Vicksburg.........Without Reverse

In March of 2011, my wife and I visited Vicksburg for a few days.  It is technically the closest National Battlefield Park to where we live, but it is still a 7-8 hour drive.  We stayed at a very nice plantation home where General Grant slept following the surrender.  In fact, you can even book the room he slept in AND sleep in the same bed that he did.  (I would assume that it isn't the original mattress!)

We drove out to the battlefield to begin our tour.  My wife's car is a standard and somewhere around tour stop Number 3, she said that it wasn't going into reverse.  We decided to drive back to Cedar Grove and take a look. Sure enough, it was missing a bolt.  The people were nice enough to recommend a mechanic on the outside of town.  He took a look at it and was able to order the part.  Naturally, someone had to drive over to Jackson to pick it up!

Since the part wouldn't be there until later that afternoon, we were faced with a bit of a dilemma.  We had to leave the next day to head home.  Our whole point in going in the first place was to visit the battlefield.  So we did what any Civil War Addict would do.  I said "Damn the reverse gear!  Full steam ahead!"  Luckily given the terrain, we were able to tour the entire battlefield without reverse.  We just had to be careful where and how we parked.  Generally speaking, we could just roll out of the space if we parked on an incline.  The part arrived that afternoon and they fixed it for us.

I must say that everyone was a big help.  From the staff at Cedar Grove who helped diagnose the problem to the person who drove over to Jackson to pick up the part we needed.  I've been to Vicksburg several times and the citizens go out of their way to make you feel welcome.

My name is Lee Hutch and I am a Civil War Addict.