Though I am not constitutionally enthusiastic about seeing battlefields,
I must admit that I found the field of Vicksburg engrossing. The siege
of a small city presents a comparatively simple and compact military
problem which is, therefore, comprehensible to the civilian mind, and in
addition to this the Vicksburg battlefield is splendidly preserved and
marked, so that the visitor may easily reconstruct the conflict.
The park, which covers the fighting area, forms a loose crescent-shaped
strip over the hills which surround the city, its points abutting on the
river above and below. The chief drives of the park parallel each other,
the inner one, Confederate Avenue, following, as nearly as the hills
permit, the city's line of defense, while the other, Union Avenue, forms
an outer semicircle and follows, in a similar manner, the trenches of
the attacking forces.
That the battlefield is so well preserved is due in part to man and in
part to Nature. Many of the hills of Warren County, in which Vicksburg
is situated, are composed of a curious soft limy clay, called marl,
which, normally, has not the solidity of soft chalk. Marse Harris
Dickson, who knows more about Vicksburg--and also about negroes, common
law, floods, funny stories, geology, and rivers--than any other man in
Mississippi, tells me that this marl was deposited by the river, in the
form of silt, centuries ago, and that it was later thrown up into hills
by volcanic action.
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