Greenwood, Mississippi

bdtex

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Regtl. Quartermaster Chickamauga 2018 Vicksburg 2019
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Jul 21, 2015
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Texas
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Greenwood,Mississippi is mentioned and discussed in a number of other CWT threads. I searched and made sure there were no other threads devoted specifically and solely to Greenwood. Finding none,here's mine. I have been wanting to visit Greenwood since my first visit to Vicksburg in February 2017. Did a little research on the Vicksburg Campaign before going and Greenwood/Fort Pemberton was somewhere in the research. Looked for and found more information on it after that Vicksburg trip. The opportunity to go there as part of my trip to Vicksburg with our CWT group a little over a week ago presented itself and I couldn't pass it up.
 
Before our CWT Invades Vicksburg 2019 Tour began,I read this book:

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I recently reviewed it here in CWT and recommend it to anybody visiting Greenwood for its Civil War history:


 
Our member @DixieRifles was on the Vicksburg Tour and he and I had arranged to meet up in Greenwood on the Sunday afternoon after our Vicksbug tour ended. Greenwood is an hour and 40 minutes north of Vicksburg as the Google Maps' crow flies. He got there before me,but I arrived shortly before 4pm which was my target time. That left about 2.5 hours of daylight for sightseeing. if you ever get a chance to tour Greenwood with DixieRifles,take it. He's a very nice guy and he knows the town. The first stop after we saddled up was Fort Pemberton Memorial Park and I couldn't have been happier about that.

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To be continued...
 
In the background behind the monument in the picture above is an embankment. A few feet past the other side of the embankment is the Tallahatchie River. Seemed to me the river was high but I've never been there before and I am not sure that the rivers in the Mississippi Delta even have a normal level.

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In Fort Pemberton Memorial Park is a concrete base and a marker where the cannon known as the "Lady Polk" used to be. According to DixieRifles, the cannon was stolen some years back but it was recovered. The thief hooked it up to his truck and drug it away but the carriage wheels left ruts and searchers found it by following the ruts. :D

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The river was high but not flood stage. You could see how fast it was flowing. When we were at the Court House, we walked out onto the bridge and could see the whirl pools — and they were in the middle of the river and not created by a bridge pylon.

During summer, the river drops and can drop really low. My brother—9 years older— said he could see the remains of the Star of the West when the river got really low.

@bdtex had a hard time understanding how the Tallahatchie met up with the Yalobusha and made a hairpin turn to form the Yazoo River. He didnt have his book with maps. I used my GPS but the rivers didnt show up clearly. Finally had to draw it on a napkin.
 
About 7 miles from dowtown Greenwood, was the location of Teoc Plantation. It belonged to the McCain family— as in Senator John McCain of Arizona.
This link has a brief history but there is one error. Senator McCain’s ancestor did not die fighting in the War. I had to eat some crow as I once believed this and even included it in my talks. There was a McCain by the same name who was in my ancestors 5th Miss Cavalry, so I bragged about it. The lie was also spread by Dr Gates on the PBS show about finding your roots. The man was rich and his occupation was listed as physician. Surely he wouldnt serve as a private.

Teoc Plantation
 
In Fort Pemberton Memorial Park is a concrete base and a marker where the cannon known as the "Lady Polk" used to be. According to DixieRifles, the cannon was stolen some years back but it was recovered. The thief hooked it up to his truck and drug it away but the carriage wheels left ruts and searchers found it by following the ruts. :D

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I desperately want to see someone try that with the Widow Blakely....
 
The river was high but not flood stage. You could see how fast it was flowing. When we were at the Court House, we walked out onto the bridge and could see the whirl pools — and they were in the middle of the river and not created by a bridge pylon.

During summer, the river drops and can drop really low. My brother—9 years older— said he could see the remains of the Star of the West when the river got really low.

@bdtex had a hard time understanding how the Tallahatchie met up with the Yalobusha and made a hairpin turn to form the Yazoo River. He didnt have his book with maps. I used my GPS but the rivers didnt show up clearly. Finally had to draw it on a napkin.
Your assistance in getting and keeping me directionally oriented was greatly appreciated. I know I can be a pain in the rear with that but I have to put a lot of effort into that when studying battles and visiting battlefields. It is just not something that comes naturally to me.
 
. I know I can be a pain in the rear with that but I have to put a lot of effort into that when studying battles and visiting battlefields.

Not a problem. I get confused or forget how these rivers weave across the state and sometimes come close to one another. You are like me— you gotta have a map of the battle to see the events.
 
In the last picture I posted above,you see what I recall being SH82 on the left. It is a 4 lane divided highway and cuts right through part of what used to be Fort Pemberton. Before we rolled out from the hotel,I offered to drive my truck and let DixieRifles navigate. He graciously refused and offered to drive and so off we went. We crossed SH82 in DixieRifles' ride to go to the remnants of Fort Pemberton on the other side. After you cross the highway you take the first right onto a crushed shell road. Can't go very far because there is a Corps Of Engineers gate there. Oddly enough, there's no fence there though. Past the gate is a levee running perpendicular to the road. Don't know what is on the other side of the levee. Wish I had taken a couple of pictures so y'all could see what I am trying to describe. We parked the car on the road and headed into the brush to the left. My chest was a thumpin' y'all.
 
On that side of the road,the remnants of Fort Pemberton are larger than I expected for whatever reason. My pictures don't really do it justice in terms of height and length. I guess the one with me in it gives it a little bit of scale. I had a blast out there. Not sure I would have been able to find it if I hadn't been with DixieRifles.

