Feb 2, 2012 Revisit to Vicksburg N Mil Park

Today, in the driving, beating, monsoonal rain, I did a revisit of Vicksburg National Military Park.  I last visited here on May 10,2009.  That was in my "rookie days" of stamp collecting, and I had the current knowledge that I was missing three stamps from this location. 

This is a rather large city park, located high on the bluffs overlooking the Mississippi River at Vicksburg, Mississippi.  This was the site of key battle of the Civil War, and is said to have contributed to the turning point of insuring the Rebel defeat.  General Grant went on from here and the successful completion of this assignement to "finish the job," and accept Lee's surrender at Appomattox.

On my first visit, we only went to the visitors center, and decided for some reason not to take the drive through the park, which I did on this visit.  Wow, I had missed a lot! 

The Visitor's Center is at the bottom pretty much of the park, and throughout the park, there are monuments put up by the various states, and there is also a USS Cairo Museum, which I did not visit previously also-  It honors one of the many boats that took place in the capture of Vicksburg. 

 The boat, an ironclad, sits underneat a big tent, and there is a unique museum on the site, which has an excellent movie and displays. 

Here, I also found the USS Cairo stamp, which I had missed on my previous visit:

I also pickup up a pin about the Cairo here.

At the main VC, I got two stamps, including one of the 150th anniversary celebration that I had missed before:

The 25th anniversary stamp was not available here-  I suspect this will be the case in lots of parks, as the stamp was dated 2011 and I believe several parks have thrown them away.  I asked after it here today and was told it was not available. 

Next time Cooper or Brandon is with me,  and we are in the area, I'll try to get them to tour here-  I have a healthy respect for this park now, since I took the time not to stamp and run. 

I also got to watch the movie in the main VC, and it was outstanding! 

I also was able to snag the 150th Anniversary of the Civil War handbook, which I had looked for at a couple of parks-  As this is the start of a 4 year 150th celebration at several parks, this additional book is an excellent companion piece-   I'll do a seperate blog post on it. 

I got a total of 5 pins here, one each for RE Lee, and Gen Grant, a hiking staff medallion for Vicksburg, and a park pin, and one for the Cairo as well. 

Fantastic visit, just sorry it was drenching rain the whole time!    The rain prevented me from spending any time at the National Cemetery here, which is part of the park. 

I didn't take any time to revisit any of the allied exhibits in the Vicksburg area, the next time I am here, I will allow for maybe three days to leisurely see it all. 

Here is the NPS website for the park:
http://www.nps.gov/vick/index.htm

Here is the Wiki page for this park-  lots of information here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vicksburg_National_Military_Park