The Vapors of Vicksburg

Ominous black clouds rolled across the Louisiana Delta toward the Mississippi River.

And the river did nothing to stop them.

A severe thunderstorm struck the bluffs of the City of Vicksburg right at sunset. People scattered for shelter like roaches after turning on the kitchen light.  Trees came down. Lightning flickered across the sky. Thunder boomed like the cannons in 1863.  Vicksburg was under siege once again — This time by Mother Nature herself.

The man’s car’s windshield wipers beat in a frantic rhythm, unsuccessfully trying to push back the rain.  The car radio squawked from another EBS warning from the Jackson radio station.  The man said that the storm had spun off a rare summer tornado south of town.  The hail hitting his windshield confirmed his report. He had been caught out in the middle of the Vicksburg Military Park when the storm hit.  His car was the best shelter he could find. Lightning hit a transformer nearby, knocking out the power in the whole city.  His hands gripped his steering wheel so hard his knuckles were white.

The man looked out his steamed car windows and could see the tops of the monuments through the rain and mist.  Another bolt of lightning hit a tree near the Great Redoubt. Another blast hit the Illinois Monument. A fire truck’s siren wailed in the distance.The Vicksburg Military Park was getting shelled like it hadn’t been shelled in over 148 years.

Four inches of rain fell causing streams to swell. It and the melting hail left a thick ground fog.

The man slid his car into drive and eased along the park road.  A stunned deer scampered out of it’s hiding place and into the woods.  Fog shifted like dry ice along Union Avenue.

The man turned left onto Graveyard Road to Stockade Redan.  There he heard more booming.  Was it thunder?  It couldn’t be — the storm was well on its way to Jackson by now. BOOM!  BOOM!  There it was again.  He wiped his windshield again with a hankerchief.  What he saw caused him to slam on his brakes, sending his coffee out of the cup holder and into the floor.

There were thousands of soldiers, opaque figures in the vapors and the mist, fighting.  He opened the car’s door, got out and sat on his hood.  And just watched. The fog swirled as the cannons fired repeatedly.  Men with fixed bayonets charged up the hills, only to die from another salvo of rifle fire.  Waves of men fell, round after round. Screams provided a two-part harmony with the deep sounds of the guns.  Massive explosions dotted the landscape. The man’s jaw dropped: A man on a horse came up behind him through the fog. It was the spirit of General Ulysses S. Grant.  He was holding a spy glass, a map and barking orders to a lieutenant, (who was quickly trying to scratch it down.)  Ghostly flags from both sides fluttered and fell. Fog continued to swirl.

Just then, the setting sun poked through the remaining clouds. A single beam of light burned through the fog, evaporated the troops and brought peace once again to the park. The man sat on his hood, rubbed his eyes and listened as the booming and screams surrendered to the silence.

Just then a Park Ranger pulled in behind the man and got out of his truck.  “You saw it, didn’t you?”

“Saw what?” The man didn’t want to be thought of as crazy.

The Ranger smiled and said, “It’s closing time.” He then paused, pointed out to the now-empty field and said, “And Happy Fourth of July. You know it was the day the fighting ended.”