We spent our Martin Luther King holiday exploring history. First we went to Poverty Point in far northeast Louisiana (the near-by town is Epps). This World Heritage Site has amazing mounds and C-shaped concentric ridges formed by a civilization from 1650 to 1100 BC. It was especially unusual to have such a large area of building created by a hunter-gatherer people rather than an agricultural group.
Here is a description from the web-site:
Centuries ago, when Stonehenge was built and Queen Nefertiti ruled Egypt, American Indians were building earthen monuments in north Louisiana. Hand by hand and basketful by basketful, men and women shaped nearly 2 million cubic yards of soil into stunning landscapes. The result was a massive 72-foot-tall mound, enormous concentric half-circles and related earthworks that dwarfed every other earthen monument site for 2,200 years.
The amount of forethought and organization needed to build Poverty Point without the aid of modern instruments, domesticated animals or even wheeled carts must have been staggering. And for what reason? We still do not know, but clues are constantly being revealed. Archaeologists have much to work with, as millions of artifacts were found at the site. Domestic tools, human figurines and tons of stones from up to 800 miles away have led to speculation that Poverty Point was an ancient residential, trade and ceremonial center.
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| Arial view and graphic of the area |
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| Mound A--the largest and most elaborately shaped of the mounds on this site |
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| Stairway to top of Mound A and markers for one of many circular ritual sites |
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| Some of the artifacts recovered at the site |
During the Civil War, the Mississippi River was critical to the success of the North or the South, and until Vicksburg fell, it was helping to keep the South's two halves together. Abraham Lincoln said Vicksburg was "the key!! The war can never be brought to a close until that key is in our pocket." From May 18 to July 4, 1863, General Grant led a siege on Vicksburg that finally ended in the city surrendering . The memorial park includes a 16-mile drive that takes you through areas held by either the Confederates (noted by red markers) or Union forces (noted by blue markers). The park is full of monuments and regimental markers. It's staggering how many men lost their lives in this war.
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| Some of the monuments erected by states to honor their dead |
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| Of the 17,000 Union soldiers buried here, 13,00 are unknown--some veterans of Spanish-American, World Wars I and II, and Korean Conflict are also buried here; Confederates who died during the siege are buried in a cemetery near-by |
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| The Cairo |
Within the park is the USS Cairo Museum. The Cairo was one of the Union's gunboats, an ironclad warship. In 1862 it was going up the Yazoo River, north of Vicksburg, to destroy Confederate batteries when it was sunk by two quick explosions. No crew members were hurt, but the boat sank almost immediately and was encapsulated in silt, mud, and sand. The crew had no time to gather any belongings, so the goods stayed in the boat until it was salvaged in the 1960s. Those artifacts are fascinating, and much of the original gunboat is preserved (and the rest reconstructed) at this museum. Another enlightening and educational day in the South!!
Tuesday we had the eight young missionaries in our district over for dinner because the transfer was Wednesday. We lost three elders and gained three--two in Alexandria and one in Marksville.
It was great to see our men in Oakdale prison again on Wednesday after the lock-down the previous week. Pollock prison was on lock-down again this week, so we couldn't see that inmate.
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