A Yankee Family Heads to Dixie

I awoke at 5:30 this morning, too excited to sleep any longer.  All I could think about was our upcoming Southern vacation.  Our six-day adventure will start and end in Memphis and include visits to Shiloh National Military Park, New Orleans, Natchez, Miss., and Vicksburg National Military Park.

I’ve already been to all those places except for Shiloh.  I had a reporting internship at the Natchez Democrat the summer after my sophomore year in college, and I returned in the fall of 1990, after graduating from Drake University, to work at the newspaper for a year.  During that year, I met a woman who told me, “Once you’ve touched the red clay of Mississippi, it stays with you.  You’ll be back.”  She was right.  Steve and I last visited Natchez in April 1997, with 1-year-old Louisa in tow, on the way to a medical conference in Texas.  This will be the first visit for Sebastian and Elias.

Louisa and Steve in front of Rosalie in Natchez, Miss., in 1997.  Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant set up temporary headquarters here during the Civil War.

Founded in 1716 by French colonists, Natchez is known for its many antebellum mansions and its location on the Mississippi River.  It wasn’t burned during the Civil War; the town surrendered to Union troops.  Gen. Ulysses S. Grant set up temporary headquarters at Rosalie, a home high on the river bluff, after the fall of Vicksburg in 1863.

Vicksburg is only about 75 miles from Natchez, so it was an easy day trip when I lived in Natchez.  I have visited the battlefield there twice, once with my parents and once with Steve.  I didn’t know either time that it held significance for the Riggs family.

It wasn’t until I started researching the life of my great-grandfather, G. Oliver Riggs, that I learned two surprising things: 1) G. Oliver’s father, Jasper Riggs, fought at Vicksburg, and at Shiloh, with the 45th Illinois Infantry, Co. I; and 2) G. Oliver traveled to both Vicksburg and Shiloh in November 1906 with an Iowa delegation that dedicated the Iowa memorials at both parks.  G. Oliver was living in Crookston, Minn., at the time, but he was invited to play cornet in the 51st/55th Iowa Regimental Band, directed by his longtime friend, Maj. George Landers.  The delegation also traveled to Andersonville and Chickmauga and Chattanooga.

This photo of the band was taken in front of the Rossville Gap/Missionary Ridge monument in Tennessee.  G. Oliver is in the front row, fourth from the right.

Steve and I have been preparing for the trip by doing some reading; he’s been reading Shelby Foote’s novel Shiloh, and I’ve been rereading parts of Tony Horwitz’s nonfiction book Confederates in the Attic.  Horwitz visited both Shiloh and Vicksburg.  In his chapter about Shiloh, he meets some people who have come to the battlefield because their ancestors fought there, and he mentions feeling envious of them, writing: “They had a blood tie to a patch of American soil that I never would.”

I admit it is with an odd mixture of pride and curiosity that I investigate this “blood tie” I have to these parks, knowing that if Jasper hadn’t survived those battles – and so many didn’t – my kids and I wouldn’t exist, and all the lives that emanated from his would be erased.  I can only speculate on what it must have felt like for my great-grandfather, G. Oliver, to visit the newly formed military parks, some 40 years after his dad fought there.

G. Oliver Riggs with his father, Jasper Riggs, in 1899.

In an effort to prepare the kids for what we’re going to see on the trip, last night we watched the parts of The Civil War: a Film by Ken Burns that mention Shiloh and Vicksburg.  I hadn’t seen the movie since it debuted on PBS in September 1990, right around the time I moved to Natchez.  The 20-year-old historical documentary was just as compelling to me now it was then, if not more so.  Louisa and Sebastian both seemed to enjoy it, which I expected.  Seb is a huge history buff, and Louisa, although not as keen on history as Seb, is always interested in a well-told story.  And Elias?  Well, he spent the last 20 minutes of the movie lying on the rug, under the coffee table, wishing we’d chosen to watch something else.

It’s Elias, the plain noodles kid, the child with a low tolerance for complicated historical explanations, who will be the wild card on this trip.  Other than the hotel pool and TV, will he find anything to interest him?  Time will tell.  When I asked him earlier what part of the experience he was most looking forward to, he replied dryly, “The trip home.”  Ouch.

In fairness, I imagine that sentiment was shared by Jasper during his time in the South.  Elias may have more in common with his great-great-great grandfather than he realizes.