EWGSI

     Duff Green, 1791-1875, was an American teacher, military leader, Democratic party politician, journalist, author, diplomat and industrialist........ and he lived in Vicksburg. He made a good part of his fortune as a cotton broker. He was sympathetic to the Confederate cause but was a realist............ I quite love to learn the story-behind-the-story, especially in American history, and the story of Duff Green's mansion is one such story.  The above photos show it as it is today and was during the Civil War.   Duff Green built his mansion in 1856 high on a bluff using skilled enslaved labor and bricks that were fired onsite. The grand home survived the Siege of Vicksburg because Green designated it a "hospital" where both Confederate and Union soldiers were treated.     Our tour guide in this mansion was the current owner and her love of this old house was evident. This red-walled photo was of the dining room where dinner was a 6-13 cou...

  The time: during the period between the Revolution and the Civil War.   Cruise-history-presenter, Aaron, shared his insights on this part of American history. What was the political reality of the world at that time? Only a handful of men ruled the entire of Europe. These kings had the absolute right to claim entire continents in their name…. or explorers would claim it in their name. This is hard to comprehend today.   France claimed and owned the entire Mississippi River basin. England had the entire of New England. Spain claimed and owned most of the southwest and Florida. Men could not just legally settle anywhere they wanted (squatters exempted). The stage was set for a civil war when Plymouth and Jamestown were first settled, due to the inherent differences in the men. (The book Albion’s Seed explains this beautifully.)   It took the settlers of Jamestown a long while to realize that they needed to focus on staying alive; forget about finding gold; they ha...

  Nearing the end of our 14-day cruise, the fellow that had been presenting talks on Mississippi River and American History talks, gave a genealogy talk (and he was good). Afterwards, he invited us in the audience to share our genealogy stories. I was stuck by the enormous variety! I told my Mathew Potter and the Chicken story..... to howls of laughter.  Mr/Mrs Bodmer told how they hoped to find the connection between them and the famous Western American painter, Carl Bodmer, but hadn’t yet. One great-great-grandfather came from Germany, landed in New Orleans, and WALKED up to Wisconsin to live out his life. One Vietnam veteran told how he flew P3s (submarine hunters) during his Navy career. One lady told of her sailor, born in the Pyrenees,  who jumped ship in New Orleans, went to Texas with his native wife. When he died, she married another Texas rancher. One man told how his great-grandfather hid his Comanche wife from the census taker. Can only guess what his reas...

     Without dams and locks the Mississippi River would be un-navigable to ships and barges and the states along the river would be continually flooded and their boundaries changed by the meandering river.  Locks and dams are vital to the Mississippi. There are 28 locks between St. Paul and St. Louis; there are none below St. Louis. The Mississippi River falls 450-feet between those two cities. Most locks are really shallow, under eleven feet. The largest/deepest lock is at Keokuk, Iowa and is 38-feet deep. (The Mississippi is not a very deep river.)  The top photo (from Google) shows a dam and lock. As we approached a lock during the night (and this was often the case above St.Louis), the area was flooded with light for navigating into these narrow channels. This maneuver takes knowledge and skill.  The ship enters; the gates behind the ship close; the area fills with river water and when the ship is raised or lowered to the desired level, the front gate i...

  Nauvoo, Illinois, at 2:00am; I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and I did SO want to see Nauvoo. I was blessed to be on the correct side of the ship and to wake up just in time to see the shining lights of the Nauvoo Temple. I naively imagined that there would be towns or cities or ports or LIGHTS all along the river. Not so at all. Since Mother Nature is in control of the meandering Mississippi, the channels are like braided ribbons, miles wide. Because of this, nothing permanent is built right on the river’s banks. Made sense. So it was pitch-black-dark at night most of the way. (Except when, above St. Louis, we would enter a lock at night and everything was brightly lighted.) The Mississippi flows just under 1800 miles from St. Paul to New Orleans, and falls 450’ in elevation from St. Paul to St. Louis; the 28 locks and dams on the upper river (above St. Louis) were constructed to control the river and keep the water where farmers needed and want...

  ( Returning to the ship after a bus tour. Capt. Kelly was ALWAYS there to greet us and several red-shirted helpers to ensure our safety. Remember, the river was 40-feet low so we had to walk downhill a ways on newly-laid gravel.) The American Cruise Ship Splendor could carry 185 passengers; on my trip there were 164 of us, with a crew of 59, including the captain. The Splendor drew only 7 ½ feet of water (“think of it like a hotel on a flat-bottomed barge”) and only needs 9 feet of water to proceed….. and I understood that many times that was the river’s depth during my cruise. The average ship’s speed was 7 to 8 miles per hour (yes, on the rivers, length is measured in miles) and the average river flow is 3 miles per hour. The captain explained in a Q&A session that the biggest usage on the ship was potable water but they did carry 28,000 gallons…….. and resupplied with a sometimes very long hose at every port stop. The ship had a MSD, a marine sanitation discharge system, ...

  On this trip down the Mississippi, I carried a small notebook and scribbled notes furiously. Visiting this national park, I was especially overcome by the enormity of this battle. The notes are mine and the facts as I understood from our guide. After the battle, some 17,000 Union dead were buried in a cemetery near the battlefield, now part of the Vicksburg National Park. We were told that the upright stones were for the identified soldiers and the “stubby flat” stones were for the 13,000 unidentified. The Confederate dead were buried in trenches. The Vicksburg National Military Park was established on 21 February 1899 to preserve and protect the areas associated with the defense and siege of Vicksburg. The park covers over 1800 thousand acres. During the battle, the hills were stripped of trees. During the 1930s, the CCC men replanted many trees. In 1917, veterans were invited to return to the site and point out just where their units stood and fought and some 8800 showed up! Ma...

On this trip down the Mississippi, I carried a small notebook and scribbled notes furiously. Visiting this national park, I was especially overcome by the enormity of this battle. The notes are mine and the facts as I understood from our guide. Soon after Christmas, 1862, Grant, under orders from President Lincoln, came down personally from Memphis “to get the job done!” His 43,000 man army was on the west side of the Mississippi and it took two days to ferry the troops, horses and armaments, across the river.   It did help Grant’s cause that the Confederate generals were in-fighting; Johnston abandoned the town of Jackson as Grant approached. But Pemberton’s troops were well entrenched in a semi-circle around Vicksburg. As well as the Confederate army, there were 3500 citizens there. As the Union forces fought their way to Vicksburg, the net closed around the town, the resistance and battlements repulsing Grant four times. But Grant had way more men and Lincoln was re-supplying hi...

  On this trip down the Mississippi, I carried a small notebook and scribbled notes furiously. Visiting this national park, I was especially overcome by the enormity and importance of this battle. The notes are mine and the facts as I understood from our guide.     For nearly 200 years, men have been attempting to “tame” the mighty Mississippi River but “Mother Mississippi” has slapped back most all attempts through the years. Throughout history, the Mississippi has been a vital commerce and travel “highway” draining most all the American Midwest.  The river was of special importance during the Civil War.  In 1837, Robert E. Lee was given the task of “taming” the Mississippi River. That meant he started clearing the floating trees and wrecked boats from the river. He was trying to clear a navigable channel, not clear the entire river. Lee pioneered the revetment for erosion control. This was putting “stuff” along the river bank to hold the bank. First was woven...