Stockade Redan defends Graveyard Road, Vicksburg National Military Park

VICKSURG BATTLEFIELD TOUR STOP 10: STOCKADE REDAN

After leaving Fort Hill and stopping at the Tennessee Memorial and the hill manned by the 26th Louisiana Infantry, you will come to a number of monuments and markers at the corner of the tour road and Graveyard Road. There is parking here, but it is not the official parking area for the Stockade Redan stop (which is just up the street). However, most of what there is to see at the stop is located here.

Stockade Redan was part of a complex of forts that guarded Graveyard Road, a key road into Vicksburg. On the left side of Graveyard Road was a lunette: a half moon shaped fort occupied by the 27th Louisiana Infantry. On the left side of the road was the redan, a triangular-shaped fort with its point sticking out into the area of battle. The triangular shape allows occupying troops to fire into the flanks (far left and right sides) of an oncoming army. It was named the Stockade Redan because the Confederates built a poplar log stockade wall across the road connecting the lunette and the redan. Take a short walk down Graveyard Road, and when you turn around you will see the point of the redan. You can see the outline clearly in the following satellite map photo.

Satellite map of Stockade Redan

View a Union soldier would of had from the base of Stockade Redan

Climb to the top of the redan near the street corner for a good view down Graveyard Road towards the Union position (Tour Stop 5, Stockade Redan Attack), as well as a good look at the terrain the Union troops had to cross to make an attack. At the time of the battle, in addition to the stockade wall, a 7-foot deep trench lay at the base of the redan. Two frontal attacks were made on the Stockade Redan complex on May 19th and 22nd, and both failed.

View from the Confederate Stockade Redan towards Union positions on Graveyard Road

Trench along the right side of Stockade Redan (Green’s Redan in the background)

If you didn’t drive down Graveyard Road when you were at Tour Stop 5 where the Union army based its attacks against the Confederates here at Stockade Redan, take the opportunity to drive or walk down it now. Markers along the road denote how far Union troops got during the attacks. It is a two-way road, so you can turn around at the end and come back to continue the Battlefield Tour.

Markers along Graveyard Road denote forward progress of Union troops during attack on Stockade Redan

Once done at the redan, hop in your car and continue down the road to the official parking lot for the Stockade Redan. This is actually the site of Green’s Redan, the third piece of the Stockade Redan complex. Here you will find an information panel and a few markers and small monuments. Erosion has taken its toll on this redan, so it is not as well defined as Stockade Redan.

At the Stockade Redan stop is the large state memorial for Missouri, the only memorial in Vicksburg National Military Park dedicated to both Union and Confederate troops. Missouri men fought for both sides and faced off against each other here at Vicksburg. The Arkansas Memorial is a little farther down the road.

Missouri State Memorial at Vicksburg National Military Park

The marble Arkansas Memorial was dedicated in 1954

From Stockade Redan, continue on to Tour Stop 11, the Great Redoubt. However, before getting there you may want to take a short detour down Pemberton Avenue to the Surrender Interview Site. This is where Confederate General John Pemberton met with Union commander General Grant on July 3rd to discuss a Confederate surrender of Vicksburg. The surrender happened the next day. Faced with taking 30,000 troops as prisoners, Grant elected to grant them parole. This was a “gentleman’s agreement” to go home and not to return to the war.

There is no pullout at the surrender site. If you want to take a photo, either pull off the road into the grass and take a photo from the car or drive farther down the road to a building on your left. This building looks like something from the Civil War era, but it’s nothing more than the former park visitor center and museum built in 1937. Today it is used as a storage facility by the National Park Service. Anyway, you can park here and walk back up the street to the surrender site. Pemberton Avenue is a two-way street, so you can turn around and get back to the tour road and continue on to the next stop.

Surrender Interview Site and Memorial

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