Baton Rouge, LA

We left Vidalia on March 31st. sunny, in fact warm, well call it hot! Easy drive, glad to be on the road seeing new stuff.

Have not kept the Blog up to date due to reading the diary of a great uncle of one of our fellow caravaners. His name was John G. Morrison born around 1840 in England. Lied about his age and joined the British army at age of 13. Deserted in about 1859 and came to the US. Married in England, had one child. Joined the Union army and kept a wonderful diary. Served in the infantry for about 6 months and then volunteered to serve on the Candelet a Union ironclad. The day to day entries give a real feel for the battles. His insight is amazing when he describes the attitudes of people he meets. Great reading!

We are now at LSU, they have a "horse center" where we are entertained in the afternoons by students jumping their horses and just watching the horses. I had forgotten just how soupy the land is here. Lots of standing water. Humid and lots of "no-seeums." They come right through the window screens so the AC is used a lot.

Went to the "Rural Life Museum," at LSU, you would have thought we would get the real scoop there, instead we were called Yankees and told how wonderful slavery was and probably all us poor white trash would have been better off had we become slaves ourselves. Even found a book entitled, "The South Was Right."

Yesterday we visited the site of the battle of Port Hudson. Hard to imagine because the Mississippi is no longer next to the battlefield. It just kept "rollin' along."

Today is a free day and very needed. Shirley has the "caravan cold" for sure. I am at the tail end of it. Everyone coughs and sneezes. Viruses and pollen seem to be par for all of us.

Two tractors blocking our path.

Here we are. Note all the water next to our trailer.

A beautiful Classic Motor Home.

Yep, another slave house.

Ditto

Home sweet home.

Two tired caravaners. John was sick the next day.

Looking through a 12' wheel once used to haul cypress logs.

Musket demo.

Professors house at Centenary College. Was all men, the school kinda died when they all left to join the war.

What's left of the college. Now a state park.

Tonight we have a speaker who rode his horse along most of the battle fields in this area and wrote a book. He's coming to us. Tomorrow thunderstorms are forecast. Today it's humid and overcast.

See Ya! Barry and Shirley

Still in Natchez

On March 29th, it rained like you could not believe. Every clap of thunder along with the lightening kept us awake most of the night. Probably the fact the Mississippi is above flood stage was on our minds too. Anyway we awoke to cloudy skies and headed for Frogmore Plantation. This offers a wealth of information on life on a plantation before the war and current cotton production.

The site consists of old slave quarters along with the overseer's home through the sharecropper era and finally the modern era. We had a great guide, the wife of the current owner and she was very well informed. Learned how the cotton gin works and about slave customs, secret music, and their relationship with the slave owner. Now I have to read even more books on the reconstruction era.

Great day to tour. Cold and wet.

Dell Webb it's not.

There is a modern gin here too.

Last years crop. We could have picked some but way too wet.

After our tour we drove back to Natchez and pigged out at the Pig Out BBQ. One of those places right out of a Grisham novel. Very busy, very filling.

Oink!

Something I forgot to mention was on our tour of Longwood mansion. Since the house was never finished and the owner died of "a broken heart." His ghost is supposed to haunt the house. Well during our tour one of our group who is 88 and a real hoot, sat his stool near the rheostat for the light, as he sat back he began to dim the light. The guide told the story and the light got dimmer and dimmer. She almost ran out the door before it was discovered who was playing with the light. Maybe you had to be there but it was funny.

See Ya! Barry and Shirley

An Era Gone By By

Tuesday, the 29th we toured three antebellum mansions. Some of the guys said why so many houses, then some of the wives said why so many battlefields, I said, "That's different." So we toured them anyway.

The three we toured were owned by the original owners, then the war came and their lives changed dramatically, usually with the husband dying. The ladies were then left with the mansions and sold them or turned them into homes for unwed mothers, orphanages, and whatever.

Later they were owned by some organization like the DAR, ladies garden clubs, as B and B's or whatever. Finally, tourism took hold and they are at least maintained and show a part of our history that existed before the Civil War.

The Rosalie

Stanton Hall

This is one not on the tour. Shows how rundown an old place can get.

The back entrance to the Longwood.

"Ya, see babe, when the war ends......"

The front of the Longwood

 The Longwood, had a sad history, the original builder died just as the house was being built. He was broke, the war had started and all they had to live in was the basement, which was not finished. The top floors are unfinished and will never be. As in all real estate, timing is very important.

We learned that "artisans" were slaves. So if you used "local artisans" to build your mansion you used local slaves. The mansions were all built from brick, covered in stucco then given a treatment to make them look like cut stone.

Lots of decay and deferred maintenance in each mansion. All claim to have original furnishings in them. They are beautiful and if I had the money probably would have done the same.

The highlight of my day was visiting the Presbyterian church and looking at room after roomful of old black and white photos of Natchez in it's heyday.

Lunch was at a nice place called Biscuits and Blues. Some of our group was there. It's so nice to have a quiet meal like this because you get to talk to locals. Lately in our travels in the south it seems everyone talks as if they work at CNN. Trust me, southern accents are alive and well here in Mississippi and Louisiana.

