VICKSBURG Chapter Forty

 

The city of Vicksburg had been laid out on a series of 20 to 30 foot high steps along the Mississippi River, each marking a flood stage as the Wisconsin glaciers retreated over the previous 10,000 years. And along the crest of each of these benches ran a main north-south street. First there was Levee Street, created by the current river's high water mark, then Pearl Street, then Oak or Mulberry, then Washington Street, and along the final and highest step ran Cherry Street. 

Depot Street ran east-west, beginning at the Southern Railroad station on the levee and rose directly 30 vertical feet until it “T”ed into Washington Street. But most cross streets took advantage of the ravines which periodically eroded through the packed clay by either snaking through them - such as Madison Street a block north of Depot Street - or bridging them – as Bridge Street, a half block south, which angled across the ravine on stilts, making an easier step up to Cherry Street. It was on a north south side street, between Madison and Bridge, that the eccentric Colonel Thomas E. Robbins built the most unusual home in all of Vicksburg.

Thomas liked to be known as “Colonel” Robbins, but was best known as a Judge of the Warren County bankruptcy court, and a scavenger who took full advantage of his early notice of flotsam of local business failures and jetsam abandoned on the docks and in the warehouses. By 1840 “The Colonel” had acquired a shipment of hexagonal bricks supposedly fired in Britain, which inspired him to construct a monument to his unique business acumen.

Built atop a 17 acre mound above Washington Street, a block south of the new Warren County Courthouse, Robbins' Castle boasted a moat – the better to incubate mosquitoes – and a surrounding hedge of Osage Orange trees – whose scent disguised the deflection of cooling breezes. I suspect it was his monument which sped poor Thomas Robbins on to his final reward not long after finishing his mansion in the early 1840's. And in 1859 his house was bought by another acquiring lawyer named Armistead Burwell Junior, as a home for himself and his wife, Mary.

Armistead had been named after his father, a Petersburg, Virginia (above) slave and plantation owner and a Colonel in the War of 1812.  Sometime in 1818, Colonel Burwell had taken to repeatedly rapping at least one of his 50 pieces of property, a house slave named Agness “Aggy” Hobbs. As a result she had given birth to a daughter, named Elizabeth Hobbs. 

When Elizabeth reach 14, she was subjected to repeated whippings and rapes by a white relative to “break her spirit”, before being “married” (i.e. rented) to Hillsborough, North Carolina slave owner Alexander Kirkland, who beat and rapped Elizabeth for 4 years, until she gave birth to a son. Luckily for Elizabeth, 18 months later, Alexander Kirkland died, and Elizabeth and her son were eventually returned to the Garland family.  It was upon a foundation of this kind of brutality that the gentile southern tradition of their "peculiar institution" of slavery, rested

Armistead Burwell Junior had moved to Vicksburg in 1859 and bought The Castle because he had been told it was a “healthy spot”. However, with the arrival of secession, he dared not stay. Like his father, Armistead was a pro-union man. A slave owner, but a union man. He wrote a friend, “I dare not go any place in the interior ((as I) would be hung or imprisoned if I did.” In fact, he was arrested in September of 1861, and held for several weeks. When finally released, Armistead left the castle behind and fled north. Being a supporter of slavery was no longer enough to remain in good standing in the city of Vicksburg.

“The Gibraltar of the Confederacy” had been the capitalist dream of a Methodist minister. Newitt Vick.  In 1805 the 39 year old, with his wife Elizabeth Clark Vick and their 7 children, moved to Church Hill, Mississippi Territory, about 20 miles north of Natchez. As the saying goes, they prospered and multiplied. After adding 3 more children, in 1811 Newitt was able to buy land for his own plantation in the Walnut Hills along the Yazoo River.

Newitt called his little empire “Open Woods”, and through the sweat and blood of 66 enslaved human beings - and after adding 3 more white children - in 1818, this compromised Christian bought 612 acres along the cliffs above the Mississippi River, and surveyed and plotted out a town site, roughly 17 blocks north to south by 14 blocks east to west. But the couple never lived to profit from their investment, because both Newitt and Elizabeth died in the 1819 yellow fever epidemic.

The executor of the estate sold off the lots in 1822, for the benefit of the 13 Vick children. And the town of 500 was named in Newitts honor. Thirty-five years after its founding, Vicksburg had a population of 4,500 whites and some 30 “free colored”. In the adjacent Warren County, the population was almost 3,500 whites, but they were surrounded by 13,763 human beings held in bondage. In the county the war to defend slavery had strong support – among the whites. But within the city limits that support might be as “squishy” as the Confederate economy.

In 1861 the newly printed Confederate “gray back” dollar was worth ninety cents of its Yankee “greenback” counterpart. By the end of that first year of war the Gray Back had already lost 30% of that value. Two years later the gray back was worth less than half of its Yankee counterpart. To continue to buy food, uniforms, blankets and ammunition, the Confederacy had simply printed more gray backs. By May of 1863, almost half of Richmond's budget was allocated to paying interest on the loans needed to pay the other half of the budget.

All Confederate states extended credit to the Richmond government, but never equally. On the front lines, Virginia, Tennessee, Louisiana and now Mississippi, strained to feed and arm the men fighting on their soil. But other governors, such as 42 year old Joseph Emerson “Joe” Brown of Georgia (above),...

