{"id":1371,"slug":"vicksburg-national-military-park-vicksburg-mississippi","story":[{"heading":null,"paragraphs":["Vicksburg was the key Lincoln wanted in his pocket. 'See what a lot of land these fellows hold, of which Vicksburg is the key,' he told his generals — the Gibraltar of the Confederacy on the Mississippi bluffs, closing the river to the North and holding the South's halves together. Grant spent eighteen months maneuvering for it; when the May assaults failed, he settled into the siege — forty-seven days of trenches, mines, and starvation rations while the city ate mule meat and lived in caves dug into the bluffs.","The siege was the war's engineering marvel — thirteen Union approaches digging toward the Confederate works, the June 25 mine under the Third Louisiana Redan blowing a crater the infantry fought over for twenty-six hours with clubbed muskets. At Milliken's Bend, untested United States Colored Troops held the supply depot against the Confederate attempt to break the siege — the battle that proved what the Army had argued about Black soldiers.","It ended on July 4, 1863 — Pemberton surrendering under the stunted oak, the garrison paroled, the river open 'unvexed to the sea' as Lincoln put it. Paired with Gettysburg the same week, it was the turn of the war. The park preserves the whole anatomy — the Confederate lines and Union approaches facing each other across the ravines, the Cairo ironclad raised from the Yazoo, the national cemetery holding 17,000 Union dead.","Vicksburg is the archive's siege file — the 47-day encirclement that took the Gibraltar of the Confederacy on July 4, 1863, splitting the South and turning the war, on the best-preserved siege landscape in America."]},{"heading":"Why this file matters","paragraphs":["Vicksburg National Military Park is the archive's key file — the 1863 siege where Grant took the city Lincoln called 'the key,' the surrender that gave the Union the Mississippi on the same weekend as Gettysburg.","A siege that split the South keeps its trenches — the file's suggestion being that Vicksburg's hold is the forty-seven days: the parallel lines still readable in the ground, the caves, the crater, and the surrender oak where the river turned."]}],"name":"Vicksburg National Military Park","aliases":[],"type":"BATTLEFIELD","type_label":"Battlefield","cats":["DARK_HISTORY","HAUNTED_BATTLEFIELD"],"groups":["dark-history"],"desc":"Battlefield in Vicksburg; research record.","full_desc":"Vicksburg National Military Park is a battlefield in Vicksburg, Mississippi. Battlefield in Vicksburg; research record. The National Park Service interprets the 47-day siege and Union and Confederate campaigns for Vicksburg. Local lore holds that Visit Vicksburg recounts soldier apparitions, gunpowder odors and cannon smoke.","address":"3201 Clay Street","city":"Vicksburg","county":null,"state":"Mississippi","postal":"39183","region":"South","lat":32.322002,"lon":-90.881559,"coord_kind":"CITY","status":"HISTORIC_SITE","access":"UNKNOWN","access_notes":null,"ownership":null,"website":"https://www.nps.gov/vick/","phone":"601-636-0583","year_built":null,"year_opened":null,"year_closed":null,"year_demolished":null,"designation":null,"current_use":null,"research_notes":"Park-wide folklore; no particular battlefield pin. Tourism source’s approximate park-establishment chronology excluded pending original enabling records.","stage":"SOURCE_RESEARCH","quality":{"level":"MEDIUM","score":60.6,"dims":{"location_confidence":0.75,"identity_confidence":0.85,"historical_confidence":0.8,"source_quality":1,"paranormal_claim_provenance":0.8,"coordinate_confidence":0,"current_access_confidence":0,"freshness":0.65}},"claims":[{"id":614,"type":"HAUNTING","description":"Visit Vicksburg recounts soldier apparitions, gunpowder odors and cannon smoke. Old military ground in Vicksburg, Mississippi carries its dead the way it carries its walls — permanently. The story is documented as legend — recorded