Vicksburg, MS

The deep ravines and rolling landscape at Vicksburg Military Park. Oct. 2012

Here at Vicksburg Military Park the steep topography common around the City of Vicksburg is cleared of trees and brush by the National Park Service to give visitors a sense of what the battlefield looked like in during the Civil War. The landscape surrounding the city would have been cleared of trees and brush to create “clear fields of fire” for the defending Confederates.

This photograph is taken from the perspective of the Union lines looking out over “no-man’s land” to the Confederate trenches at the distant tree line. The near proximity of the two armies, dug-in and staring across the landscape at each other for months at a time, inevitably led to incessant deadly sniping on both sides but also amazingly increased fraternization between the two warring armies.

At left, mid-field, is the spot where US Grant and Confederate General Pemberton met to discuss the surrender of the City of Vicksburg in July 1863.