El Camino Real and the Natchez Trace

[Don P]

On our way home from Texas my brother in law, knowing my penchant for shunpiking, suggested a fun drive. We took the route of the old spanish El Camino Real to Natchez, then turned up the Natchez Trace. We dawdled at several spots along the way, one held a special place for me, we turned into Vicksburg and visited the battlefield there. If you ever go and have the complete name of an ancestor who fought there, they do have a database and will print out the records.

On the drive through the memorial they have preserved the remains of the ironclad Cairo. She was sunk by a Confederate mine in the first use of an electrically detonated torpedo in 1862. In the first picture the damage is in the port bow below the waterline.

She sank in twelve minutes to the muddy river bottom with no hands lost and was raised in the 60's. The speed of the sinking and the conditions on the riverbed had preserved many items and much of the ship. This is a shot of of part of the running gear for the paddlewheel and a section of the hull. The frame was planked in oak, the decks were in white pine, above the waterline she was clad in 2.5" of rolled iron made in shiplapped "planks". The impact of more than a few cannon balls was clearly visible in the iron. The upper pilot house was clad in 1" thick iron. Due to the weight of the iron they left the hull unprotected below the waterline.


Inside the museum they had many of the artifacts recovered and an explanation of their preservation efforts, that's where I perked up 




The woodwork had been borated and treated with PEG as well as phenolic resins to stabilize it.


As we continued from there on the drive through the battlefield we rounded a corner that brought us to a crossing of the front line between the armies. There stood a very large racked 6 pointer, we both froze for some moments before he trotted off into the brush. It caused a pause and a moment's reflection as I crossed the lines. Sometimes...

The towns along the river have some truly beautiful architecture, I plan to do that again.

[Radar67]

I've been there many times. Each time you return, you find something new around the corner. I have an old book with pictures of the battlefield during the war. It helps to find things not seen from the beaten path.  ;)

[Don P]

In Lufkin, Tx we stopped in at the Texas Museum of Forestry. They have a good exhibit of some of the botanical drawings from the Lewis and Clark expedition.

Then there was the saw room  ;D
These are some early chainsaws


This is a backpack mounted tree girdler, the flex shaft drives a cutterhead that makes a notch like the one in the chunk on top of the machine


A steam engine, a great big steam engine  ;D. The building is constructed using parallel chord trusses. For those that have been following the thread on the TF board notice the sizes/bolt counts/ loading at panel points and basic design of the trusses, they are spliced at midpoint. Nicely done.


An early timber cart


A High Wheel logging cart, it was also called a katy-did around here but the girl at the museum didn't know that name there.


Outside they had some nice old iron, a Franklin skidder


An Atlas bog arch for soft bottom land


A hand cranked derrick crane for use on railway bridges. It could lift 30' timbers of up to 800 lbs


I ran out of disc, there was alot more there, well worth the stop if you're ever near there.

[Corley5]

I want that old Franklin  ;D 8)

[Don P]

That thing is a nice size, you'll be needing a battery at least  ;D

Stew, what is the title?
We were only there for a few hours and it took that amount of time pretty much constantly driving to get a feel for the layout. The driving tour does a good job but you are right, there are many areas I still could only guess at. I kept wondering what the vegitation was like then.

One of the towns we drove into was Port Gibson, some nice old houses there. We really should have taken 2 or 3 days just to go up the trace. I finally decided to get off and go into Muscle Shoals about 100 miles from the north end. It turned dark on us and the deer were really active.

This is a cypress swamp in an old stranded oxbow off the Pearl River.


I haven't explained the Natchez Trace for those who aren't familiar. It was the walking or horseback path back northward after a trip delivering goods by boat down the Mississippi. The boat was usually sold for lumber, there's more than one bargeboard house down in southern Louisiana. The trace was safer and better maintained than trying to go cross country with a pocket full of money. There were small inns called stands along the way. With the advent of the steamship its use declined greatly.

[Radar67]

The name is "Vicksburg National Military Park, Mississippi" by William C. Everhart.

It is actually a National Park Service Historical Handbook, Series No. 21, printed in Washington, DC 1954. My copy was a reprint from 1968. The US Government Printing Office Number is 1968-O-328-347.

Most of the battlefield pictures in the book are void of trees and vegetation. There are some pictures of areas a bit further out that show cypress stands and sporadic oak stands.

Do you remember the White House (Shirley House) where the surrender took place? To the right of it (if you are standing in front of it) the forested hill of present day was void of all trees. The soldiers of the 45th Illinois dug caves in the hillside to protect them from mortar fire. The Shirley House is the only surviving structure from the civil war.

[Texas Ranger]

Shoot, Don, you were only 45 minutes away from a free beee,,,,er cup of coffee when you were in Lufkin.  We have made the Naches Trace and Vicksburg on trips into Tennessee to visit friends, and the Cairo and the battlefield are indeed worth the trip.  On the Trace outside of Jackson, Miss, there is a state craft museum that we stop at and usually pick up turned wood.  All in all, good trip, and good post.

Oh, and that Little Beaver girdler was built by Haynes manufacturing, here in Livingston, still in business after at least 60 years.

[pineywoods]

Just keep in mind that the Natchez trace is a national park. The 50 mph speed limit is rigidly enforced by park rangers. Watch out for bicycle riders  in the daylight hours and deer everywhere after dark. It's a beautiful drive in the spring when the dogwoods are in bloom

[Don P]

I was thankful for cruise control, I just set it and kicked back. Gravity tends to pull my big feet down after awhile  :D. We did have one good scare right at what I call 'spooky time". A road warrior stepped out to pass us and didn't see the oncoming unlit car. It is a road best driven in daylight. It was generally all ours most of the way with a little traffic around towns.

We were kind of making it up as we went Don. We didn't have a computer, I was wondering how many forum folks I was driving near. I'll look you up next trip through. We (ok, me) had taken so long in Vicksburg that we passed by the craft gallery. I wanted to stop at the iron mine and works near the north end of the Trace as well.

We also had a fun side trip inside your state. After an enjoyable stop in the little town of Shiner we were on the riverwalk in San Antonio when the A&M and Penn State bands were playing and floating by on barges. While there we visited the botanical gardens, the Alamo and Mission San Jose. From there went to Corpus Christi, the USS Lexington and aquarium and North Padre Island, then down to Brownsville, South Padre, Laguna Atacosta NWR and Sabal Palm Audubon Center. Got stopped, sniffed and scrutinized by some friendly young men from the border patrol on the way back up to Corpus, my dogs were bigger than theirs  :D. We then stopped in Rockport and Fulton then the Aransas NWR, saw pintails, avocets, egrets, roseated spoonbills, and whooping cranes. I look forward to exploring more in the future.

Stew, Yes I remember coming up to, around and out the other side of the Shirley house and the woods there. I suspected many of the viewsheds on the battlefield were more open. Hard to imagine staring down the barrel of a cannon basically point blank. In places the lines were within mighty few feet of each other.