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Vigil for Prospect Park Geese

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Vigil for Prospect Park Geese
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Image by heypatrick
The Humane Society of the United States, New York State Senator Eric Adams, and City Council Member Brad Lander joined about 75 people to hold vigil for Prospect Park's slaughtered geese by the lake on the southwest side of the park.

The event was organized by concerned community members through the "For the love of the geese in Prospect Park" facebook group.

More info:
www.humanesociety.org/news/press_releases/2010/hsus_urges...

The Humane Society of the United States Urges Halt to Goose Slaughter

NEW YORK (July 14, 2010) – The Humane Society of the United States calls on New York officials to immediately halt its program to kill resident Canada geese and work instead on a plan that will truly protect public safety and clears the geese from certain areas.

News outlets have reported that many New Yorkers are also distressed about the city’s contract with the U.S. Department of Agriculture which resulted in the recent killing of 400 resident Canada geese in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park and includes plans to round up more geese this week.

“This inhumane, ineffective and costly contract is the wrong way to address the goose population,” said Patrick Kwan, New York state director for The HSUS. Scientists at the Smithsonian Institute have examined feather remains from the 2009 US Airways Flight 1549 bird strike and determined that the Canada geese involved were from a migrating population, not the local resident populations targeted by these roundups.

Many of the geese now being killed would never have been hatched if the city had adopted The HSUS’ recommendations in 2009 to implement a comprehensive program to render goose eggs unviable, along with other effective tactics.

Communities across the country have had tremendous success with such programs that include treating eggs so they don’t hatch, modifying habitats so they don’t attract geese, and using trained dogs to make geese fly elsewhere. A comprehensive, transparent and publicly supported management plan which includes these components is sorely needed to address the goose issue.

The HSUS offers extensive resources for developing programs to humanely reduce conflicts with geese and other wild animals.

Facts

• Airport safety programs can keep the flying public safe and can be humane. The best programs use long-term strategies to permanently reduce the conditions that attract geese to airports.

• Killing geese merely opens habitat for other geese to fill. The answer is to treat the problem at the source—make airports and surrounding areas undesirable habitat to the birds while preventing flock growth with egg addling programs.

• Federal law protects Canada geese; however, that only means that people cannot harm birds without US Fish and Wildlife Service permission.

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Brown Bear (Ursus Arctos), Madrid Zoo
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Vicksburg National Military Park (14)
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Image by Ken Lund
Vicksburg National Military Park preserves the site of the American Civil War Battle of Vicksburg, waged from May 18 to July 4, 1863. The park, in Vicksburg, Mississippi, and Delta, Louisiana, also commemorates the greater Vicksburg Campaign, which preceded 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 gave the United States control of the Mississippi River.

A little known fact about the Vicksburg National Military Park is that, because it was paid for by the Federal Government, all of the Union Monuments were paid for by the US Government. The Confederate states however, were not Federally funded and their representation in the park is the direct result of years of fund raising and multiple benefits. Though the park is located in the South, the Federal Government did not give equal monetary donations to the Union and Confederacy, thus leaving the South to their own devices as far as money was concerned.

The park includes 1,325 historic monuments and markers, 20 miles (32 km) of historic trenches and earthworks, a 16-mile (26 km) tour road, two antebellum homes, 144 emplaced cannons, restored gunboat USS Cairo (sunk on December 12, 1862, on the Yazoo River, recovered successfully in 1964), and the Grant's Canal site, where the Union army attempted to build a canal to let their ships bypass Confederate artillery fire. The Cairo, also known as the "Hardluck Ironclad," was the first U.S. ship in history to be sunk by a torpedo/mine. It was raised in 1964. The Illinois State Memorial has 47 steps, one for every day Vicksburg was besieged.

The remnants of Grant's Canal, a detached section of the military park, are located across from Vicksburg near Delta, Louisiana. Union Army Major General Ulysses S. Grant ordered the project, started on June 27, 1862, as part of his Vicksburg Campaign, with two goals in mind. The first was to alter the course of the Mississippi River in order to bypass the Confederate guns at Vicksburg. For various technical reasons the project failed to meet this goal. The river did change course by itself on April 26, 1876. The project met its second goal, keeping troops occupied during the laborious maneuvering required to begin the Battle of Vicksburg.

The national military park was established on February 21, 1899, to commemorate the siege and defense of Vicksburg. The park sprawls over 1,800 acres (7.3 km2) of land. The park and cemetery were transferred from the War Department to the National Park Service (NPS) on August 10, 1933. Of the park's 1,736.47 acres (not including the cemetery), 1,729.63 acres (6.9996 km2) are federally owned.

In the late 1950s, a portion of the park was transferred to the city as a local park in exchange for closing local roads running through the remainder of the park. It also allowed for the construction of Interstate 20. The monuments in land transferred to the city are still maintained by the NPS. As with all historic areas administered by the NPS, the park was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on October 15, 1966. Over a million visitors visit the park every year.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vicksburg_National_Military_Park

The Siege of Vicksburg was the final major military action in the Vicksburg Campaign of the American Civil War. In a series of maneuvers, Union Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant and his Army of the Tennessee crossed the Mississippi River and drove the Confederate army of Lt. Gen. John C. Pemberton into the defensive lines surrounding the fortress city of Vicksburg, Mississippi.

When two major assaults (May 19 and May 22, 1863) against the Confederate fortifications were repulsed with heavy casualties, Grant decided to besiege the city beginning on May 25. With no re-enforcement, supplies nearly gone, and after holding out for more than forty days, the garrison finally surrendered on July 4. This action (combined with the capitulation of Port Hudson on July 9) yielded command of the Mississippi River to the Union forces, which would hold it for the rest of the conflict.

The Confederate surrender following the siege at Vicksburg is sometimes considered, when combined with Gen. Robert E. Lee's defeat at Gettysburg the previous day, the turning point of the war. It also cut off communication with Confederate forces in the Trans-Mississippi Department for the remainder of the war. The city of Vicksburg would not celebrate Independence Day for about eighty years as a result of the siege and surrender as well.

After crossing the Mississippi River south of Vicksburg at Bruinsburg and driving northeast, Grant won battles at Port Gibson and Raymond and captured Jackson, the Mississippi state capital, in mid-May 1863, forcing Pemberton to withdraw westward. Attempts to stop the Union advance at Champion Hill and Big Black River Bridge were unsuccessful. Pemberton knew that the corps under Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman was preparing to flank him from the north; he had no choice but to withdraw or be outflanked. Pemberton burned the bridges over the Big Black River and took everything edible in his path, both animal and plant, as he retreated to the well-fortified city of Vicksburg.

The Confederates evacuated Hayne's Bluff, which was occupied by Sherman's cavalry on May 19, and Union steamboats no longer had to run the guns of Vicksburg, now being able to dock by the dozens up the Yazoo River. Grant could now receive supplies more directly than the previous route, which ran through Louisiana, over the river crossing at Grand Gulf and Bruinsburg, then back up north.

Over three quarters of Pemberton's army had been lost in the two preceding battles and many in Vicksburg expected General Joseph E. Johnston, in command of the Confederate Department of the West, to relieve the city—which he never did. Large masses of Union troops were on the march to invest the city, repairing the burnt bridges over the Big Black River; which Grant's forces crossed on May 18. Johnston sent a note to his general, Pemberton, asking him to sacrifice the city and save his troops, something Pemberton would not do. (Pemberton, a Northerner by birth, was probably influenced by his fear of public condemnation if he abandoned Vicksburg).

As the Union forces approached Vicksburg, Pemberton could put only 18,500 troops in his lines. Grant had over 35,000, with more on the way. However, Pemberton had the advantage of terrain and fortifications that made his defense nearly impregnable. The defensive line around Vicksburg ran approximately 6.5 miles, based on terrain of varying elevations that included hills and knobs with steep angles for an attacker to ascend under fire. The perimeter included many gun pits, forts, trenches, redoubts, and lunettes. The major fortifications of the line included Fort Hill, on a high bluff north of the city; the Stockade Redan, dominating the approach to the city on Graveyard Road from the northeast; the 3rd Louisiana Redan; the Great Redoubt; the Railroad Redoubt, protecting the gap for the railroad line entering the city; the Square Fort (Fort Garrott); a salient along the Hall's Ferry Road; and the South Fort.

Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's Union Army of the Tennessee brought three corps to the battle: the XIII Corps, under Maj. Gen. John A. McClernand; the XV Corps, under Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman; and the XVII Corps, under Maj. Gen. James B. McPherson.

Lt. Gen. John C. Pemberton's Confederate Army of Mississippi inside the Vicksburg line consisted of four divisions, under Maj. Gens. Carter L. Stevenson, John H. Forney, Martin L. Smith, and John S. Bowen.

Grant wanted to overwhelm the Confederates before they could fully organize their defenses and ordered an immediate assault against Stockade Redan for May 19. Troops from Sherman's corps had a difficult time approaching the position under rifle and artillery fire from the 36th Mississippi Infantry, Brig. Gen. Louis Hébert's brigade—they had to negotiate a steep ravine protected by abatis and cross a six-foot deep, eight-foot wide ditch before attacking the 17-foot high walls of the redan. This first attempt was easily repulsed. Grant ordered an artillery bombardment to soften the defenses and at about 2 p.m., Sherman's division under Maj. Gen. Francis P. Blair tried again, but only a small number of men were able to advance even as far as the ditch below the redan. The assault collapsed in a melee of rifle fire and hand grenades lobbing back and forth.

The failed Federal assaults of May 19 damaged Union morale, deflating the confidence the soldiers felt after their string of victories across Mississippi. They were also costly, with casualties of 157 killed, 777 wounded, and 8 missing, versus Confederate casualties of 8 killed and 62 wounded. The Confederates, assumed to be demoralized, had regained their fighting edge.

Grant planned another assault for May 22, but this time with greater care; they would first reconnoiter thoroughly and soften up the defenses with artillery and naval gunfire. The lead units were supplied with ladders to ascend the fortification walls. Grant did not want a long siege, and this attack was to be by the entire army across a wide front.

Despite their bloody repulse on May 19, Union troops were in high spirits, now well-fed with provisions they had foraged. On seeing Grant pass by, a soldier commented, "Hardtack." Soon all Union troops in the vicinity were yelling, "Hardtack! Hardtack!" The Union served hardtack, beans, and coffee the night of May 21. Everyone expected that Vicksburg would fall the next day.

Union forces bombarded the city all night, from 220 artillery pieces and naval gunfire from Rear Adm. David D. Porter's fleet in the river, and while causing little property damage, they damaged Confederate civilian morale. On the morning of May 22, the defenders were bombarded again for four hours before the Union attacked once more along a three-mile front at 10 a.m.

Sherman attacked once again down the Graveyard Road, with 150 volunteers (nicknamed the Forlorn Hope detachment) leading the way with ladders and planks, followed by the divisions of Blair and Brig. Gen. James M. Tuttle, arranged in a long column of regiments, hoping to achieve a breakthrough by concentrating their mass on a narrow front. They were driven back in the face of heavy rifle fire. Blair's brigades under Cols. Giles A. Smith and T. Kilby Smith made it as far as a ridge 100 yards from Green's Redan, the southern edge of the Stockade Redan, from where they poured heavy fire into the Confederate position, but to no avail. Tuttle's division, waiting its turn to advance, did not have an opportunity to move forward. On Sherman's far right, the division of Brig. Gen. Frederick Steele spent the morning attempting to get into position through a ravine of the Mint Spring Bayou.