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Greenwood,Mississippi is mentioned and discussed in a number of other CWT threads. I searched and made sure there were no other threads devoted specifically and solely to Greenwood. Finding none,here's mine. I have been wanting to visit Greenwood since my first visit to Vicksburg in February 2017. Did a little research on the Vicksburg Campaign before going and Greenwood/Fort Pemberton was somewhere in the research. Looked for and found more information on it after that Vicksburg trip. The opportunity to go there as part of my trip to Vicksburg with our CWT group a little over a week ago presented itself and I couldn't pass it up.
Greenwood is a nice little town, and as you point out very historical. I like the crepe myrtles in the background of your picture. I tried looking on the internet to see if there was any info connecting the 12 pounder Blakely in the museum there at Greenwood with the actual battle at Fort Pemberton, but didn't find anything. You will recall someone on CWT had said the folks in Greenwood had bought the Blakely in the 1930's or something like that. Were you able to hear anything one way or the other while you were there?
 
Greenwood is a nice little town, and as you point out very historical. I like the crepe myrtles in the background of your picture. I tried looking on the internet to see if there was any info connecting the 12 pounder Blakely in the museum there at Greenwood with the actual battle at Fort Pemberton, but didn't find anything. You will recall someone on CWT had said the folks in Greenwood had bought the Blakely in the 1930's or something like that. Were you able to hear anything one way or the other while you were there?
Until today,all I knew was from the signage in the Museum which I am gonna post later in the thread. I found a YouTube video today which I was gonna post later in the thread too but now is a good time since you asked about the cannon. The first few minutes are about the cannon. I haven't watched all the video yet but I plan to. According to the video,it was there in the war. Haven't been able to determine where.

 
It would have been nice to have had a little more time at Fort Pemberton. Don't know what I would've done except maybe walk a little deeper into the woods to see what I could see. Again,the pictures I posted don't really do justice to the height and length of the remnants of Fort Pemberton on that side of SH82. According to the video I posted above,the fort was about 300 yards long and ran in a zig-zag configuration from northeast to southwest. The base of it was 14 feet of solid earth. On top of that,the engineers and builders placed 6 feet of cotton bales and covered them with dirt,so the total wartime height of the outer walls would've been 21-23 feet high. As the video also describes,there were no flood control levees/canals/reservoirs etc. in the Mississippi Delta then like there is now so the ground in front of the fort was often muddy at best and sometimes underwater itself. I'm glad I got the pictures that I got. There was a pretty sharp fight there between the Confederate gun crews and the Union warships. The Union forces were able to get some troops ashore on the Tallahatchie River and set up a shore battery but they were too outgunned to change the outcome. Anyway,that sure was a memorable time out there at Fort Pemberton with @DixieRifles .
 
Greenwood is the county seat of Leflore County,Mississippi. As DixieRifles posted earlier,we went to the LeFlore County Courthouse after leaving Fort Pemberton. After we parked,we first went to the bridge over the river about a half-block away. I don't recall whether it's technically the Yazoo River or Yalobusha River at that point. Regardless,it was as DixieRifles described earlier. The river was up,the current was pretty swift and whirlpools were intermittently visible the entire time we stood there. After visiting the USS Cairo at Vicksburg NMP the day before and noting it's size, it is amazing to me that the Union brown-water Navy was able to operate in the Tallahatchie,Yalobusha and Yazoo Rivers. After reading about the Yazoo River Expedition and visiting Fort Pemberton,it is not surprising to me that the Union forces were repulsed there in the manner they were. Pretty much the same thing happened at the Battle Of Sabine Pass 6 months later.

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Greenwood,Mississippi is mentioned and discussed in a number of other CWT threads. I searched and made sure there were no other threads devoted specifically and solely to Greenwood. Finding none,here's mine. I have been wanting to visit Greenwood since my first visit to Vicksburg in February 2017. Did a little research on the Vicksburg Campaign before going and Greenwood/Fort Pemberton was somewhere in the research. Looked for and found more information on it after that Vicksburg trip. The opportunity to go there as part of my trip to Vicksburg with our CWT group a little over a week ago presented itself and I couldn't pass it up.
Is the Cottonlandia Museum still there?
 
Greenwood is the county seat of Leflore County,Mississippi. As DixieRifles posted earlier,we went to the LeFlore County Courthouse after leaving Fort Pemberton. After we parked,we first went to the bridge over the river about a half-block away. I don't recall whether it's technically the Yazoo River or Yalobusha River at that point. Regardless,it was as DixieRifles described earlier. The river was up,the current was pretty swift and whirlpools were intermittently visible the entire time we stood there. After visiting the USS Cairo at Vicksburg NMP the day before and noting it's size, it is amazing to me that the Union brown-water Navy was able to operate in the Tallahatchie,Yalobusha and Yazoo Rivers. After reading about the Yazoo River Expedition and visiting Fort Pemberton,it is not surprising to me that the Union forces were repulsed there in the manner they were. Pretty much the same thing happened at the Battle Of Sabine Pass 6 months later.

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Well, the one thing to keep in mind too is that when the Corps of Engineers built a massive levee system along the Mississippi River it prevented the river from meandering. The water flow became narrow and swift, which meant the inland rivers like the Yazoo and Big Black drained much quicker and thus remain at a lower average level today than it did during the war.

Sometimes it’s hard to imagine rivers like the Big Black, for example, could sustain river traffic so far upstream. But before the Mississippi River levee system, the Mississippi flowed much slower and wider which backed up the rivers like the Yazoo and Big Black, making it easier for steamboats to operate.
 
Is the Cottonlandia Museum still there?
It's now the "Museum Of The Mississippi Delta". It is very much still there and I have plenty to post about it later in the thread. I went there when it opened on the Monday morning after our Vicksburg tour before rolling out homeward bound.
 
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