...and 33 year old Zebulon Baird Vance, of North Carolina (above), did everything they could to avoid releasing money or troops to serve Richmond. By 1863 it was obvious to even a stalwart like Jefferson Davis that the theory of the Confederacy was as much a failure as the Articles of Confederation had proven to be four score years earlier.

A failure on the macro and the micro scale as well. In December of 1860, while “susess” fever broke  across the region the pro-war Vicksburg Sun noted, “It has been but a very short time since a man was tarred and feathered here on account of his expressing too much confidence in Abe Lincoln.” By April, Fort Sumter had been fired upon and Lincoln was calling for 75,000 volunteers to defend Washington, 

Vicksburg resident Dr. Richard Pryor took out an ad in the Vicksburg Evening Citizen offering $50,000 for “the head of Abraham Lincoln”. Editor of the Citizen, James Swords even designed a badge promoting “Southern Rights – For this We Fight”, and suggesting if all true supporters of slavery wore them “We would then know when we met a friend.”

Such vehement sentiments had the desired effect, and the editor of the pro-union Vicksburg Daily Whig, Marmaduke Shannon, struggled to voice enough support for the war to avoid having his offices burned down. “It is enough for us to know that Mississippi...has taken its position”, he wrote. “We, too take our position by its side.” 

But as early as March of 1863, Alabamian General Edward Dorr Tracy  - who would die 2 months later in the battle of Port Gibson - had reported, “(in) this garrisoned town (above), upon which the hopes of a whole people are set...there is not now subsistence for one week. The meat ration has already been virtually discontinued, the quality being such that the men utterly refuse to eat it.” Even before Grant had crossed the river, hunger was stalking the troops and citizens of Vicksburg.

But an hour's ride out of town a seeming unlimited bounty could be found, if you could afford it. Molasses, which before the war had sold for less than 30 cents a gallon, was available for $7.00 a gallon. An 1861 $44 barrel of flour now cost more than $400.00. Salt cost $45 a bag. Turkeys were selling for $50 apiece. The fields were still filled with cotton, and the planters and the government they controlled refused to sacrifice that profit. Lieutenant General Pemberton might have simply requisitioned the supplies the city needed - as Grant was already doing -  but Pemberton felt a greater need for the goodwill of the plantation owners and bankers of Warren County.

One of the most lovely homes within the city, Wexford Lodge, sat atop that second ridge line at the eastern edge of Vicksburg, where the rebels had not extended their fortifications. For a decade it had been the home of 59 year old lawyer, “planter” and slave owner, New Hampshire born James Shirley, his 48 year old second wife from Massachusetts, Adeline Quincy and their three children - 20 year old Frederick Edward, 18 year old Alice Eugenia and 15 year old Robert. The Shirleys were well integrated into Mississippi society and economy before secession. But they remained loyal unionists.

As secession fever spread, James wrote his brother back in New Hampshire, “Our Governor....is ready and willing to tear this little, no-account, dirty Union to tatters.” Still, like General Tracy, James had noticed the citizens of Vicksburg were not enthusiastic about a war. “...banks are curtailing their discounts – drawing in their circulation....money has become scarce; capitalists have withdrawn their funds; all kinds of property has depreciated in value...” Young Fred had even proudly announced that he would rather serve Abraham Lincoln for 20 years than Jefferson Davis for 2 hours. The response of their neighbors was a viable threat of lynching. So Fred had been shipped north to Indiana for everyone's safety. But James stayed to protect his investment, part of which were his slaves.

At the opposite end of the political spectrum was 45 year old Emma Harrison Balfour. An ardent secessionist, Emma had been born in Virginia, come to Mississippi with her first husband, and after his death married Doctor William Balfours in 1847. 

They raised 5 children in their home, at 102 Crawford Street, at the corner of Cherry - 15 year old Louise, 12 year old Willie, 10 year old Alice, 8 year old Emma and 3 year old Annie. It was one of the finest residences in Vicksburg, where the Balfours hosted an 1862 Christmas Eve ball to celebrate the defeat of Grant's December invasion of Mississippi.

But that gay occasion had been interrupted by word of the Yankee Fleet entering the mouth of the Yazoo River, on their way to the battle of Chickasaw Bluffs. Day after day Grant's noose around Vicksburg tightened. Now that disunion had been declared, now that blood had been shed, now that treason had been committed, it was no longer possible that slavery would be left alone.

During the later 1840's, still a slave, Elizabeth Hobbs Kirkland had managed to establish a tiny enterprise as a seamstress and pattern cutter in Vicksburg. With her earnings she helped to support her oppressors, and then in 1852 Elizabeth  bought her and her son's freedom for $1,200 – worth $34,000.00 today.  

During the next decade she moved to Washington, D.C., and because of her skills and ambition, was eventually introduced to Mary Todd Lincoln, the President's wife. She made dresses for the First lady, and Lizzie and Mary became friends. And by her very existence Elizabeth Hobbs Kirkland was living disproof of the lies, sins and horrors created to justify slavery and white supremacy.

From its inception, the Confederacy was not only impractical and immoral, it was a cruel and inhumane fraud, perpetrated at the expense of both blacks and whites. And both races paid a heavy price for it even before the war.  And the price in the city of Vicksburg was about to go even higher.

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