McPherson's corps was assigned to attack the center along the Jackson Road. On their right flank, the brigade of Brig. Gen. Thomas E. G. Ransom advanced to within 100 yards of the Confederate line, but halted to avoid dangerous flanking fire from Green's Redan. On McPherson's left flank, the division of Maj. Gen. John A. Logan was assigned to assault the 3rd Louisiana Redan and the Great Redoubt. The brigade of Brig. Gen. John E. Smith made it as far as the slope of the redan, but huddled there, dodging grenades until dark before they were recalled. Brig. Gen. John D. Stevenson's brigade advanced well in two columns against the redoubt, but their attack also failed when they found their ladders were too short to scale the fortification. Brig. Gen. Isaac F. Quinby's division advanced a few hundred yards, but halted for hours while its generals engaged in confused discussions.

On the Union left, McClernand's corps moved along the Baldwin Ferry Road and astride the Southern Railroad of Mississippi. The division of Brig. Gen. Eugene A. Carr was assigned to capture the Railroad Redoubt and the 2nd Texas Lunette; the division of Brig. Gen. Peter J. Osterhaus was assigned the Square Fort. Carr's men achieved a small breakthrough at the 2nd Texas Lunette and requested reinforcements.

By 11 a.m., it was clear that a breakthrough was not forthcoming and the advances by Sherman and McPherson were failures. Just then, Grant received a message from McClernand, which stated that he was heavily engaged, the Confederates were being reinforced, and he requested a diversion on his right from McPherson's corps. Grant initially refused the request, telling McClernand to use his own reserve forces for assistance; Grant was mistakenly under the impression that McClernand had been lightly engaged and McPherson heavily, although the reverse was true. McClernand followed up with a message that was partially misleading, implying that he had captured two forts—"The Stars and Stripes are flying over them."—and that another push along the line would achieve victory for the Union Army. Although Grant once again demurred, he showed the dispatch to Sherman, who ordered his own corps to advance again. Grant, reconsidering, then ordered McPherson to send Quinby's division to aid McClernand.

Sherman ordered two more assaults. At 2:15 p.m., Giles Smith and Ransom moved out and were repulsed immediately. At 3 p.m., Tuttle's division suffered so many casualties in their aborted advance that Sherman told Tuttle, "This is murder; order those troops back." By this time, Steele's division had finally maneuvered into position on Sherman's right, and at 4 p.m., Steele gave the order to charge against the 26th Louisiana Redoubt. They had no more success than any of Sherman's other assaults.

In McPherson's sector, Logan's division made another thrust down the Jackson Road at about 2 p.m., but met with heavy losses and the attack was called off. McClernand attacked again, reinforced by Quinby's division, but with no success. Union casualties were 502 killed, 2,550 wounded, and 147 missing, about evenly divided across the three corps. Confederate casualties were not reported directly, but are estimated to be under 500. Grant blamed McClernand's misleading dispatches for part of the poor results of the day, storing up another grievance against the political general who had caused him so many aggravations during the campaign.

Historian Shelby Foote wrote that Grant "did not regret having made the assaults; he only regretted that they had failed."[21] Grant reluctantly settled into a siege. On May 25, Lt. Col. John A. Rawlins issued Special Orders No. 140 for Grant: "Corps Commanders will immediately commence the work of reducing the enemy by regular approaches. It is desirable that no more loss of life shall be sustained in the reduction of Vicksburg, and the capture of the Garrison. Every advantage will be taken of the natural inequalities of the ground to gain positions from which to start mines, trenches, or advance batteries. ..." Grant wrote in his memoirs, "I now determined upon a regular siege—to 'out-camp the enemy,' as it were, and to incur no more losses."

Federal troops began to dig in, constructing elaborate entrenchments (the soldiers of the time referred to them as "ditches") that surrounded the city and moved closer and closer to the Confederate fortifications. With their backs against the Mississippi and Union gunboats firing from the river, Confederate soldiers and citizens alike were trapped. Pemberton was determined to hold his few miles of the Mississippi as long as possible, hoping for relief from Johnston or elsewhere.

A new problem confronted the Confederates. The dead and wounded of Grant's army lay in the heat of Mississippi summer, the odor of the deceased men and horses fouling the air, the wounded crying for medical help and water. Grant first refused a request of truce, thinking it a show of weakness. Finally he relented, and the Confederates held their fire while the Union recovered the wounded and dead, soldiers from both sides mingling and trading as if no hostilities existed for the moment.

Subsequent to this truce, Grant's army began to fill the 12 mile ring around Vicksburg. In short time it became clear that even 50,000 Union soldiers would not be able to effect a complete encirclement of the Confederate defenses. Pemberton's outlook on escape was pessimistic, but there were still roads leading south out of Vicksburg unguarded by Federal troops. Grant found help from Maj. Gen. Henry W. Halleck, the Union general-in-chief. Halleck quickly began to shift Union troops in the West to meet Grant's needs. The first of these reinforcements to arrive along the siege lines was a 5,000 man division from the Department of the Missouri under Maj. Gen. Francis J. Herron on June 11. Herron's troops, remnants of the Army of the Frontier, were attached to McPherson's corps and took up position on the far south. Next came a three division detachment from the XVI Corps led by Brig. Gen. Cadwallader C. Washburn on June 12, assembled from troops at nearby posts of Corinth, Memphis, and LaGrange. The final significant group of reinforcements to join was the 8,000 man strong IX Corps from the Department of the Ohio, led by Maj. Gen. John G. Parke, arriving on June 14. With the arrival of Parke, Grant had 77,000 men around Vicksburg.

In an effort to cut Grant's supply line, Confederates in Louisiana under Maj. Gen. John G. Walker attacked Milliken's Bend up the Mississippi on June 7. This was mainly defended by untrained colored troops, who fought bravely with inferior weaponry and finally fought off the rebels with help from gunboats, although at horrible cost; the defenders lost 652 to the Confederate 185. The loss at Milliken's Bend left the Confederates with no hope for relief but from the cautious Johnston.

Pemberton was boxed in with lots of inedible munitions and little food. The poor diet was showing on the Confederate soldiers. By the end of June, half were out sick or hospitalized. Scurvy, malaria, dysentery, diarrhea, and other diseases cut their ranks. At least one city resident had to stay up at night to keep starving soldiers out of his vegetable garden. The constant shelling did not bother him as much as the loss of his food. As the siege wore on, fewer and fewer horses, mules, and dogs were seen wandering about Vicksburg. Shoe leather became a last resort of sustenance for many adults.

During the siege, Union gunboats lobbed over 22,000 shells into the town and army artillery fire was even heavier. As the barrages continued, suitable housing in Vicksburg was reduced to a minimum. A ridge, located between the main town and the rebel defense line, provided a diverse citizenry with lodging for the duration. Over 500 caves were dug into the yellow clay hills of Vicksburg. Whether houses were structurally sound or not, it was deemed safer to occupy these dugouts. People did their best to make them comfortable, with rugs, furniture, and pictures. They tried to time their movements and foraging with the rhythm of the cannonade, sometimes unsuccessfully. Because of these dugouts or caves, the Union soldiers gave the town the nickname of "Prairie Dog Village." Despite the ferocity of the Union fire against the town, fewer than a dozen civilians were known to have been killed during the entire siege.

One of Grant's actions during the siege was to settle a lingering rivalry. On May 30, General McClernand wrote a self-adulatory note to his troops, claiming much of the credit for the soon-to-be victory. Grant had been waiting six months for him to slip, ever since they clashed early in the campaign, around the Battle of Arkansas Post. He had received permission to relieve McClernand in January 1863 but waited for a unequivocal provocation. Grant finally relieved McClernand on June 18. He so diligently prepared his action that McClernand was left without recourse. McClernand's XIII Corps was turned over to Maj. Gen. Edward Ord, recovered from a wound sustained at Hatchie's Bridge. In May 1864, McClernand was restored to a command in remote Texas.

Another command change occurred on June 22. In addition to Pemberton at his front, Grant had to be concerned with Confederate forces in his rear under the command of Joseph E. Johnston. He stationed one division in the vicinity of the Big Black River bridge and another reconnoitered as far north as Mechanicsburg, both to act as a covering force. By June 10, the IX Corps, under Maj. Gen. John G. Parke, was transferred to Grant's command. This corps became the nucleus of a special task force whose mission was to prevent Johnston, gathering his forces at Canton, from interfering with the siege. Sherman was given command of this task force and Brig. Gen. Frederick Steele replaced him at the XV Corps. Johnston eventually began moving to relieve Pemberton and reached the Big Black River on July 1, but he delayed a potentially difficult encounter with Sherman until it was too late for the Vicksburg garrison, and then fell back to Jackson.

Late in the siege, Union troops tunneled under the 3rd Louisiana Redan and packed the mine with 2,200 pounds of gunpowder. The explosion blew apart the Confederate lines on June 25, while an infantry attack made by troops from Logan's XVII Corps division, followed the blast. The 45th Illinois Regiment (known as the "Lead Mine Regiment"), under Col. Jasper A. Maltby, charged into the 40-foot (12 m) diameter, 12-foot (3.7 m) deep crater with ease, but were stopped by recovering Confederate infantry. The Union soldiers became pinned down while the defenders also rolled artillery shells with short fuses into the pit with deadly results. Union engineers worked to set up a casemate in the crater in order to extricate the infantry, and soon the soldiers fell back to a new defensive line. From the crater left by the explosion on June 25, Union miners worked to dig a new mine to the south. On July 1, this mine was detonated but no infantry attack followed. Pioneers worked throughout July 2 and July 3 to widen the initial crater large enough for an infantry column of four to pass through for future anticipated assaults. However, events the following day negated the need for any further assaults.

On July 3, Pemberton sent a note to Grant, who, as at Fort Donelson, first demanded unconditional surrender. But Grant reconsidered, not wanting to feed 30,000 hungry Confederates in Union prison camps, and offered to parole all prisoners. Considering their destitute state, dejected and starving, he never expected them to fight again; he hoped they would carry home the stigma of defeat to the rest of the Confederacy. In any event, it would have occupied his army and taken months to ship that many troops north.[34]

Surrender was formalized by an old oak tree, "made historical by the event." In his Personal Memoirs, Grant described the fate of this luckless tree:

It was but a short time before the last vestige of its body, root and limb had disappeared, the fragments taken as trophies. Since then the same tree has furnished as many cords of wood, in the shape of trophies, as the 'True Cross'.

The surrender was finalized on July 4, Independence Day, a day Pemberton had hoped would bring more sympathetic terms from the United States. Although the Vicksburg Campaign continued with some minor actions, the fortress city had fallen and, with the surrender of Port Hudson on July 9, the Mississippi River was firmly in Union hands and the Confederacy split in two. President Lincoln famously announced, "The Father of Waters again goes unvexed to the sea."

Union casualties for the battle and siege of Vicksburg were 4,835; Confederate were 32,697 (29,495 surrendered). The full campaign, since March 29, claimed 10,142 Union and 9,091 Confederate killed and wounded. In addition to his surrendered men, Pemberton turned over to Grant 172 cannons and 50,000 rifles.

Tradition holds that the Fourth of July holiday was not celebrated by Vicksburg until World War II, because of the surrender of the city on July 4.

