S cars left upon the face of Mississippi by the Civil War healed long ago. Fortifications, scraped raw by battle, rest

under rolling blankets of green. But nothing

is forgotten. Markers and monuments line

paths carved by the passage of thousands of

soldiers. And during this, the second year of

the sesquicentennial of the Civil War, battles

that raged from one corner of the state to the

other are remembered through reenactments,

living-history programs and tours of homes

once used as military headquarters or hospitals.

The year 1862 brought the forces of the Union

Army down on Mississippi in places such as

Chickasaw Bayou, Holly Springs, Iuka, and,

most significantly, Corinth and Vicksburg.

Corinth stood at the junction of two major

railroads. After the Confederates lost at

Shiloh in April 1862 and retreated to Corinth,

Gen. Ulysses S. Grant’s army laid siege

to the town. Stories of Union occupation

and a failed attempt by the Confederates

to retake Corinth that October are told

through interactive exhibits, video and

full-scale reproductions of earthworks at

the Corinth Civil War Interpretive Center. A

21-site Civil War Trail through town includes

homes that served as headquarters for

Confederate and Union generals, and part

of the Beauregard Line, a line of earthworks

that stretched for seven and a half miles.

In Vicksburg, during an 1862 Christmas

Eve ball at the Balfour House, a courier

arrived saying that a flotilla of Union boats

was coming down the river. Confederate

Civil War Sesquicentennial in Mississippi

Battle sites, reenactments

and living-history programs mark the 150th anniversary

of the nation’s most epic struggle.

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