We began our day at the Cedar Hill Cemetery and Soldiers Rest. It is commonly known as City Cemetery and is the resting place for 5,000 confederate soldiers who died during the Siege of Vicksburg.
Church of the Holy Trinity (1869) was our next stop...unfortunately, we missed the tour! It contains six Tiffany stained glass windows and is on the National Register of Historic Places.
We then headed south to visit the town of Port Gibson. During The War Between the States, Port Gibson is best remembered as one of General Grant's first conquests after crossing the Mississippi River during the Vicksburg Campaign of 1863. In a famous legend, Grant reportedly stated that the town was "too beautiful to burn." He left Port Gibson mostly unscathed on his northward trek to Vicksburg.
We drove on down the road to the Windsor Ruins, a four story mansion built in 1860. It was used as a Union hospital and observation post during The War Between the States. It was destroyed by fire in 1890 by a careless smoker.
Down the road was the Bethel Presbyterian Church (1824)
It took my breath away as we turned into the drive...
The original owner, Dr. Walter Ross Wade, kept a journal of his life on the plantation that describes life before and during the Civil War. It is quite the love story for all of you romantics out there. Dr. Wade was a widower with three children who had his eye on a lovely young widow on a nearby plantation with three children of her own...(now where have I heard a story like that before?) Mrs. Mabella Chamberlain. He had the mansion built and the two married and were blessed with two more children.
A Union cannonball destroyed the kitchen and the mansion became a hospital for both sides...Mrs. Mabella helped round up the wounded and sent for a nearby doctor.