The works around Vicksburg are now maintained by the National Park Service as part of Vicksburg National Military Park.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Vicksburg


Vicksburg National Military Park (27)
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Image by Ken Lund
Vicksburg National Military Park preserves the site of the American Civil War Battle of Vicksburg, waged from May 18 to July 4, 1863. The park, in Vicksburg, Mississippi, and Delta, Louisiana, also commemorates the greater Vicksburg Campaign, which preceded 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 gave the United States control of the Mississippi River.

A little known fact about the Vicksburg National Military Park is that, because it was paid for by the Federal Government, all of the Union Monuments were paid for by the US Government. The Confederate states however, were not Federally funded and their representation in the park is the direct result of years of fund raising and multiple benefits. Though the park is located in the South, the Federal Government did not give equal monetary donations to the Union and Confederacy, thus leaving the South to their own devices as far as money was concerned.

The park includes 1,325 historic monuments and markers, 20 miles (32 km) of historic trenches and earthworks, a 16-mile (26 km) tour road, two antebellum homes, 144 emplaced cannons, restored gunboat USS Cairo (sunk on December 12, 1862, on the Yazoo River, recovered successfully in 1964), and the Grant's Canal site, where the Union army attempted to build a canal to let their ships bypass Confederate artillery fire. The Cairo, also known as the "Hardluck Ironclad," was the first U.S. ship in history to be sunk by a torpedo/mine. It was raised in 1964. The Illinois State Memorial has 47 steps, one for every day Vicksburg was besieged.

The remnants of Grant's Canal, a detached section of the military park, are located across from Vicksburg near Delta, Louisiana. Union Army Major General Ulysses S. Grant ordered the project, started on June 27, 1862, as part of his Vicksburg Campaign, with two goals in mind. The first was to alter the course of the Mississippi River in order to bypass the Confederate guns at Vicksburg. For various technical reasons the project failed to meet this goal. The river did change course by itself on April 26, 1876. The project met its second goal, keeping troops occupied during the laborious maneuvering required to begin the Battle of Vicksburg.

The national military park was established on February 21, 1899, to commemorate the siege and defense of Vicksburg. The park sprawls over 1,800 acres (7.3 km2) of land. The park and cemetery were transferred from the War Department to the National Park Service (NPS) on August 10, 1933. Of the park's 1,736.47 acres (not including the cemetery), 1,729.63 acres (6.9996 km2) are federally owned.

In the late 1950s, a portion of the park was transferred to the city as a local park in exchange for closing local roads running through the remainder of the park. It also allowed for the construction of Interstate 20. The monuments in land transferred to the city are still maintained by the NPS. As with all historic areas administered by the NPS, the park was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on October 15, 1966. Over a million visitors visit the park every year.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vicksburg_National_Military_Park

The Siege of Vicksburg was the final major military action in the Vicksburg Campaign of the American Civil War. In a series of maneuvers, Union Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant and his Army of the Tennessee crossed the Mississippi River and drove the Confederate army of Lt. Gen. John C. Pemberton into the defensive lines surrounding the fortress city of Vicksburg, Mississippi.

When two major assaults (May 19 and May 22, 1863) against the Confederate fortifications were repulsed with heavy casualties, Grant decided to besiege the city beginning on May 25. With no re-enforcement, supplies nearly gone, and after holding out for more than forty days, the garrison finally surrendered on July 4. This action (combined with the capitulation of Port Hudson on July 9) yielded command of the Mississippi River to the Union forces, which would hold it for the rest of the conflict.

The Confederate surrender following the siege at Vicksburg is sometimes considered, when combined with Gen. Robert E. Lee's defeat at Gettysburg the previous day, the turning point of the war. It also cut off communication with Confederate forces in the Trans-Mississippi Department for the remainder of the war. The city of Vicksburg would not celebrate Independence Day for about eighty years as a result of the siege and surrender as well.

After crossing the Mississippi River south of Vicksburg at Bruinsburg and driving northeast, Grant won battles at Port Gibson and Raymond and captured Jackson, the Mississippi state capital, in mid-May 1863, forcing Pemberton to withdraw westward. Attempts to stop the Union advance at Champion Hill and Big Black River Bridge were unsuccessful. Pemberton knew that the corps under Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman was preparing to flank him from the north; he had no choice but to withdraw or be outflanked. Pemberton burned the bridges over the Big Black River and took everything edible in his path, both animal and plant, as he retreated to the well-fortified city of Vicksburg.

The Confederates evacuated Hayne's Bluff, which was occupied by Sherman's cavalry on May 19, and Union steamboats no longer had to run the guns of Vicksburg, now being able to dock by the dozens up the Yazoo River. Grant could now receive supplies more directly than the previous route, which ran through Louisiana, over the river crossing at Grand Gulf and Bruinsburg, then back up north.

Over three quarters of Pemberton's army had been lost in the two preceding battles and many in Vicksburg expected General Joseph E. Johnston, in command of the Confederate Department of the West, to relieve the city—which he never did. Large masses of Union troops were on the march to invest the city, repairing the burnt bridges over the Big Black River; which Grant's forces crossed on May 18. Johnston sent a note to his general, Pemberton, asking him to sacrifice the city and save his troops, something Pemberton would not do. (Pemberton, a Northerner by birth, was probably influenced by his fear of public condemnation if he abandoned Vicksburg).

As the Union forces approached Vicksburg, Pemberton could put only 18,500 troops in his lines. Grant had over 35,000, with more on the way. However, Pemberton had the advantage of terrain and fortifications that made his defense nearly impregnable. The defensive line around Vicksburg ran approximately 6.5 miles, based on terrain of varying elevations that included hills and knobs with steep angles for an attacker to ascend under fire. The perimeter included many gun pits, forts, trenches, redoubts, and lunettes. The major fortifications of the line included Fort Hill, on a high bluff north of the city; the Stockade Redan, dominating the approach to the city on Graveyard Road from the northeast; the 3rd Louisiana Redan; the Great Redoubt; the Railroad Redoubt, protecting the gap for the railroad line entering the city; the Square Fort (Fort Garrott); a salient along the Hall's Ferry Road; and the South Fort.

Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's Union Army of the Tennessee brought three corps to the battle: the XIII Corps, under Maj. Gen. John A. McClernand; the XV Corps, under Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman; and the XVII Corps, under Maj. Gen. James B. McPherson.

Lt. Gen. John C. Pemberton's Confederate Army of Mississippi inside the Vicksburg line consisted of four divisions, under Maj. Gens. Carter L. Stevenson, John H. Forney, Martin L. Smith, and John S. Bowen.

Grant wanted to overwhelm the Confederates before they could fully organize their defenses and ordered an immediate assault against Stockade Redan for May 19. Troops from Sherman's corps had a difficult time approaching the position under rifle and artillery fire from the 36th Mississippi Infantry, Brig. Gen. Louis Hébert's brigade—they had to negotiate a steep ravine protected by abatis and cross a six-foot deep, eight-foot wide ditch before attacking the 17-foot high walls of the redan. This first attempt was easily repulsed. Grant ordered an artillery bombardment to soften the defenses and at about 2 p.m., Sherman's division under Maj. Gen. Francis P. Blair tried again, but only a small number of men were able to advance even as far as the ditch below the redan. The assault collapsed in a melee of rifle fire and hand grenades lobbing back and forth.

The failed Federal assaults of May 19 damaged Union morale, deflating the confidence the soldiers felt after their string of victories across Mississippi. They were also costly, with casualties of 157 killed, 777 wounded, and 8 missing, versus Confederate casualties of 8 killed and 62 wounded. The Confederates, assumed to be demoralized, had regained their fighting edge.

Grant planned another assault for May 22, but this time with greater care; they would first reconnoiter thoroughly and soften up the defenses with artillery and naval gunfire. The lead units were supplied with ladders to ascend the fortification walls. Grant did not want a long siege, and this attack was to be by the entire army across a wide front.

Despite their bloody repulse on May 19, Union troops were in high spirits, now well-fed with provisions they had foraged. On seeing Grant pass by, a soldier commented, "Hardtack." Soon all Union troops in the vicinity were yelling, "Hardtack! Hardtack!" The Union served hardtack, beans, and coffee the night of May 21. Everyone expected that Vicksburg would fall the next day.

Union forces bombarded the city all night, from 220 artillery pieces and naval gunfire from Rear Adm. David D. Porter's fleet in the river, and while causing little property damage, they damaged Confederate civilian morale. On the morning of May 22, the defenders were bombarded again for four hours before the Union attacked once more along a three-mile front at 10 a.m.

Sherman attacked once again down the Graveyard Road, with 150 volunteers (nicknamed the Forlorn Hope detachment) leading the way with ladders and planks, followed by the divisions of Blair and Brig. Gen. James M. Tuttle, arranged in a long column of regiments, hoping to achieve a breakthrough by concentrating their mass on a narrow front. They were driven back in the face of heavy rifle fire. Blair's brigades under Cols. Giles A. Smith and T. Kilby Smith made it as far as a ridge 100 yards from Green's Redan, the southern edge of the Stockade Redan, from where they poured heavy fire into the Confederate position, but to no avail. Tuttle's division, waiting its turn to advance, did not have an opportunity to move forward. On Sherman's far right, the division of Brig. Gen. Frederick Steele spent the morning attempting to get into position through a ravine of the Mint Spring Bayou.

McPherson's corps was assigned to attack the center along the Jackson Road. On their right flank, the brigade of Brig. Gen. Thomas E. G. Ransom advanced to within 100 yards of the Confederate line, but halted to avoid dangerous flanking fire from Green's Redan. On McPherson's left flank, the division of Maj. Gen. John A. Logan was assigned to assault the 3rd Louisiana Redan and the Great Redoubt. The brigade of Brig. Gen. John E. Smith made it as far as the slope of the redan, but huddled there, dodging grenades until dark before they were recalled. Brig. Gen. John D. Stevenson's brigade advanced well in two columns against the redoubt, but their attack also failed when they found their ladders were too short to scale the fortification. Brig. Gen. Isaac F. Quinby's division advanced a few hundred yards, but halted for hours while its generals engaged in confused discussions.

On the Union left, McClernand's corps moved along the Baldwin Ferry Road and astride the Southern Railroad of Mississippi. The division of Brig. Gen. Eugene A. Carr was assigned to capture the Railroad Redoubt and the 2nd Texas Lunette; the division of Brig. Gen. Peter J. Osterhaus was assigned the Square Fort. Carr's men achieved a small breakthrough at the 2nd Texas Lunette and requested reinforcements.

By 11 a.m., it was clear that a breakthrough was not forthcoming and the advances by Sherman and McPherson were failures. Just then, Grant received a message from McClernand, which stated that he was heavily engaged, the Confederates were being reinforced, and he requested a diversion on his right from McPherson's corps. Grant initially refused the request, telling McClernand to use his own reserve forces for assistance; Grant was mistakenly under the impression that McClernand had been lightly engaged and McPherson heavily, although the reverse was true. McClernand followed up with a message that was partially misleading, implying that he had captured two forts—"The Stars and Stripes are flying over them."—and that another push along the line would achieve victory for the Union Army. Although Grant once again demurred, he showed the dispatch to Sherman, who ordered his own corps to advance again. Grant, reconsidering, then ordered McPherson to send Quinby's division to aid McClernand.

