Natchez, MS
Another day in Vicksburg. No great insights today. But I’ll share a funny story:
The Old Court House Museum in Vicksburg is a National Treasure. The place is a randomly arranged collection of miscellanea curated with a decidedly southern and anecdotal perspective. They have, for instance, one of the first Teddy Bears created after a story leaked out about Theodore Roosevelt’s compassion during a bear-hunting trip in the Mississippi canebrakes. They have the bullet which impregnated a local woman by embedding itself in her womanly parts after passing through a soldier’s manly parts.
My favorite, and something I didn’t notice if it was even there the last time is the story about the staircase. There are a great many cast-iron furnishings in the courthouse, everything from the judge’s bench to the court railings and the staircase to the second floor is cast-iron and all of those bits came from northern foundries before the War. This particular staircase is labeled “Cincinnati, Ohio” on each step and the little laminated sign on the wall next to the stairs says that on “. . . July 4 1863 Union soldiers flocked into the building, and a group of drunken staff officers climbed the stairway, singing and waving a captured signal flag. When one of them looked down and saw the name and city of the Northern manufacturer, he cursed ‘the impudence of the people who thought they could whip the United States when they couldn’t even make their own staircases.’
Damned skippy.