Vicksburg National Cemetery

Vicksburg National Military Park preserves the site of the American Civil War Battle of Vicksburg, waged from May 18 to July 4, 1863. The park includes 1,325 historic monuments and markers, 20 miles of historic trenches and earthworks. It also includes the Vicksburg National Cemetery which holds the remains of 17,000 Civil War Union soldiers, a number unmatched by any other national cemetery. The whole Park is beautifully laid out and the cemetery is high on a bluff overlooking the Yazoo River. Like the British war Graves cemeteries in France and Belgium the formal ordered beauty of these settings can make one forget the chaos, horror and carnage of a battlefield.

 

I was reminded of that fine poem by Robert Lowell, For the Union dead written in 1960, two verses quoted below

 

On a thousand small town New England greens,

the old white churches hold their air

of sparse, sincere rebellion; frayed flags

quilt the graveyards of the Grand Army of the Republic.

 

The stone statues of the abstract Union Soldier

grow slimmer and younger each year--

wasp-waisted, they doze over muskets

and muse through their sideburns . . .

 

For the Union Dead

Robert Lowell, 1917 - 1977

 

 

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