At Least Five Civil War Ancestral Relatives Have Their Names in Bronze

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From a Vicksburg Mississippi website:

The Vicksburg National Military Park, established by Congress on February 21, 1899, commemorates the campaign, siege, and defense of Vicksburg during the Civil War. The 1,800 acres of the park are dotted with over 1,300 monuments, the most impressive being the Illinois Monument, which was dedicated on October 26, 1906 and modeled after the Roman Pantheon. On its walls are 60 bronze tablets which record the names of the 36,325 Illinois soldiers who participated in the Vicksburg campaign. 

On those bronze tablets are the names of at least five of my ancestral relatives, most notably my gg-grandfather Pvt. George Hall (1845-1908) --

-- Three other more distant ancestral relatives 3xg-uncle Pvt. Josiah McKee (1844-1921), and First Cousin 4x removed Pvt. Levi W. Hall (1841-1923) and First Cousin 4x removed Pvt. William P. Lamphier (1839-1865)  --

 

 -- And finally we have the ancestral relative of whom I am the most proud,  2xg-uncle Capt. Harvey J. Dutton (1836-1928), who was only a Lieutenant at Vicksburg.  He was also shot in the leg in the battle and kept fighting --

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-- The Battles of Gettysburg and Vicksburg were both completed on the same date -- July 4, 1863.  The Battle of Gettysburg got most of the attention from the press at the time for a number of reasons, including that it involved the defeat of the great General Robert E. Lee, and happened closer to Washington D.C.  But arguably, the Battle of Vicksburg was much more important to the ultimate Union victory.  Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's victory at Vicksburg gave the Union Army control of the entire Mississippi River, and cut off the Confederate deep south from the supplies of the commodity-rich southwestern states like Texas.

Copyright © 2020 by Kevin W. Walker