Sherman ordered two more assaults. At 2:15 p.m., Giles Smith and Ransom moved out and were repulsed immediately. At 3 p.m., Tuttle's division suffered so many casualties in their aborted advance that Sherman told Tuttle, "This is murder; order those troops back." By this time, Steele's division had finally maneuvered into position on Sherman's right, and at 4 p.m., Steele gave the order to charge against the 26th Louisiana Redoubt. They had no more success than any of Sherman's other assaults.

In McPherson's sector, Logan's division made another thrust down the Jackson Road at about 2 p.m., but met with heavy losses and the attack was called off. McClernand attacked again, reinforced by Quinby's division, but with no success. Union casualties were 502 killed, 2,550 wounded, and 147 missing, about evenly divided across the three corps. Confederate casualties were not reported directly, but are estimated to be under 500. Grant blamed McClernand's misleading dispatches for part of the poor results of the day, storing up another grievance against the political general who had caused him so many aggravations during the campaign.

Historian Shelby Foote wrote that Grant "did not regret having made the assaults; he only regretted that they had failed."[21] Grant reluctantly settled into a siege. On May 25, Lt. Col. John A. Rawlins issued Special Orders No. 140 for Grant: "Corps Commanders will immediately commence the work of reducing the enemy by regular approaches. It is desirable that no more loss of life shall be sustained in the reduction of Vicksburg, and the capture of the Garrison. Every advantage will be taken of the natural inequalities of the ground to gain positions from which to start mines, trenches, or advance batteries. ..." Grant wrote in his memoirs, "I now determined upon a regular siege—to 'out-camp the enemy,' as it were, and to incur no more losses."

Federal troops began to dig in, constructing elaborate entrenchments (the soldiers of the time referred to them as "ditches") that surrounded the city and moved closer and closer to the Confederate fortifications. With their backs against the Mississippi and Union gunboats firing from the river, Confederate soldiers and citizens alike were trapped. Pemberton was determined to hold his few miles of the Mississippi as long as possible, hoping for relief from Johnston or elsewhere.

A new problem confronted the Confederates. The dead and wounded of Grant's army lay in the heat of Mississippi summer, the odor of the deceased men and horses fouling the air, the wounded crying for medical help and water. Grant first refused a request of truce, thinking it a show of weakness. Finally he relented, and the Confederates held their fire while the Union recovered the wounded and dead, soldiers from both sides mingling and trading as if no hostilities existed for the moment.

Subsequent to this truce, Grant's army began to fill the 12 mile ring around Vicksburg. In short time it became clear that even 50,000 Union soldiers would not be able to effect a complete encirclement of the Confederate defenses. Pemberton's outlook on escape was pessimistic, but there were still roads leading south out of Vicksburg unguarded by Federal troops. Grant found help from Maj. Gen. Henry W. Halleck, the Union general-in-chief. Halleck quickly began to shift Union troops in the West to meet Grant's needs. The first of these reinforcements to arrive along the siege lines was a 5,000 man division from the Department of the Missouri under Maj. Gen. Francis J. Herron on June 11. Herron's troops, remnants of the Army of the Frontier, were attached to McPherson's corps and took up position on the far south. Next came a three division detachment from the XVI Corps led by Brig. Gen. Cadwallader C. Washburn on June 12, assembled from troops at nearby posts of Corinth, Memphis, and LaGrange. The final significant group of reinforcements to join was the 8,000 man strong IX Corps from the Department of the Ohio, led by Maj. Gen. John G. Parke, arriving on June 14. With the arrival of Parke, Grant had 77,000 men around Vicksburg.

In an effort to cut Grant's supply line, Confederates in Louisiana under Maj. Gen. John G. Walker attacked Milliken's Bend up the Mississippi on June 7. This was mainly defended by untrained colored troops, who fought bravely with inferior weaponry and finally fought off the rebels with help from gunboats, although at horrible cost; the defenders lost 652 to the Confederate 185. The loss at Milliken's Bend left the Confederates with no hope for relief but from the cautious Johnston.

Pemberton was boxed in with lots of inedible munitions and little food. The poor diet was showing on the Confederate soldiers. By the end of June, half were out sick or hospitalized. Scurvy, malaria, dysentery, diarrhea, and other diseases cut their ranks. At least one city resident had to stay up at night to keep starving soldiers out of his vegetable garden. The constant shelling did not bother him as much as the loss of his food. As the siege wore on, fewer and fewer horses, mules, and dogs were seen wandering about Vicksburg. Shoe leather became a last resort of sustenance for many adults.

During the siege, Union gunboats lobbed over 22,000 shells into the town and army artillery fire was even heavier. As the barrages continued, suitable housing in Vicksburg was reduced to a minimum. A ridge, located between the main town and the rebel defense line, provided a diverse citizenry with lodging for the duration. Over 500 caves were dug into the yellow clay hills of Vicksburg. Whether houses were structurally sound or not, it was deemed safer to occupy these dugouts. People did their best to make them comfortable, with rugs, furniture, and pictures. They tried to time their movements and foraging with the rhythm of the cannonade, sometimes unsuccessfully. Because of these dugouts or caves, the Union soldiers gave the town the nickname of "Prairie Dog Village." Despite the ferocity of the Union fire against the town, fewer than a dozen civilians were known to have been killed during the entire siege.

One of Grant's actions during the siege was to settle a lingering rivalry. On May 30, General McClernand wrote a self-adulatory note to his troops, claiming much of the credit for the soon-to-be victory. Grant had been waiting six months for him to slip, ever since they clashed early in the campaign, around the Battle of Arkansas Post. He had received permission to relieve McClernand in January 1863 but waited for a unequivocal provocation. Grant finally relieved McClernand on June 18. He so diligently prepared his action that McClernand was left without recourse. McClernand's XIII Corps was turned over to Maj. Gen. Edward Ord, recovered from a wound sustained at Hatchie's Bridge. In May 1864, McClernand was restored to a command in remote Texas.

Another command change occurred on June 22. In addition to Pemberton at his front, Grant had to be concerned with Confederate forces in his rear under the command of Joseph E. Johnston. He stationed one division in the vicinity of the Big Black River bridge and another reconnoitered as far north as Mechanicsburg, both to act as a covering force. By June 10, the IX Corps, under Maj. Gen. John G. Parke, was transferred to Grant's command. This corps became the nucleus of a special task force whose mission was to prevent Johnston, gathering his forces at Canton, from interfering with the siege. Sherman was given command of this task force and Brig. Gen. Frederick Steele replaced him at the XV Corps. Johnston eventually began moving to relieve Pemberton and reached the Big Black River on July 1, but he delayed a potentially difficult encounter with Sherman until it was too late for the Vicksburg garrison, and then fell back to Jackson.

Late in the siege, Union troops tunneled under the 3rd Louisiana Redan and packed the mine with 2,200 pounds of gunpowder. The explosion blew apart the Confederate lines on June 25, while an infantry attack made by troops from Logan's XVII Corps division, followed the blast. The 45th Illinois Regiment (known as the "Lead Mine Regiment"), under Col. Jasper A. Maltby, charged into the 40-foot (12 m) diameter, 12-foot (3.7 m) deep crater with ease, but were stopped by recovering Confederate infantry. The Union soldiers became pinned down while the defenders also rolled artillery shells with short fuses into the pit with deadly results. Union engineers worked to set up a casemate in the crater in order to extricate the infantry, and soon the soldiers fell back to a new defensive line. From the crater left by the explosion on June 25, Union miners worked to dig a new mine to the south. On July 1, this mine was detonated but no infantry attack followed. Pioneers worked throughout July 2 and July 3 to widen the initial crater large enough for an infantry column of four to pass through for future anticipated assaults. However, events the following day negated the need for any further assaults.

On July 3, Pemberton sent a note to Grant, who, as at Fort Donelson, first demanded unconditional surrender. But Grant reconsidered, not wanting to feed 30,000 hungry Confederates in Union prison camps, and offered to parole all prisoners. Considering their destitute state, dejected and starving, he never expected them to fight again; he hoped they would carry home the stigma of defeat to the rest of the Confederacy. In any event, it would have occupied his army and taken months to ship that many troops north.[34]

Surrender was formalized by an old oak tree, "made historical by the event." In his Personal Memoirs, Grant described the fate of this luckless tree:

It was but a short time before the last vestige of its body, root and limb had disappeared, the fragments taken as trophies. Since then the same tree has furnished as many cords of wood, in the shape of trophies, as the 'True Cross'.

The surrender was finalized on July 4, Independence Day, a day Pemberton had hoped would bring more sympathetic terms from the United States. Although the Vicksburg Campaign continued with some minor actions, the fortress city had fallen and, with the surrender of Port Hudson on July 9, the Mississippi River was firmly in Union hands and the Confederacy split in two. President Lincoln famously announced, "The Father of Waters again goes unvexed to the sea."

Union casualties for the battle and siege of Vicksburg were 4,835; Confederate were 32,697 (29,495 surrendered). The full campaign, since March 29, claimed 10,142 Union and 9,091 Confederate killed and wounded. In addition to his surrendered men, Pemberton turned over to Grant 172 cannons and 50,000 rifles.

Tradition holds that the Fourth of July holiday was not celebrated by Vicksburg until World War II, because of the surrender of the city on July 4.

The works around Vicksburg are now maintained by the National Park Service as part of Vicksburg National Military Park.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Vicksburg


Vicksburg National Military Park (32)
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Vicksburg National Military Park preserves the site of the American Civil War Battle of Vicksburg, waged from May 18 to July 4, 1863. The park, in Vicksburg, Mississippi, and Delta, Louisiana, also commemorates the greater Vicksburg Campaign, which preceded 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 gave the United States control of the Mississippi River.

A little known fact about the Vicksburg National Military Park is that, because it was paid for by the Federal Government, all of the Union Monuments were paid for by the US Government. The Confederate states however, were not Federally funded and their representation in the park is the direct result of years of fund raising and multiple benefits. Though the park is located in the South, the Federal Government did not give equal monetary donations to the Union and Confederacy, thus leaving the South to their own devices as far as money was concerned.

The park includes 1,325 historic monuments and markers, 20 miles (32 km) of historic trenches and earthworks, a 16-mile (26 km) tour road, two antebellum homes, 144 emplaced cannons, restored gunboat USS Cairo (sunk on December 12, 1862, on the Yazoo River, recovered successfully in 1964), and the Grant's Canal site, where the Union army attempted to build a canal to let their ships bypass Confederate artillery fire. The Cairo, also known as the "Hardluck Ironclad," was the first U.S. ship in history to be sunk by a torpedo/mine. It was raised in 1964. The Illinois State Memorial has 47 steps, one for every day Vicksburg was besieged.

The remnants of Grant's Canal, a detached section of the military park, are located across from Vicksburg near Delta, Louisiana. Union Army Major General Ulysses S. Grant ordered the project, started on June 27, 1862, as part of his Vicksburg Campaign, with two goals in mind. The first was to alter the course of the Mississippi River in order to bypass the Confederate guns at Vicksburg. For various technical reasons the project failed to meet this goal. The river did change course by itself on April 26, 1876. The project met its second goal, keeping troops occupied during the laborious maneuvering required to begin the Battle of Vicksburg.

The national military park was established on February 21, 1899, to commemorate the siege and defense of Vicksburg. The park sprawls over 1,800 acres (7.3 km2) of land. The park and cemetery were transferred from the War Department to the National Park Service (NPS) on August 10, 1933. Of the park's 1,736.47 acres (not including the cemetery), 1,729.63 acres (6.9996 km2) are federally owned.