Beautiful old church.

A Besler enlarger similar to mine, but mine is much smaller.


See Ya! Barry and Shirley

Natchez, MS

We are now in Natchez, MS. Actually we are staying across the Mississippi in Vidalia, La. For those of you in the Sacramento area that is like staying in Yolo county. It is very poor here, not the best neighborhood. Nevertheless, the RV park is nice.

Yesterday, the 28th, we took a bus tour with Miss Betty Lou and toured the streets of Natchez and walked the city cemetery. It was very cold and I personally returned to the warmth of the bus even though Miss Betty Lou, Blue as she was called was very interesting. I just had to nurse my cold. Here are a few sights we saw along the way.

Yes, nice old mansions.

Y'all come back now.

Too cold to comprehend.

The sun came out but it was still cold.

Just can't look at the Missip. without taking a picture.

These barges amaze me. One barge carries the equivalent of 68 eighteen wheelers of cargo. Each tug pushes about 6 of these barges. Imagine! While in Vicksburg 5 barges got away from the tug and hit one of the pylons on the bridge. The bridge was closed for several hours while things got under control again. Traffic was backed up for miles at 4 p.m.

Well last night at 2:30 a monstrous gaggle of barges hit the bridge here. The corps of engineers closed the bridge until it was found to be safe. At 7 a.m. when we walked to the river for photos the barges were run aground. Later things got patched up.

Tug awaiting help.

The barge load is almost a mile long.

You can see the front is aground.

Last evening we attended a play. The Historic Natchez Tableaux of 2011. This has been going on since 1938. Put on by the ladies garden club, it is the place to be seen and if you have a child, it is the play to be seen in. It gives a history of Natchez from the white mans viewpoint. Somehow, I just don't think they quite get it. Of course, being a Yankee I probably don't understand. The kids were cute however and we did have a good time.

Well now maybe it's not all beautiful.

Tomorrow we tour some antebellum mansions. Natchez has so many mansions, because the inhabitants had the good sense to surrender when they had the chance.

See Ya! Barry and Shirley

Grand Gulf Military Park

March 24th we drove all the way, 30 some miles, to Grand Gulf Military Park, still in Mississippi. Weather was nice, not too hot, the fans in our trailer did just fine. This is a park on what used to be Fort Wade. On his way to capture Vicksburg, Grant kinda shot this place up. But one mile farther up stream, he could not get past Fort Coburn. Now keep in mind these are not forts like you might think of a fort, these are places were cannons were set up and were reinforcements to protect an area. The rifle pits were hand dug by the men preparing their defense. These mounds are 150 years old now and still would be useful if needed.

There was a town, Grand Gulf, that lay between these two forts, it is gone completely and was not much of a town at war time. It had been thriving, but the Mississippi River had destroyed over 50 blocks of what was a thriving community.

Anyway when Grant was repulsed at this point in 1863, he just marched his men a little farther down river and headed for Vicksburg.

An old flour mill, just happens to have a dogwood tree.

Mortar left on site.

Old Spanish house. Remember they were here before us.

The Yankees are coming!

The sign tells it all.

Much larger than you might imagine.

Hard to believe these were had dug.

These truly were the "pits."

What story would be complete without pictures of Grand Gulf. By the way, Shirley decided to take a morning run to this town. Alligators drove her back. All the water you see in the background is swamp and the Mississippi.

Probably the only remaining building of Grand Gulf.

A shot of Fort Coburn

The ironclads got caught in the current and just turned around and around.

Modern day Grand Gulf, a fishing camp.

Complete with all the misquotes you could ever want. 

See, I did not make this up.

See Ya! Barry and Shirley

Return to the Battlefield of Vicksburg

We have been in an area with no phone reception and therefore no WiFi, so we are a little behind with our blog. So to catch up a little:

On the 22nd we drove to Jackson, MS the capital of the state. Typical big city but as with each city so far we felt it is in a definite economic decline. We toured the governors mansion, not much to say about this except California does not even have one. In reality it is a beautiful old building restored with original furnishings and is the third oldest governors mansion in the US. One of the few old buildings we have visited that does not claim that Grant slept here.

Please note the flag.

We had a free day on the 23rd, so Shirley and I packed a small lunch and headed back to the Vicksburg Battlefield. Remember all the cold weather we had early in the caravan, well it's well into the 80's now!

An example of the fortifications the Union had to cross.

This may be one of my ancestors I'll have to look him up.

An old house called the "Shirley" house is the only home still standing at the battle site.

Some of the statues are the best of any battlefield.

Another example of the statues.

Because of my parents being from Arkansas, had to photograph this one.

From here we left the next day for Grand Gulf, MS. My black truck is yellow due to all the pollen caked up on it. I washed it the night before we left, by next morning I could not have proved it had ever been washed. Consequently the pollen is causing havoc with everyone's allergies.

See Ya! Barry and Shirley