This is the view the 26th Louisiana “enjoyed” of the Union 3rd Brigade’s position during the siege (above, left). A stone re-creation of the tunnel Brigadier General John Thayer’s Iowans built under the road for protection is visible at the bottom right of the slope (above, middle).
The Missouri State Memorial (above, right) on Confederate Avenue is unique in that the troops who fought on both sides during the Vicksburg Campaign (27 Union units, 15 Confederate) are honored on the same monument. It is located where two Missouri regiments clashed with each other at one point in the campaign.
There might not be a more dramatic monument on any NPS battlefield than the one honoring beloved Confederate Brigadier General Lloyd Tilghman at Vicksburg (above, left). Tilghman was killed by a Union cannonball at Champion Hill on May 16, 1863, so the monument’s sculptor carved a tear (above, middle) in the general’s torso to depict the moment (conveniently overlooking the reality that Tilghman was all but sliced in two by that cannonball).
The Confederates built the so-called Railroad Redoubt (above, right), to protect the approaches to the important Southern Railroad of Mississippi. In the morning of May 22, Union troops briefly captured the position before being forced out by Colonel Thomas N. Waul’s Texas Legion.