In the late 1950s, a portion of the park was transferred to the city as a local park in exchange for closing local roads running through the remainder of the park. It also allowed for the construction of Interstate 20. The monuments in land transferred to the city are still maintained by the NPS. As with all historic areas administered by the NPS, the park was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on October 15, 1966. Over a million visitors visit the park every year.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vicksburg_National_Military_Park

The Siege of Vicksburg was the final major military action in the Vicksburg Campaign of the American Civil War. In a series of maneuvers, Union Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant and his Army of the Tennessee crossed the Mississippi River and drove the Confederate army of Lt. Gen. John C. Pemberton into the defensive lines surrounding the fortress city of Vicksburg, Mississippi.

When two major assaults (May 19 and May 22, 1863) against the Confederate fortifications were repulsed with heavy casualties, Grant decided to besiege the city beginning on May 25. With no re-enforcement, supplies nearly gone, and after holding out for more than forty days, the garrison finally surrendered on July 4. This action (combined with the capitulation of Port Hudson on July 9) yielded command of the Mississippi River to the Union forces, which would hold it for the rest of the conflict.

The Confederate surrender following the siege at Vicksburg is sometimes considered, when combined with Gen. Robert E. Lee's defeat at Gettysburg the previous day, the turning point of the war. It also cut off communication with Confederate forces in the Trans-Mississippi Department for the remainder of the war. The city of Vicksburg would not celebrate Independence Day for about eighty years as a result of the siege and surrender as well.

After crossing the Mississippi River south of Vicksburg at Bruinsburg and driving northeast, Grant won battles at Port Gibson and Raymond and captured Jackson, the Mississippi state capital, in mid-May 1863, forcing Pemberton to withdraw westward. Attempts to stop the Union advance at Champion Hill and Big Black River Bridge were unsuccessful. Pemberton knew that the corps under Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman was preparing to flank him from the north; he had no choice but to withdraw or be outflanked. Pemberton burned the bridges over the Big Black River and took everything edible in his path, both animal and plant, as he retreated to the well-fortified city of Vicksburg.

The Confederates evacuated Hayne's Bluff, which was occupied by Sherman's cavalry on May 19, and Union steamboats no longer had to run the guns of Vicksburg, now being able to dock by the dozens up the Yazoo River. Grant could now receive supplies more directly than the previous route, which ran through Louisiana, over the river crossing at Grand Gulf and Bruinsburg, then back up north.

Over three quarters of Pemberton's army had been lost in the two preceding battles and many in Vicksburg expected General Joseph E. Johnston, in command of the Confederate Department of the West, to relieve the city—which he never did. Large masses of Union troops were on the march to invest the city, repairing the burnt bridges over the Big Black River; which Grant's forces crossed on May 18. Johnston sent a note to his general, Pemberton, asking him to sacrifice the city and save his troops, something Pemberton would not do. (Pemberton, a Northerner by birth, was probably influenced by his fear of public condemnation if he abandoned Vicksburg).

As the Union forces approached Vicksburg, Pemberton could put only 18,500 troops in his lines. Grant had over 35,000, with more on the way. However, Pemberton had the advantage of terrain and fortifications that made his defense nearly impregnable. The defensive line around Vicksburg ran approximately 6.5 miles, based on terrain of varying elevations that included hills and knobs with steep angles for an attacker to ascend under fire. The perimeter included many gun pits, forts, trenches, redoubts, and lunettes. The major fortifications of the line included Fort Hill, on a high bluff north of the city; the Stockade Redan, dominating the approach to the city on Graveyard Road from the northeast; the 3rd Louisiana Redan; the Great Redoubt; the Railroad Redoubt, protecting the gap for the railroad line entering the city; the Square Fort (Fort Garrott); a salient along the Hall's Ferry Road; and the South Fort.

Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's Union Army of the Tennessee brought three corps to the battle: the XIII Corps, under Maj. Gen. John A. McClernand; the XV Corps, under Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman; and the XVII Corps, under Maj. Gen. James B. McPherson.

Lt. Gen. John C. Pemberton's Confederate Army of Mississippi inside the Vicksburg line consisted of four divisions, under Maj. Gens. Carter L. Stevenson, John H. Forney, Martin L. Smith, and John S. Bowen.

Grant wanted to overwhelm the Confederates before they could fully organize their defenses and ordered an immediate assault against Stockade Redan for May 19. Troops from Sherman's corps had a difficult time approaching the position under rifle and artillery fire from the 36th Mississippi Infantry, Brig. Gen. Louis Hébert's brigade—they had to negotiate a steep ravine protected by abatis and cross a six-foot deep, eight-foot wide ditch before attacking the 17-foot high walls of the redan. This first attempt was easily repulsed. Grant ordered an artillery bombardment to soften the defenses and at about 2 p.m., Sherman's division under Maj. Gen. Francis P. Blair tried again, but only a small number of men were able to advance even as far as the ditch below the redan. The assault collapsed in a melee of rifle fire and hand grenades lobbing back and forth.

The failed Federal assaults of May 19 damaged Union morale, deflating the confidence the soldiers felt after their string of victories across Mississippi. They were also costly, with casualties of 157 killed, 777 wounded, and 8 missing, versus Confederate casualties of 8 killed and 62 wounded. The Confederates, assumed to be demoralized, had regained their fighting edge.

Grant planned another assault for May 22, but this time with greater care; they would first reconnoiter thoroughly and soften up the defenses with artillery and naval gunfire. The lead units were supplied with ladders to ascend the fortification walls. Grant did not want a long siege, and this attack was to be by the entire army across a wide front.

Despite their bloody repulse on May 19, Union troops were in high spirits, now well-fed with provisions they had foraged. On seeing Grant pass by, a soldier commented, "Hardtack." Soon all Union troops in the vicinity were yelling, "Hardtack! Hardtack!" The Union served hardtack, beans, and coffee the night of May 21. Everyone expected that Vicksburg would fall the next day.

Union forces bombarded the city all night, from 220 artillery pieces and naval gunfire from Rear Adm. David D. Porter's fleet in the river, and while causing little property damage, they damaged Confederate civilian morale. On the morning of May 22, the defenders were bombarded again for four hours before the Union attacked once more along a three-mile front at 10 a.m.

Sherman attacked once again down the Graveyard Road, with 150 volunteers (nicknamed the Forlorn Hope detachment) leading the way with ladders and planks, followed by the divisions of Blair and Brig. Gen. James M. Tuttle, arranged in a long column of regiments, hoping to achieve a breakthrough by concentrating their mass on a narrow front. They were driven back in the face of heavy rifle fire. Blair's brigades under Cols. Giles A. Smith and T. Kilby Smith made it as far as a ridge 100 yards from Green's Redan, the southern edge of the Stockade Redan, from where they poured heavy fire into the Confederate position, but to no avail. Tuttle's division, waiting its turn to advance, did not have an opportunity to move forward. On Sherman's far right, the division of Brig. Gen. Frederick Steele spent the morning attempting to get into position through a ravine of the Mint Spring Bayou.

McPherson's corps was assigned to attack the center along the Jackson Road. On their right flank, the brigade of Brig. Gen. Thomas E. G. Ransom advanced to within 100 yards of the Confederate line, but halted to avoid dangerous flanking fire from Green's Redan. On McPherson's left flank, the division of Maj. Gen. John A. Logan was assigned to assault the 3rd Louisiana Redan and the Great Redoubt. The brigade of Brig. Gen. John E. Smith made it as far as the slope of the redan, but huddled there, dodging grenades until dark before they were recalled. Brig. Gen. John D. Stevenson's brigade advanced well in two columns against the redoubt, but their attack also failed when they found their ladders were too short to scale the fortification. Brig. Gen. Isaac F. Quinby's division advanced a few hundred yards, but halted for hours while its generals engaged in confused discussions.

On the Union left, McClernand's corps moved along the Baldwin Ferry Road and astride the Southern Railroad of Mississippi. The division of Brig. Gen. Eugene A. Carr was assigned to capture the Railroad Redoubt and the 2nd Texas Lunette; the division of Brig. Gen. Peter J. Osterhaus was assigned the Square Fort. Carr's men achieved a small breakthrough at the 2nd Texas Lunette and requested reinforcements.

By 11 a.m., it was clear that a breakthrough was not forthcoming and the advances by Sherman and McPherson were failures. Just then, Grant received a message from McClernand, which stated that he was heavily engaged, the Confederates were being reinforced, and he requested a diversion on his right from McPherson's corps. Grant initially refused the request, telling McClernand to use his own reserve forces for assistance; Grant was mistakenly under the impression that McClernand had been lightly engaged and McPherson heavily, although the reverse was true. McClernand followed up with a message that was partially misleading, implying that he had captured two forts—"The Stars and Stripes are flying over them."—and that another push along the line would achieve victory for the Union Army. Although Grant once again demurred, he showed the dispatch to Sherman, who ordered his own corps to advance again. Grant, reconsidering, then ordered McPherson to send Quinby's division to aid McClernand.

Sherman ordered two more assaults. At 2:15 p.m., Giles Smith and Ransom moved out and were repulsed immediately. At 3 p.m., Tuttle's division suffered so many casualties in their aborted advance that Sherman told Tuttle, "This is murder; order those troops back." By this time, Steele's division had finally maneuvered into position on Sherman's right, and at 4 p.m., Steele gave the order to charge against the 26th Louisiana Redoubt. They had no more success than any of Sherman's other assaults.

In McPherson's sector, Logan's division made another thrust down the Jackson Road at about 2 p.m., but met with heavy losses and the attack was called off. McClernand attacked again, reinforced by Quinby's division, but with no success. Union casualties were 502 killed, 2,550 wounded, and 147 missing, about evenly divided across the three corps. Confederate casualties were not reported directly, but are estimated to be under 500. Grant blamed McClernand's misleading dispatches for part of the poor results of the day, storing up another grievance against the political general who had caused him so many aggravations during the campaign.

Historian Shelby Foote wrote that Grant "did not regret having made the assaults; he only regretted that they had failed."[21] Grant reluctantly settled into a siege. On May 25, Lt. Col. John A. Rawlins issued Special Orders No. 140 for Grant: "Corps Commanders will immediately commence the work of reducing the enemy by regular approaches. It is desirable that no more loss of life shall be sustained in the reduction of Vicksburg, and the capture of the Garrison. Every advantage will be taken of the natural inequalities of the ground to gain positions from which to start mines, trenches, or advance batteries. ..." Grant wrote in his memoirs, "I now determined upon a regular siege—to 'out-camp the enemy,' as it were, and to incur no more losses."

Federal troops began to dig in, constructing elaborate entrenchments (the soldiers of the time referred to them as "ditches") that surrounded the city and moved closer and closer to the Confederate fortifications. With their backs against the Mississippi and Union gunboats firing from the river, Confederate soldiers and citizens alike were trapped. Pemberton was determined to hold his few miles of the Mississippi as long as possible, hoping for relief from Johnston or elsewhere.

A new problem confronted the Confederates. The dead and wounded of Grant's army lay in the heat of Mississippi summer, the odor of the deceased men and horses fouling the air, the wounded crying for medical help and water. Grant first refused a request of truce, thinking it a show of weakness. Finally he relented, and the Confederates held their fire while the Union recovered the wounded and dead, soldiers from both sides mingling and trading as if no hostilities existed for the moment.

