COKE, DEATH, AND GLORY FOREVER

No, we’re not snorting.  After leaving Little Rock, we thought we’d get in a little kayaking in our inflatable, so we headed for “The Oasis in the Delta,” Lake Chicot State Park, down in the southeast corner of Arkansas.  It’s a 20 mile long oxbow lake, formed from a cutoff portion of the Mississippi when it changed course long ago.  The brochures had pictures of nifty cypress trees in the water which gave us visions of bayou paddling.  Well, they weren’t quite what we expected.  They just hugged the shoreline and wouldn’t make for interesting kayaking.

Plus, the wind came up a bit and we didn’t want to hassle trying to launch from those high piers.  So, we just did what comes naturally.  We loafed.

We spent two nights at Chicot and then crossed the Big Muddy.  They have built a beautiful new bridge.  Unfortunately, it’s not open, so we traveled the one that presumably is too old and decrepit to repair.  Nice view of the new one, though.

The Mississippi is every bit as big as you might have thought, with lots of long barges being pushed by tugs.

Ah, now to our title.  Our destination was Vicksburg, the scene of one of the pivotal battles of the Civil War.

First, we toured around the town and stopped at the Coca Cola museum, housed in the late 19th century candy store where Joseph Biedenharn first bottled Coca Cola.

He didn’t invent the Coke formula, that was done by a Georgia pharmacist in the 1870’s who lived only two years after his invention.  Poor sap.  The guy who bought the rights was a marketing maven, and the rest, as they say, is history.  Prior to Biedenharn, Coke was available only as a fountain drink.  The museum is kitchy-cool.

 

It includes the original bottling equipment.  Initially, it was filled one bottle at a time, no automated equipment.  At the center-right, you can see a single nozzle protruding out:  that was the filler.

 

Of course, we had to take the “pause that refreshes,” and have a Coke float.  Well, I did, anyway.

Vicksburg sits high on bluffs with a commanding view of the Mississippi, and the Confederacy used it to control the river.  From the bluffs they could shell the Union ships with devastating effect.  Lincoln, Grant, et al. believed that they needed to control the river so as to cut the Confederacy in half, east-west.  Vicksburg was the key.  Attempts to take the city by land and river failed (with shocking loss of life),

so Grant decided to lay siege, and in 1863 did so for forty-seven days, ending in surrender of the city by Gen. Pemberton.  The city then became the base of Union operations in the area for the rest of the war.  Sherman began his “march to the sea” from there.  The National Military Park, established in 1899, memorializes these events, and originally encompassed the entire extent of the siege and defense lines.  It consists of a beautiful one-way loop drive through the picket lines and gun emplacements so you can see just how they faced each other and where various charges and battles were fought. 

Throughout, there are monuments to the “glory” of the various regiments and individuals who fought there.

So there you have it:  coke, death, and glory.

Another part of the park features the USS Cairo museum.  The Cairo was one of 8 or so identical, iron-clad gunboats operated by the Union navy on the rivers.  In 1862, it was steaming up the Yazoo, north of Vicksburg, when it had the ignominious honor of being the first vessel in history to be sunk by an electrically detonated mine.  It sank into the ooze, where it was preserved amazingly well, with its stores, armament, and personal gear of the crew all recovered in the early 1960’s.  It’s all on display here, as well as the boat.  The bottom still has the original timbers; the top is a reconstruction, with a cradling framework to keep everything together.  It’s amazingly big. This is taken looking directly at the bow.  As you can see, it was well-armored topside, but vulnerable under the waterline.

   Before leaving Vicksburg, it was time to get Albatross serviced as we had about 4k+ miles since the last oil change.  Fortunately, after looking mournful, I convinced the service manager at the local Ford dealership to squeeze us in right away.  Squeeze he did!