in front of the Confederate
fortifications and would have been burned by
the Rebels if not for the fact Mrs. Shirley refused to leave the
residence. The stubborn lady remained in
the house with her young son until Union soldiers persuaded her to leave three
days after the siege started.
Those three days must have been a time of great distress
to my mother, and I think she never entirely recovered from the strain caused
by the war. She has told me that she and
the two house servants sat most of the time in the chimney corner, where the
bullets might not strike them.
Alice
Shirley
Alice
Shirley and the Story of Wexford Lodge
View of China Street showing the Washington Hotel, circa
1876.
During the siege the building was
pressed into service as a hospital.
Reverend William Lovelace Foster, Chaplain
of the 35th Mississippi Infantry, spent time in the Washington Hotel
ministering to sick and wounded soldiers. He wrote of the hotel,
It was comparatively secure from those troublesome mortar
shells – for the most of them passed over & it was too far from our lines
to be disturbed by firing from that direction.
Dr. Whitfield with several assistants
attended to the invalids. All the rooms
were soon crowded with the sick & dying –
Some in bunks & some upon the floor.
Everything was conducted as well as possible but O the horrors of a
hospital!
A Double-Banded Brooke Rifle in the Vicksburg river
defenses, taken after the siege.
There were two Brooke Rifles in the
river batteries, a 6.4 inch gun in the appropriately
named Brooke Battery, located in the southern part of
the city, and a 7 inch gun in Battery Five in the northern part of town.
The Brooke Rifle was invented by
Confederate naval officer John M. Brooke, and were produced in
two locations: Tredegar
Foundry in Richmond, Virginia,
and the Confederate Naval Ordnance Works in Selma,
Alabama.
The fire
from the 7-inch Brooke, manned by cannoneers of the 1st
Tennessee Heavy Artillery, played an important role in helping to sink the
U.S.S. Cincinnati.
The U.S.S. Cincinnati, sunk at Vicksburg on May 27, 1863.
After the siege the Federals raised
the ship and put it back into service.
The U.S.S. Cincinnati was ordered
on May 27, 1863, to try and
neutralize the Wyman’s Hill and Water Batteries in the northern part of the
Confederate river defenses. Soon after
coming in range of the Rebel artillery the ship was struck below the waterline
by a 128-pound bolt fired from a 7-inch Brooke Rifle. The ship tried to withdraw upriver to safety,
but was struck repeatedly by the Confederate guns and sank, with a loss of five
killed, fourteen wounded, and fifteen missing.
The Willis-Cowan Home, circa 1850’s.
This house was John C. Pemberton’s
Headquarters during the siege.
There are no known wartime
photographs of the structure.
During a heavy shelling on May 30, 1863, Pemberton’s
Headquarters was struck several times by Federal shells. Mrs. Emma Balfour, who lived next door, noted
in her diary:
I never saw
anything like it. People were running in
every direction to find a place of safety.
The shells fell literally like hail.
Mrs. Willis’ House was struck twice and two horses in front of her door
were killed. General Pemberton and his
staff had to quit it.
It
was in this house that General Pemberton met with his generals on the evening
of July 3, 1863, and made
the decision to surrender Vicksburg
the next day.
The Warren County Jail on the corner of Grove and Cherry
Streets in Vicksburg, Circa
1864.
Captured Union soldiers were
confined in the courtyard of the jail during the siege. During the occupation period, the Federals
kept Confederate soldiers and civilians in the jail.
Horace Fulkerson, a Confederate
Cotton Agent, was captured in October 1864 and sent to the Vicksburg Jail. He recorded his description of the inmates in
his memoirs:
The prisoners numbered some three hundred, representing
Federal and Confederate soldiers and civilians, common thieves, highway
robbers, murderers, blockade runners – in fact every class of criminals known
to the calendar of crime. There were in
the crowd young men and old men, boys, a few white women, and a number of negroes. It was
indeed a grand medley of humanity with dark secrets locked up in many a breast.
Battery Sherman, one of the Union Fortifications defending
Vicksburg after the siege, circa 1864.
After Vicksburg surrendered, General Grant ordered that all of the
ditches and approaches used by the Union Army during the siege be filled in so
that they could not be used by an attacker against the city. In the winter of 1863-1864, a new defensive
line was dug, much shorter than the first, only five miles in length that could
be held by a small garrison. Battery
Sherman was one of the artillery emplacements along this new line, located on
the Jackson
Road
entrance to the city.
Captured Confederate Artillery at Vicksburg, Circa 1864.
When Vicksburg fell, the Federals took possession of a huge amount
of Confederate Artillery, consisting of 50 smoothbore field guns, 31 rifled
field guns, 22 howitzers, 46 smoothbore siege guns, 21 rifled siege guns, 1
siege howitzer, and a 10-inch mortar for a grand total of 172 artillery pieces
of all types.
Captured Confederate Ordnance at Vicksburg, Circa 1864.
Along with the artillery, the Federals
captured 38,000 artillery projectiles, 58,000 pounds of powder, and 4,800
artillery cartridges. In 1864 a reporter
from the Vicksburg Daily Herald
toured the Federal Ordnance Department and wrote, “We then visited the yard in which are piled over one
hundred thousand cannon balls, shot and shell, of different kinds.”
Union Soldiers on the lawn of the Warren County Courthouse after
the siege.
Note the cupola support column on top of the clock tower
with a large chunk removed
by a shell fragment.
On July 4, 1863, the victorious Union Army marched into Vicksburg, and the United States flag was raised over the courthouse. Having to surrender was bad enough, but doing
it on Independence Day made things worse for the citizens, and they didn’t
forget the pain of surrender. The city
did not celebrate the holiday again for 82 years – July 4, 1945, at the end of World War II was the next official
celebration in Vicksburg.
We
suppose it is well enough to remind the absent-minded reader the Fourth of July
puts in an appearance this morning, the day on which the Continental Congress
at Philadelphia adopted the Declaration of Independence...In old times it was
customary to celebrate the day with considerable pomp and spread-eagle vaporing; but now, in this unfortunate section where the
great natural rights of safety, life, liberty, and property have been almost
swept away by our bayonet rulers, but few are found to do the occasion
reverence.
Vicksburg
Herald, July 4, 1872
Unidentified gathering on the
courthouse lawn, circa 1865.
On seeing the United States flag flying over the courthouse, Unionist Dora
Miller wrote, “Now I feel once more at home in mine own country.”
More typical was the reaction of
Alice Shannon, who wrote to her sister that she could see “that hateful
flag flying from the Court House Hill.”
Anne Shannon
Union Soldiers at Brierfield, Jefferson Davis’ home south of
Vicksburg, Circa 1864.
Note the sign the
soldiers erected over the front door, “The
House Jeff Built.” According to a
newspaper
account, there was another sign over the
back door saying, “Exit Traitor.”
The “Jeff
Place” is also a very fine plantation. The residence has not been injured, except
the door locks and one or two marble mantels broken up, apparently for
trophies. The Jeff furniture has been
removed, but the rooms are still furnished with
furniture brought here.
Vicksburg
Daily Herald, 6 July 1864