Subsequent to this truce, Grant's army began to fill the 12 mile ring around Vicksburg. In short time it became clear that even 50,000 Union soldiers would not be able to effect a complete encirclement of the Confederate defenses. Pemberton's outlook on escape was pessimistic, but there were still roads leading south out of Vicksburg unguarded by Federal troops. Grant found help from Maj. Gen. Henry W. Halleck, the Union general-in-chief. Halleck quickly began to shift Union troops in the West to meet Grant's needs. The first of these reinforcements to arrive along the siege lines was a 5,000 man division from the Department of the Missouri under Maj. Gen. Francis J. Herron on June 11. Herron's troops, remnants of the Army of the Frontier, were attached to McPherson's corps and took up position on the far south. Next came a three division detachment from the XVI Corps led by Brig. Gen. Cadwallader C. Washburn on June 12, assembled from troops at nearby posts of Corinth, Memphis, and LaGrange. The final significant group of reinforcements to join was the 8,000 man strong IX Corps from the Department of the Ohio, led by Maj. Gen. John G. Parke, arriving on June 14. With the arrival of Parke, Grant had 77,000 men around Vicksburg.

In an effort to cut Grant's supply line, Confederates in Louisiana under Maj. Gen. John G. Walker attacked Milliken's Bend up the Mississippi on June 7. This was mainly defended by untrained colored troops, who fought bravely with inferior weaponry and finally fought off the rebels with help from gunboats, although at horrible cost; the defenders lost 652 to the Confederate 185. The loss at Milliken's Bend left the Confederates with no hope for relief but from the cautious Johnston.

Pemberton was boxed in with lots of inedible munitions and little food. The poor diet was showing on the Confederate soldiers. By the end of June, half were out sick or hospitalized. Scurvy, malaria, dysentery, diarrhea, and other diseases cut their ranks. At least one city resident had to stay up at night to keep starving soldiers out of his vegetable garden. The constant shelling did not bother him as much as the loss of his food. As the siege wore on, fewer and fewer horses, mules, and dogs were seen wandering about Vicksburg. Shoe leather became a last resort of sustenance for many adults.

During the siege, Union gunboats lobbed over 22,000 shells into the town and army artillery fire was even heavier. As the barrages continued, suitable housing in Vicksburg was reduced to a minimum. A ridge, located between the main town and the rebel defense line, provided a diverse citizenry with lodging for the duration. Over 500 caves were dug into the yellow clay hills of Vicksburg. Whether houses were structurally sound or not, it was deemed safer to occupy these dugouts. People did their best to make them comfortable, with rugs, furniture, and pictures. They tried to time their movements and foraging with the rhythm of the cannonade, sometimes unsuccessfully. Because of these dugouts or caves, the Union soldiers gave the town the nickname of "Prairie Dog Village." Despite the ferocity of the Union fire against the town, fewer than a dozen civilians were known to have been killed during the entire siege.

One of Grant's actions during the siege was to settle a lingering rivalry. On May 30, General McClernand wrote a self-adulatory note to his troops, claiming much of the credit for the soon-to-be victory. Grant had been waiting six months for him to slip, ever since they clashed early in the campaign, around the Battle of Arkansas Post. He had received permission to relieve McClernand in January 1863 but waited for a unequivocal provocation. Grant finally relieved McClernand on June 18. He so diligently prepared his action that McClernand was left without recourse. McClernand's XIII Corps was turned over to Maj. Gen. Edward Ord, recovered from a wound sustained at Hatchie's Bridge. In May 1864, McClernand was restored to a command in remote Texas.

Another command change occurred on June 22. In addition to Pemberton at his front, Grant had to be concerned with Confederate forces in his rear under the command of Joseph E. Johnston. He stationed one division in the vicinity of the Big Black River bridge and another reconnoitered as far north as Mechanicsburg, both to act as a covering force. By June 10, the IX Corps, under Maj. Gen. John G. Parke, was transferred to Grant's command. This corps became the nucleus of a special task force whose mission was to prevent Johnston, gathering his forces at Canton, from interfering with the siege. Sherman was given command of this task force and Brig. Gen. Frederick Steele replaced him at the XV Corps. Johnston eventually began moving to relieve Pemberton and reached the Big Black River on July 1, but he delayed a potentially difficult encounter with Sherman until it was too late for the Vicksburg garrison, and then fell back to Jackson.

Late in the siege, Union troops tunneled under the 3rd Louisiana Redan and packed the mine with 2,200 pounds of gunpowder. The explosion blew apart the Confederate lines on June 25, while an infantry attack made by troops from Logan's XVII Corps division, followed the blast. The 45th Illinois Regiment (known as the "Lead Mine Regiment"), under Col. Jasper A. Maltby, charged into the 40-foot (12 m) diameter, 12-foot (3.7 m) deep crater with ease, but were stopped by recovering Confederate infantry. The Union soldiers became pinned down while the defenders also rolled artillery shells with short fuses into the pit with deadly results. Union engineers worked to set up a casemate in the crater in order to extricate the infantry, and soon the soldiers fell back to a new defensive line. From the crater left by the explosion on June 25, Union miners worked to dig a new mine to the south. On July 1, this mine was detonated but no infantry attack followed. Pioneers worked throughout July 2 and July 3 to widen the initial crater large enough for an infantry column of four to pass through for future anticipated assaults. However, events the following day negated the need for any further assaults.

On July 3, Pemberton sent a note to Grant, who, as at Fort Donelson, first demanded unconditional surrender. But Grant reconsidered, not wanting to feed 30,000 hungry Confederates in Union prison camps, and offered to parole all prisoners. Considering their destitute state, dejected and starving, he never expected them to fight again; he hoped they would carry home the stigma of defeat to the rest of the Confederacy. In any event, it would have occupied his army and taken months to ship that many troops north.[34]

Surrender was formalized by an old oak tree, "made historical by the event." In his Personal Memoirs, Grant described the fate of this luckless tree:

It was but a short time before the last vestige of its body, root and limb had disappeared, the fragments taken as trophies. Since then the same tree has furnished as many cords of wood, in the shape of trophies, as the 'True Cross'.

The surrender was finalized on July 4, Independence Day, a day Pemberton had hoped would bring more sympathetic terms from the United States. Although the Vicksburg Campaign continued with some minor actions, the fortress city had fallen and, with the surrender of Port Hudson on July 9, the Mississippi River was firmly in Union hands and the Confederacy split in two. President Lincoln famously announced, "The Father of Waters again goes unvexed to the sea."

Union casualties for the battle and siege of Vicksburg were 4,835; Confederate were 32,697 (29,495 surrendered). The full campaign, since March 29, claimed 10,142 Union and 9,091 Confederate killed and wounded. In addition to his surrendered men, Pemberton turned over to Grant 172 cannons and 50,000 rifles.

Tradition holds that the Fourth of July holiday was not celebrated by Vicksburg until World War II, because of the surrender of the city on July 4.

The works around Vicksburg are now maintained by the National Park Service as part of Vicksburg National Military Park.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Vicksburg

Cool Types Of Animals images

Check out these types of animals images:



Some type of bird
types of animals
Image by Michael Bonnett Jr.

Nice Wild Animals photos

A few nice wild animals images I found:


DSCN7959_2 - Wild Deer in Wyoming
wild animals
Image by bterrycompton
- Wild Deer in Wyoming


DSCN7959_1 - Wild Deer in Wyoming
wild animals
Image by bterrycompton
- Wild Deer in Wyoming

Port Lympne Wildlife Park 17-04-2012

Some cool about endangered animals images:


Port Lympne Wildlife Park 17-04-2012
about endangered animals
Image by Karen Roe
Nestled in 600 acres of Kentish countryside and housing over 650 rare and endangered animals, Port Lympne Wild Animal Park boasts some of the most spectacular views on the South coast making the experience a great day out in Kent for everyone.
A stunning vista awaits you offering panoramic views across the famous Romney Marsh to the English Channel and even the French coastline on clear days.
As well as the scenery, you'll see indigenous wildlife as you stroll through the park along the cool, shady woodland walks. Port Lympne Wild Animal Park offers something for every visitor from scenery to endangered animals!

Basecamp
Fortify yourself for the journey ahead at the café or jump straight aboard your safari vehicle truck ready to embark on your Port Lympne safari experience! Soon you will be journeying into the heart of a world renowned wild animal park, getting up close and personal with the most amazing wildlife on our planet and learning about the vital work going on at Port Lympne and in their homelands to save them from extinction. Keep your eyes open as you set off into the heart of our wild animal park - with over 70 species cared for right here by The Aspinall Foundation, what will you see today?

The African Experience
Traverse the stunning Kent countryside and prepare yourself to encounter free roaming herds of the planet's most iconic wildlife as you enter the African Experience. Take a break at Serengeti stop and refresh yourself after the first leg of the expedition. Rejuvenate at the café while enjoying breathtaking views over our African watering-hole and the English Channel towards France. Are you brave enough to enter the Discovery zone? Find spiders, snakes and other creepy crawlies....If you dare! Don't forget to check out the mischievous meerkats before jumping back aboard a truck continuing your journey through the open countryside where you can try to spot black rhino, giraffe, wildebeest, ostrich and more.

20090408_Disney_Animal_Kingdom_0012

A few nice animal world images I found:


20090408_Disney_Animal_Kingdom_0012
animal world
Image by CCRcreations
Disney World - Animal Kingdom April 8th, 2009


20090408_Disney_Animal_Kingdom_0018
animal world
Image by CCRcreations
Disney World - Animal Kingdom April 8th, 2009


20090408_Disney_Animal_Kingdom_0123
animal world
Image by CCRcreations
Disney World - Animal Kingdom April 8th, 2009

Cool About Pet Animals images

A few nice about pet animals images I found:


Pet Fest - U.S. Army Garrison Humphreys, South Korea - 5 May 2012
about pet animals
Image by USAG-Humphreys
Click here to learn more about Camp Humphreys

U.S. Army photos by Cpl. Han, Jae Ho


CAMP HUMPHREYS — Dog lovers here gathered for Pet Fest 2012 at the Humphreys Veterinary Clinic May 5. The event featured the paws walk, a pet show, face painting, an agility course, pet photos, informational booths, a military working dog demonstration and an awards ceremony.

“We are really happy with the turnout and excited to be a part of the Camp Humphreys community,” said Capt. Amy Carlson, officer in charge at the Humphreys vet clinic. “We have many events such as face painting, doggy treats and grooming. Humphreys has been great to us and we have received lots of support. We look forward to continuing events like this today.”

The American Red Cross participated in the event to offer knowledge about pet first aid, while the Osan Animal Shelter provided information on pet adoptions.

The dog show had categories such as owner/pet lookalike, best dressed, best pet trick and best in show. Rocko, owned by Blair Bogle, was the biggest winner of the day, winning first prizes in owner/pet lookalike and best in show categories.

“This is a great opportunity to hang out with dog lovers and people with the same hobbies,” said pet owner Tom Stout. “This event also provided information for people who are PCS’ing and have pets with them. This was a fun day.”


Pet Fest - U.S. Army Garrison Humphreys, South Korea - 5 May 2012
about pet animals
Image by USAG-Humphreys
Click here to learn more about Camp Humphreys

U.S. Army photos by Cpl. Han, Jae Ho


CAMP HUMPHREYS — Dog lovers here gathered for Pet Fest 2012 at the Humphreys Veterinary Clinic May 5. The event featured the paws walk, a pet show, face painting, an agility course, pet photos, informational booths, a military working dog demonstration and an awards ceremony.

