Tom Hughes
Sergeant Major
- Joined
- May 27, 2019
- Location
- Mississippi
About 15 years ago, the town of Clinton, MS wanted to put a rest stop/visitor center to introduce visitors to our town. It's located at Milepost 89 on the Natchez Trace.
The building itself is designed to look like an early 19th century tavern/stand that would have entertained travelers on the Trace.
There is a nice collection of artifacts from Clinton and Champion Hill on display here.
Here's an 1858 model Remington revolver that was found when a local lake dropped below levels when a drought hit us a few years ago. It's been nicely preserved. The guy that found this was actually using a metal detector to locate a friend's car keys and ended up finding this instead!!
These two .58 calibre minie balls actually collided in mid-air during the battle of Champion Hill on May 16, 1863. To find collided bullets like this is VERY rare indeed.
This display features a pretty cool-looking single-shot percussion pistol found near Bolton, MS (near Clinton).
The only complete shell shown in the collection at the visitor center is this one. It's a 3 inch Hotchkiss shell nose with a paper-timed fuze adapter. The grooves you see on the side of the shell allowed flames from the cannon detonation to channel up the side of the shell and ignite the paper fuze which protruded from the copper adapter in the nose of the shell.
Minie balls of all descriptions lie about in the glass displays. Several of these show evidence of being "wormed".
Thanks for letting me share some of the relics from this center. It's well worth a visit if you are ever heading down the Trace in Mississippi.
I found this written on a notecard in one of the cases and it struck me as profound. Please let me share it here:
"We cannot relive yesterday, but we can preserve tomorrow by keeping alive mementos and memories past - so that the future can enjoy and remember the way history was made."
-Unknown-
The building itself is designed to look like an early 19th century tavern/stand that would have entertained travelers on the Trace.
There is a nice collection of artifacts from Clinton and Champion Hill on display here.
Here's an 1858 model Remington revolver that was found when a local lake dropped below levels when a drought hit us a few years ago. It's been nicely preserved. The guy that found this was actually using a metal detector to locate a friend's car keys and ended up finding this instead!!
These two .58 calibre minie balls actually collided in mid-air during the battle of Champion Hill on May 16, 1863. To find collided bullets like this is VERY rare indeed.
This display features a pretty cool-looking single-shot percussion pistol found near Bolton, MS (near Clinton).
The only complete shell shown in the collection at the visitor center is this one. It's a 3 inch Hotchkiss shell nose with a paper-timed fuze adapter. The grooves you see on the side of the shell allowed flames from the cannon detonation to channel up the side of the shell and ignite the paper fuze which protruded from the copper adapter in the nose of the shell.
Minie balls of all descriptions lie about in the glass displays. Several of these show evidence of being "wormed".
Thanks for letting me share some of the relics from this center. It's well worth a visit if you are ever heading down the Trace in Mississippi.
I found this written on a notecard in one of the cases and it struck me as profound. Please let me share it here:
"We cannot relive yesterday, but we can preserve tomorrow by keeping alive mementos and memories past - so that the future can enjoy and remember the way history was made."
-Unknown-