LMRR'12 Dispatch #5: Tupelo to Graceland.

Copyright © 2012 Bob R Bogle


A day of battlefields and literature and rock'n'roll  . . .

To understand the battle of Brice's Crossroads, check out this animated battle.  (If you haven't seen these animations before, you're in for a treat.)  This also provides some general historical background that informs much of LMRR'12.

We now are compelled to part ways with the Natchez Trace. . .

Yesterday (19 Sep) was the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Iuka, which was fought by armies commanded by two of the most annoying Civil War commanders, William S Rosecrans for the Union and Sterling Price for the Confederacy.  No animation for this, but you can read about it here.  One of the more famous Civil War battles in which acoustic shadowing played an important role:  Union reinforcements never heard the sounds of the clash and so did not come to engage the confederates from the rear, which would have had severe repercussions for Price's men.  As usual, Rosecrans moved too slowly and failed to follow the agreed-upon plan of attack.  After the battle had ended, instead of pursuing the escaping confederates, Rosecrans made speeches to his men and belatedly followed the following day.  Price was repeatedly lucky.

Two Civil War battles took place in Corinth, MS.  Grant was headed there when he was surprised at Shiloh, TN.  Corinth was a strategically important confederate city because of its railroad crossing.  At the first battle (the Siege of Corinth) Henry Halleck demonstrated his unique incapacity to lead troops in the field.  In the Second Battle of Corinth, after Sterling Price had reinforced him, the bungling confederate egomanic Earl Van Dorn commanded the confederates.  Again Rosecrans was defeated, dispatching the same kind of mixed orders that later brought about his defeat at Chickamauga, and again he let the enemy escape.  The inept Van Dorn and Price would go on to continue the Southern fight.

Oxford, Mississippi is famous for its association with William Faulkner.  It's also the home of Ole Miss, which apparently enjoys some notoriety among sports aficionados.  Of course this is also the university where, 50 years ago today (20 Sep 1962), James Meredith was blocked from registering for classes by a grandstanding Mississippi Governor Ross Barnett, who had the state legislature pass a law that “prohibited any person who was convicted of a state crime from admission to a state school.”  Meredith's alleged crime?  Voter registration.  Robert Kennedy sent in 500 US Marshals, supported by the 70th Army Engineer Combat Battalion from Ft Campbell, Kentucky, and President John F Kennedy sent in US Army military police from the 503rd Military Police Battalion, and called in troops from the Mississippi Army National Guard and the US Border Patrol.  Meredith graduated in 1963 with a degree in political science.

And Graceland:  well, you probably know about that.

LMRR'12 Dispatch #4: Natchez to Tupelo.

Copyright © 2012 Bob R Bogle


This stretch of the road trip largely will follow the Natchez Trace, featuring the terrain covered by Grant and Sherman as they swept up from the Mississippi River to attack Vicksburg from behind.

The loop is the route to be made later during the return trip.  During this leg of the trip the route continues to angle along a northeasterly transit.

Here the route follows battles at Raymond, then with Pemberton's forces at Champion Hill and the bridge over the Big Black River west of Edward's Station, and finally east to Jackson.

Fleetwood Plantation was owned by Jefferson Davis.  After capturing Vicksburg, the Union army accidentally came across personal correspondence from Davis to former President Franklin Pierce at Fleetwood Plantation, which eventually ruined the reputation of the latter, demonstrating his sympathy for Davis and the Confederate cause.

LMRR'12 Dispatch #3: Baton Rogue to Natchez.

Copyright © 2012 Bob R Bogle



LMRR'12 Dispatch #2: NOLA to Baton Rogue route.

Copyright © 2012 Bob R Bogle

Over the next several days I'll be uploading more detailed routes of the anticipated driving route of this expedition.  Today's post begins in New Orleans and ends in Baton Rogue.

LMRR'12 Dispatch #1

Copyright © 2012 Bob R Bogle



Lower Mississippi River Run 2012 (LMRR'12), another expedition through time and space, is now entering its final planning stages.

A peripatetic adventure Ulysses-style, with Grant and Sherman, and cypress stands and ancient oaks and Spanish moss and Acadians, and Samuel R Curtis and Earl Van Dorn and scrapes with NB Forrest, and riverboats, paddleboats, steamers, and Elvis and legendary train wrecks, and wrought iron balconies, and Cajun food and salt water vistas and ghosts and voodoo and captured incendiary political documents, and Ohio flatboat floaters, and battles and plantation houses and bayous and monuments and memorials and cemeteries, and riverboat gamblers, and ruins and swamps, and Highway 61 down the middle of it all, and miles of causeway, and William Faulkner and crucial railroad junctions and swallowed up fortresses and Tennessee Williams, and cotton and jazz and the blues and assassination sites, and starving Vicksburg cave dwellers, and slaves and freemen and slave owners and traders and contraband camps, and alligators, and belles burying their pots and pans under ponds, and WWII veterans, and interned Japanese Americans, and the Chickasaw and Chocktaw nations, and Andrew Jackson and Jeff Davis, and James Audubon, and fall colors, and rivers galore:  watch this space for updates in the coming weeks.

Battle of Liberty Place

Copyright © 2012 Bob R Bogle



Original text posted 14 Sep 2012 at http://www.facebook.com/JeanLafitteNPS:

One of the most controversial monuments in the city of New Orleans stands a short distance off Canal Street. It has been moved, defaced, restored, adapted, torn down, and ardently defended throughout its 121-year history.

One side reads “September 14th 1874,” the date of the Battle of Liberty Place. On this day, this “battle” was fought between a group of white supremacists protesting black civil rights and the integrated New Orleans police during the progressive days of Reconstruction following the Civil War. Although the fighting was brief and unsuccessful in changing government, it became a rallying point for white supremacists all over the city. In 1891, during the height of Jim Crow, the white government of the city erected the monument “to commemorate the uprising.” In 2004, the city removed the monument, under pressure from protesters criticizing it as supporting racism. Soon after, the city reerected the monument because of outcry from historic preservationists, placing it in a less conspicuous location just off of Canal Street.

Today, some still see this monument as a celebration of racism and want it torn down and destroyed. Others see it as a monument to early civil rights struggle and a history which must be preserved rather than forgotten. What do you think? Are there times where we must move on from our history, or should it always be preserved?

The Coming of the Emancipation Proclamation.

The Coming of the Emancipation Proclamation
By PAUL FINKELMAN


Lincoln told Welles the issue was one of military necessity. “We must free the slaves” he said, “or be ourselves subdued.” Slaves, Lincoln argued “were undeniably an element of strength to those who had their service, and we must decide whether that element should be with us or against us.” Lincoln also rejected the idea that the Constitution still protected slavery in the Confederacy.The rebels,” he said, “could not at the same time throw off the Constitution and invoke its aid. Having made war on the Government, they were subject to the incidents and calamities of war.”

Lincoln had found a constitutional theory that would be acceptable to most Northerners. Regardless of how they felt about slavery or the constitutional power of the federal government, few were willing to come to the defense of the rebels. And in any case, the legal questions were largely moot: until the war ended with a Union victory, the South couldn’t very easily challenge the proclamation in court. After decades of political and constitutional stalemate over slavery, Lincoln had figured out a path toward freedom for millions of men and women in bondage.