“We are really happy with the turnout and excited to be a part of the Camp Humphreys community,” said Capt. Amy Carlson, officer in charge at the Humphreys vet clinic. “We have many events such as face painting, doggy treats and grooming. Humphreys has been great to us and we have received lots of support. We look forward to continuing events like this today.”

The American Red Cross participated in the event to offer knowledge about pet first aid, while the Osan Animal Shelter provided information on pet adoptions.

The dog show had categories such as owner/pet lookalike, best dressed, best pet trick and best in show. Rocko, owned by Blair Bogle, was the biggest winner of the day, winning first prizes in owner/pet lookalike and best in show categories.

“This is a great opportunity to hang out with dog lovers and people with the same hobbies,” said pet owner Tom Stout. “This event also provided information for people who are PCS’ing and have pets with them. This was a fun day.”


Pet Fest - U.S. Army Garrison Humphreys, South Korea - 5 May 2012
about pet animals
Image by USAG-Humphreys
Click here to learn more about Camp Humphreys

U.S. Army photos by Cpl. Han, Jae Ho


CAMP HUMPHREYS — Dog lovers here gathered for Pet Fest 2012 at the Humphreys Veterinary Clinic May 5. The event featured the paws walk, a pet show, face painting, an agility course, pet photos, informational booths, a military working dog demonstration and an awards ceremony.

“We are really happy with the turnout and excited to be a part of the Camp Humphreys community,” said Capt. Amy Carlson, officer in charge at the Humphreys vet clinic. “We have many events such as face painting, doggy treats and grooming. Humphreys has been great to us and we have received lots of support. We look forward to continuing events like this today.”

The American Red Cross participated in the event to offer knowledge about pet first aid, while the Osan Animal Shelter provided information on pet adoptions.

The dog show had categories such as owner/pet lookalike, best dressed, best pet trick and best in show. Rocko, owned by Blair Bogle, was the biggest winner of the day, winning first prizes in owner/pet lookalike and best in show categories.

“This is a great opportunity to hang out with dog lovers and people with the same hobbies,” said pet owner Tom Stout. “This event also provided information for people who are PCS’ing and have pets with them. This was a fun day.”

sitting duck

Check out these plush stuffed animals images:


sitting duck
plush stuffed animals
Image by istolethetv
NYC Easter Hat Parade. 5th avenue, Midtown Manhattan, March 23, 2008


Hippo Collection
plush stuffed animals
Image by djwudi
Someone else likes hippos (almost) as much as Prairie does! There were a few in this collection that Prairie has as well, so I got shots of them...


Hippo Butt
plush stuffed animals
Image by djwudi
I gave Prairie this one a couple Christmases ago. Named "Hippo Butt" becuase hippo butts are cute, and 'cause I put it in the stocking upside down.

Nice Marine Animals photos

A few nice marine animals images I found:


marine animal
marine animals
Image by derpunk


Strawberry anemone (Corynactis californica)
marine animals
Image by kightp
OSU Hatfield Marine Science Center collection

Cool Stuffed Toy Animals images

A few nice stuffed toy animals images I found:


Cute Stuffed Animals inside a CVS Pharmacy
stuffed toy animals
Image by sgroi

atlanta_20110214_070

A few nice animal abuse images I found:


atlanta_20110214_070
animal abuse
Image by hollyannephotog


atlanta_20110214_110
animal abuse
Image by hollyannephotog

Nice Animals Games photos

A few nice animals games images I found:


We're on the App Store!!
animals games
Image by tracilawson
Frogs and Fireflies, my first self-published game, is available on the App Store! I'm so excited.

The game is designed for ages 5 to adult, and it's set in a swamp at night. Frogs in secondary colors (orange, green and purple) hop on and off, and the player's job is to feed them by mixing red, yellow and blue flies together. Frogs will only eat flies that match their own color. Just as you get the hang of it, trickier colored frogs enter (like blue-violet and yellow-orange), and they want to be fed, too. The challenge is to figure out how to mix all of the different shades of color before time runs out on the clock.



Rat Game Pieces
animals games
Image by arturbo
The large sized test pieces.

Nice Animals Names photos

Check out these animals names images:


Mr. & Mrs. Percy Jones of the Elk Ranch in Middleborough
animals names
Image by Boston Public Library
File name: 08_06_000572

Title: Mr. & Mrs. Percy Jones of the Elk Ranch in Middleborough

Creator/Contributor: Jones, Leslie, 1886-1967 (photographer)

Date created: 1917 - 1934 (approximate)

Physical description: 1 negative : glass, black & white ; 4 x 5 in.

Genre: Glass negatives

Subjects: Antlers; Ranchers

Notes: Title from information provided by Leslie Jones or the Boston Public Library on the negative or negative sleeve.; Date supplied by cataloger.

Collection: Leslie Jones Collection

Location: Boston Public Library, Print Department

Rights: Copyright © Leslie Jones.

Preferred citation: Courtesy of the Boston Public Library, Leslie Jones Collection.


Four ton elephant being unloaded from the SS American Trader at Hoboken.
animals names
Image by Boston Public Library
File name: 08_06_000575

Title: Four ton elephant being unloaded from the SS American Trader at Hoboken.

Creator/Contributor: Jones, Leslie, 1886-1967 (photographer)

Date created: 1917 - 1934 (approximate)

Physical description: 1 negative : glass, black & white ; 4 x 5 in.

Genre: Glass negatives

Subjects: Elephants

Notes: Title from information provided by Leslie Jones or the Boston Public Library on the negative or negative sleeve.; Date supplied by cataloger.; Image dated: September 24, 19[??].

Collection: Leslie Jones Collection

Location: Boston Public Library, Print Department

Rights: Copyright © Leslie Jones.

Preferred citation: Courtesy of the Boston Public Library, Leslie Jones Collection.


Elephant at work in a lumber mill at Rangoon, India. Note the chain tied to his leg.
animals names
Image by Boston Public Library
File name: 08_06_000723

Title: Elephant at work in a lumber mill at Rangoon, India. Note the chain tied to his leg.

Creator/Contributor: Jones, Leslie, 1886-1967 (photographer)

Date created: 1931-05-28

Physical description: 1 negative : glass, black & white ; 4 x 5 in.

Genre: Glass negatives

Subjects: Elephants

Notes: Title and date from information provided by Leslie Jones or the Boston Public Library on the negative or negative sleeve.

Collection: Leslie Jones Collection

Location: Boston Public Library, Print Department

Rights: Copyright © Leslie Jones.

Preferred citation: Courtesy of the Boston Public Library, Leslie Jones Collection.

Nice Animal Plant photos

Some cool animal plant images:


Macroptilium lathyroides, Cow pea plants ...Những cây đậu Điều . đậu Bò ...
animal plant
Image by Vietnam Plants & The USA. plants
Vietnamese named : đậu Điều, đậu Bò
English names : Cow pea, Phasey bean, wild bean
Scientist name : Macroptilium lathyroides L.
Synonyms :
Family : Fabaceae / Leguminosae. Họ Đậu / họ phụ đậu Papillionoides

Searched from :

**** FAO
www.fao.org/ag/AGP/AGPC/doc/gbase/data/Pf000050.HTM
Leguminosae

Synonyms

Phaseolus lathyroides L. Phaseolus semi-erectus (L.) DC, P. crotalaroides Mort.

Common names
Phasey bean, Murray phasey bean (Australia), frijol de monte (Venezuela), frijol de los arrozales (Colombia), wild pea bean (Hawaii) .

Description
Herbaceous annual or short-lived perennial, erectly branching, 0.5 to 1 m high under normal conditions, lower parts becoming somewhat woody; when grown under shade, in association with tall grasses or sown early, assumes a twining habit and may attain 1.2 m. Branches terete, clothed with long deciduous reflexed hairs. Leaflets ovate or lanceolate, 3.5 to 7.5 cm long. Inflorescence, semierect racemes about 15 cm long borne on axillary peduncles up to 25 cm; pedicels short. Flowers red-purple. Pods subcylindrical, 7.5 to 10 cm long and 3 mm wide, slightly curved, approximately 20-seeded. Seeds oblong or rhomboidal, slightly compressed, about 3 mm long, mottled light and dark grey-brown (Barnard, 1967). It regenerates from seed under favourable conditions but Bryan (1968a) found that it was unreliable in this regard at Beerwah, south-east Queensland.

Distribution
Originated in tropical America and is now widespread and naturalized in the tropics, including Colombia, Venezuela, Paraguay, Belize, Panama, Brazil, the Caribbean (Jamaica, Antigua, St. Vincent, Cuba) and Australia.

Altitude range
It grows from sea level to 1 800 m in Colombia (Crowder, 1960).

Rainfall requirements
It is adapted to a wide range of climates with a rainfall from 475 to 3 000 mm, although insect damage may be severe in the higher rainfall regime and its growth will depend on summer storms and wetter depressions in the lower rainfall areas.

Soil requirements
Phasey bean is adapted to a wide range of soils, from deep sands to heavy clays, including lateritic types. It tolerates both acid and alkaline soils. It is fairly tolerant to saline conditions (Fretes, Samudio and Gay, 1970).

Rhizobium relationships
Nodulates freely with native rhizobia. If inoculation is desired, use the cowpea strain, the current Australian recommendation being CB 756 (Date, 1969) and, in Argentina, strains C5 (from the United States) and 95 (of Australian origin) (Batthyany, 1970).

Ability to spread naturally
Under moist conditions, it will spread well naturally in both sandy and clay soils if competition is not too severe.

Land preparation for establishment
Phasey bean grows best on well-prepared seed beds but will give less satisfactory establishment with less cultivation.

Sowing methods
Seed can be drilled, or broadcast from the ground or from the air. In the poorly drained flood-plain soils of the Burdekin River in north Queensland, Seton (1962) suggested that phasey bean seed should be drilled into the top of planting ridges (15 cm high and 1 m apart) and vegetative grass material (e.g. Para grass, planted two to three months later) between these ridges. Irrigation water is then applied between the ridges so that the legume seed is moistened only. Oversowing into natural pastures is usually not very successful. It can be sown at any time during spring and summer when moisture is adequate, using 1 to 3 kg. seed/ha. Sow on the surface or no deeper than 1.25 cm and cover lightly with a harrow.

Number of seeds per kg.
119 000 (ranging from 88 000 to 154 000). Percentage of hard seed is fairly low.

Seed treatment before planting
To break dormancy, treat the seed with concentrated sulphuric acid (sg. gr. 1.8) for 20 minutes, wash and dry (Prodonoff, 1968). Inoculation is not necessary. Pelleting is not necessary unless to protect the rhizobia (use rock phosphate; Norris, 1967). For insect and disease control, treat the seed with 2.2 g acid equivalent (13.2 ml of 15 percent emulsifiable concentrate) of dieldrin per kg. of seed before planting to control bean-fly damage to seedlings (Jones, 1965).

Nutrient requirements
On fertile alluvial soils or heavy clays, it need not be fertilized. On poor sandy soils, use 250 kg./ha molybdenized superphosphate. On lateritic gravels in Sri Lanka, Paltridge and Santhirasegaram (1957) found responses to Ca, N, P and K, and on cinnamon sand to P, Ca, Mg, K and B.

