On to Vicksburg

After Port Gibson, Grant's orders were to take Grand Gulf, then move south to help Nathaniel Banks reduce Port Hudson, which would have put him under a senior general and given Banks the credit. Banks was not ready, so Grant chose to strike Vicksburg on his own, knowing a message to Washington could take eight days to be answered. His scouts found good Confederate ground south of the city, so he turned east instead, aiming three corps at the railroad through Edwards Station, Midway and Clinton. Grand Gulf, abandoned by the Confederates, became a Union supply point.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Windsor Ruins — 7.8 mi
  Twenty-three standing Corinthian columns left by an 1890 fire, the largest antebellum mansion in Mississippi, built with enslaved labor on a 2,600-acre cotton plantation.
• Lake Bruin State Park — 10 mi
  A state park on a Mississippi River oxbow near St. Joseph, named for a territorial judge who owned a plantation beside it, on a former fish hatchery site.
• Alcorn State University and Oakland Memorial Chapel — 12 mi
  The 1871 Reconstruction college on the old Oakland College campus, first led by Hiram Revels, with the 1838 chapel built by Black craftsmen.
• Old Court House Museum — 24 mi
  Vicksburg's Greek Revival courthouse of 1860, raised on a hilltop with the labor of enslaved artisans and now a private local-history museum heavy on Confederate relics.

More markers nearby

• Grand Gulf — steps away
• Site of the Hermitage — 5.8 mi
• Claiborne County — 6.4 mi
• First Baptist M.B. Church — 6.5 mi