Month of the Marlins
The summer (as always) has just flown by...We've managed to spend a little time picking blueberries at a friend's home east of Monticello. On the Fourth of July, we traveled to Vicksburg to mark the holiday--as well as the 152nd anniversary of the Union victory there... Vicksburg was a critical battle in the Civil War in the western theater, as it secured the Mississippi River for the Union. After a long siege, the Confederates surrendered to General U.S. Grant. As I'm sure most of y'all know with the recent Confederate battle flag flap, Southerners are proud of their resistance during the Civil War. No clearer is this pride in the monuments that have been erected on many of the battlefields, including this one for Alabama troops at Vicksburg: And I believe this was a monument to Texas soldiers: The glory displayed in these monuments belies both the suffering of the soldiers (on both sides of this war), the trauma to the civilian pop...