Good Family Trips -- Vicksburg and Shiloh
This is a photo of Alex's Vicksburg project it has been on top of my office shelves for about ten years. In Vicksburg we had found a nice booklet on the battle, it had a large map of the terrain around Vicksburg. Based on that map we formed salt dough into hills, rivers, and swampy areas. The blue gel icing to represent the rivers has lost a little color. The marshmallow representing the Vicksburg courthouse doesn't much resemble a marshmallow or a courthouse. It never did look much like a courthouse. At least, the swampy areas have dried after all these years; salt dough and colored sugar don't coexist well. Alex had copies of primary sources with his written essay, letters written by an Indiana soldier at Vicksburg. Alex and Erik have an ancestor who died in the battle of Champion's Hill. He was a colonel in a (Union) Missouri regiment. He was actually from Illinois. Missouri was one of the states with regiments fighting on both sides at the Battle of Vicksburg. You may find your own family has stories in the history of these campaigns.