and retold, never verified as fact. Sources including 'Must-Visit Vicksburg Spots for Spooky Season' keep the claim in circulation. The reports keep the place on every haunted list it qualifies for.","evidence":"DOCUMENTED_LEGEND","evidence_label":"Documented legend","entity":null,"where":null,"first_report":null,"approx_date":null,"confidence":0.65,"conflict_notes":null,"source":{"name":"Must-Visit Vicksburg Spots for Spooky Season","url":"https://www.visitvicksburg.com/blog/must-visit-vicksburg-spots-for-spooky-season/","publisher":"Visit Vicksburg","type":"TOURISM","authority":3},"conflicting_source":null,"variants":[]}],"history":[{"description":"The National Park Service interprets the 47-day siege and Union and Confederate campaigns for Vicksburg. A fort with documented casualties writes its own foundation — the lore comes after. The record holds it as fact — documented, not retold. The record appears in 'History & Culture — Vicksburg National Military Park'. The entry's timeline holds it; the lore holds the rest.","evidence":"HISTORICALLY_VERIFIED","date_start":null,"date_end":null,"confidence":null,"source":{"name":"History & Culture — Vicksburg National Military Park","url":"https://www.nps.gov/vick/learn/historyculture/index.htm","publisher":"National Park Service","type":"GOVERNMENT","authority":1}}],"legends":[{"name":null,"summary":"Visit Vicksburg recounts soldier apparitions, gunpowder odors and cannon smoke. Old military ground in Vicksburg, Mississippi carries its dead the way it carries its walls — permanently. 'Must-Visit Vicksburg Spots for Spooky Season' preserves the telling; the record keeps it filed where it belongs, as lore. 'Must-Visit Vicksburg Spots for Spooky Season' carries the account. As folklore it's unkillable: the story is too good, and the place too fitting, to let go.","earliest":null,"evidence":"DOCUMENTED_LEGEND","source":{"name":"Must-Visit Vicksburg Spots for Spooky Season","url":"https://www.visitvicksburg.com/blog/must-visit-vicksburg-spots-for-spooky-season/","publisher":"Visit Vicksburg","type":"TOURISM","authority":3}}],"entities":[],"events":[],"investigations":[],"encounters":[],"media":[],"persons":[],"visitor":{"tour_availability":"Verify before visiting","notes":"Access details are unverified; research before visiting.","last_verified_at":"2026-09-18 11:32:55","source":{"name":"HauntHunt generic access guidance","url":"https://haunthunt.com/about#access-guidance","publisher":"HauntHunt editorial","type":"DIRECTORY","authority":2}},"sources":[{"name":"Must-Visit Vicksburg Spots for Spooky Season","url":"https://www.visitvicksburg.com/blog/must-visit-vicksburg-spots-for-spooky-season/","publisher":"Visit Vicksburg","type":"TOURISM","authority":3},{"name":"History & Culture — Vicksburg National Military Park","url":"https://www.nps.gov/vick/learn/historyculture/index.htm","publisher":"National Park Service","type":"GOVERNMENT","authority":1}],"conflicts":[],"wiki":{"title":"Vicksburg National Military Park","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vicksburg_National_Military_Park","desc":"American Civil War historic site","extract":"Vicksburg National Military Park preserves the site of the Siege of Vicksburg, waged from March 29 to July 4, 1863 during the American Civil War. The park, located in Vicksburg, Mississippi, flanks the Mississippi River and commemorates the greater Vicksburg campaign, which led up to the battle. Reconstructed forts and trenches evoke memories of the 47-day siege that ended in the surrender of the city. Victory here and at Port Hudson, farther south in Louisiana, gave the Union control of the Mississippi River.","img":"https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/df/Illinois_Monument.jpg/330px-Illinois_Monument.jpg?utm_source=en.wikipedia.org&utm_campaign=api&utm_content=thumbnail","score":108,"lat":32.36527778,"lon":-90.84222222},"counts":{"claims":1,"history":1,"legends":1,"entities":0,"sources":2}}