Calcium:
Macroptilium lathyroides gave 68 percent of its maximum yield in the absence of calcium, and its maximum yield at 995 kg./ha. In the absence of calcium, N, P and K had an adverse effect on its root growth. It responded to lime by increasing its nitrogen content from 1.7 percent with nil to 3.8 percent with 740 kg./ha calcium carbonate (Andrew and Norris, 1961). Paltridge and Santhirasegaram (1957) found small responses to lime on lateritic gravels and sand in Sri Lanka. The calcium uptake by phasey bean was found by Andrew and Hegarty (1969) to be 1.5 to 1.9 percent of the dry matter.

Copper:
Phasey bean gave 46 percent of its maximum yield in the absence of copper, and so is relatively insensitive to low copper status in the soil. Copper concentration in the plant was relatively high, being higher in the roots than in the tops (Andrew and Thorne, 1962). Santhirasegaram (1967) recorded 57 percent of the maximum yield in the absence of copper in a sandy soil in Sri Lanka. Copper deficiency in this species does not show specific symptoms. It causes reduced plant growth, with a slight change in colour of the younger portions of the plant from the natural mid-green or greyish-green, to pale green. Progressively, these portions become yellowish green and the younger, fully expanded leaves absciss. The leaf abscission is not preceded by interveinal chlorosis or any form of necrosis. Immediately prior to abscission, the leaves tended to fold down against the stem of the plant, the condition resembling partial wilting. In severe cases, after several leaves had dropped, the growing shoots became necrotic and the plant commenced axillary growth, which also became necrotic (Andrew, 1963).

Molybdenum:
't Mannetje, Shaw and Elich (1963) found that phasey bean responded to molybdenum and that the molybdenum had a residual effect in the soil for three to four years. Santhirasegaram (1967) also obtained a response to molybdenum on sandy soils in Sri Lanka.

Phosphorus:
Phasey bean gave 55 percent of its maximum yield at 250 kg./ ha superphosphate, with its maximum at 1 132 kg./ha. The critical percentage of phosphorus in the dry matter of the leaves was determined by Andrew and Robins (1969a) as 0.20 percent. Increasing phosphorus supply in the form of monocalcium phosphate increased the magnesium content but decreased the potassium content.

Potassium:
Santhirasegaram (1967) obtained 50 percent of the yield of phasey bean at first harvest and only 12 and 4 percent at the second and third harvest when potash was eliminated compared with the yields from a complete fertilizer mixture. Andrew and Robins (1969c) found the critical percentage for potassium in the dry matter of the tops to be 0.75 percent. It gave only 24 percent of its maximum yield in the absence of potash. Added potassium had little effect on the concentration of other cations. Andrew and Pieters (1970a) showed that deficiency symptoms commenced on lower leaves as a rust-coloured spotting on the upper surfaces of the leaflets. Individual spots were asymmetrical in shape and mostly interveinally placed toward the margins of the leaflets. In this phase, there were no signs of blemish or discoloration on the lower leaf surfaces, nor was there any associated chlorosis or necrosis. With increased severity, the rust-coloured areas became necrotic with light brownish-grey centres and dark brown peripheries. Necrosis was evident on both surfaces of the leaflet, but, in addition, the lower surface of the leaflet was sunken at the necrotic areas. Following this phase, there was a general marginal interveinal chlorosis of the lower leaves, but a halo of green tissue remained around the necrotic spots. Chlorosis intensified, followed by necrosis of the leaflet margin, particularly toward the distal end of the leaflets. Finally, severely affected leaflets abscissed, the central leaflet of each leaf falling before the lateral ones, resulting in an upright, single-stemmed plant, abscissed leaves in the lower portion, necrotic interveinally chlorotic leaves in the central portion, and an otherwise normal top portion with reduced growth rate. The authors found the healthy plant to have 1 g/100 g potash in the dry matter of the tops. In the deficient plant, the concentration was 0.57 g/100 kg.

Sulphur:
Santhirasegaram (1967) recorded only 28 percent of the yield of phasey bean growing on sandy soils in Sri Lanka compared with the yields obtained from a complete fertilizer.

Zinc:
Russell (1966) found that the yields of phasey bean growing on a solodic soil in south-east Queensland were severely depressed by liming above pH 6.3 in the absence of zinc; the addition of zinc gave small yield increases.

Compatibility with grasses and other legumes
Compatible with Para grass (Brachiaria mutica) under swampy conditions; on well-drained land it grows well with Panicum maximum, Setaria anceps and Paspalum commersonii.

Tolerance to herbicides
No record.

Nitrogen-fixing ability
Paltridge (1955) analysed its effect on a companion grass, Paspalum commersonii, at Lawes, Queensland (lat. 27°30'S), growing in a heavy black clay soil. Grown as a sward, the legume increased the yield over grass plus 100 kg. N/ha by 77 percent. In terms of the total yield of nitrogen, Paltridge estimated that the inclusion of phasey bean into P. commersonii would be the equivalent of adding 800 kg./ha sulphate of ammonia.
Sen and Paul (1959) found that the nitrogen content of the soil after three years' growth of phasey bean was the same in the first 30 cm of the profile and had increased 10 and 15 percent respectively in the 60- and 90-cm zone. No fertilizer data were given.ð

Response to defoliation
Paltridge (1955) found that-M. lathyroides did not persist with continuous grazing. Heavy grazing including woody parts severely reduces its vitality.

Grazing management
It should only be lightly grazed to encourage persistence. Only leaves and fruiting branches should be removed by the grazing animal. Paltridge (1955) found that it should be rested for six to eight weeks during the summer growing season, as it is selectively grazed early in the growing period. A light cultivation of the pasture helps annual regeneration.

Response to fire
Does not survive fire, but the seed will germinate afterwards when conditions are suitable.

Breeding system
It is closely self-pollinated (Hutton and Beall ,1957) . A relative humidity of 95 percent or more at 28°C was necessary for vigorous pollen germination and pollen tube growth. The flowers do not "trip". Temperatures between 23 and 30°C are satisfactory (Hutton, 1960).d a

Dry-matter and green-matter yields
Paltridge (1955) obtained a mean yield of 5 439 kg. DM/ha from a mixed pasture of M. lathyroides with Paspalum commersonii and 4 115 kg./ha from the grass alone. Crowder (1960), in Colombia, recorded a production of 15 tonnes/ha of green material when cut at a height of 1.25 to 1.5 m.

Suitability for hay and silage
Makes quite good hay if an effort is made to conserve the leaf, handling the material when it is supple. Robertson (1971) made excellent silage with Sorghum almum mixed with phasey bean in Uruguay and fed it successfully to Brahman cows and calves.

Value as a standover or deferred feed
It contributes very little to winter feed, as it is susceptible to frost and defoliates after frosting.

Feeding value
Has a high feeding value, which declines after frosting.

Chemical analysis:
Milford (1967) determined the analyses for phasey bean shown in Table 14.6.

Digestibility:
The mean intake of 19.6 g/kg. W0 75 was higher than the autumn means for subtropical grasses. The highest intake was before leaf shedding and intake fell by 37 percent after frosting.

Palatability:
Stock prefer to graze M. lathyroides after the seed has set; young plants appear to be less palatable (Young, Fox and Burns, 1959).

Toxicity
It had been reported as poisonous to horses, but Paltridge (1955) found no toxicity with horses at Lawes and chaffed green material had no effect on dairy cows when fed for ten successive days. It did not produce any milk taint.

Seed harvesting methods
Its shattering habit makes it difficult to obtain full seed yield. It can be direct-headed when a fair percentage of the pods are ripe to ripening and the material subsequently dried where seed from dehiscing pods will not be lost. Subsequent threshing in a stationary thresher and winnowing to clean the seed are required. Seed yield. Two hundred to 250 kg./ha.

Cultivars
There is only one cultivar, cv. Murray, which is more robust and vigorous than other ecotypes so far tested. Some more prostrate new ecotypes are under test.

Diseases
Susceptible to Phaseolus virus 2 (Wilson, 1958). Shows field resistance to little-leaf (Hutton and Grylls, 1956).

Main attributes
An excellent pioneer species giving rapid growth, nitrogen fixation and early feed in pasture mixtures in the establishment year. Can be grazed without damage to the permanent legumes, which helps in early weed control (Bryan, 1968a). Is adaptable to wet conditions and to poor soils. Seeds heavily. Andrew (1964) has found it particularly suitable as an indicator plant in nutrition studies.

Main deficiencies
It is only an annual or biennial and does not persist in pastures at Beerwah, south-eastern Queensland (Bryan, 1968a). Is susceptible to bean-fly and nematode attack. Because of seed shattering, it is difficult to obtain an effective seed harvest.

Performance
It has not been widely tested as a major constituent of tropical pastures. Bryan (1968a) and Ebersohn (1969) stressed its value as a pioneer species to give an early return on the capital invested in pasture improvement. At Rodd's Bay (central Queensland), Bryan and Shaw (1964) obtained a live-weight gain of 404 kg./head and 90 kg./ha on Paspalum plicatulum/ phasey bean pastures in 7/2 months of grazing in the first year, stocked at 1 beast/1.8 ha. The yield from native pasture alone was 185 kg./head and 19 kg./ ha stocked at 1 beast/4 ha.
Young, Fox and Burns (1959) found that it produced up to 495 kg. DM/ha in the second autumn in a grass/legume mixture at Gayndah, south-east Queensland, and produced high-quality fodder in late autumn. However, it did not persist longer than two years and gave no winter grazing because of defoliation by frost.

Main reference
Paltridge (1955).

Latitudinal limits
About 23°N to 28°S.>

Ability to compete with weeds
It competes favourably with weeds under fertile, moist conditions.

Pests
Seedlings are severely attacked by bean fly (Melanagromyza phaseoli). Nematodes attack the roots in sandy soils, the main species being Meloidogyne incognita (Koford and White) Chitwood.

Toxicity levels and symptoms
Manganese phasey bean is subject to manganese toxicity in high manganese soils. Andrew and Pieters (1970b) showed that the first sign of toxicity in this species was a light interveinal chlorosis of the growing shoots. With increasing severity, these leaves upon expansion continued to show the interveinal chlorosis effect, but new shoots were more severely chlorotic. As toxicity progressed, leaflets moderately affected by chlorosis also showed brown necrotic areas at the extremities of, and along, the secondary veins; these brown areas appeared to be more developed on the underside of the leaflets than on the upper side. Associated with this effect, the younger shoots were severely chlorotic and when fully expanded showed puckering of the leaflet surface, usually raised above the upper surface. In addition, the necrotic spots at the vein tips coalesced, and those that affected leaflets showed edge and tip necrosis with outward and downward curling of the leaflet lamina, while the base of the leaflets remained interveinally chlorotic with some brown necrotic spots along the veins. In the severe form, new shoots were almost devoid of chlorophyll, were puckered and malformed, and abscissed prematurely, while brown necrotic patches occurred on the stems and petioles. Axillary growth followed this phase but it was also chlorotic upon emergence . Aluminium Russell (1966) reported aluminium toxicity in Macroptilium lathyroides growing on a solodic soil of low calcium status in south-eastern Queensland. By adding lime he was able to eliminate the toxicity.P

Temperature for growth
Whiteman (1968) found that the optimum temperature for growth was 30/25°C. Minimum temperature was not recorded. It is susceptible to frost, but has usually seeded well ahead of them. Paltridge (1955) recorded occasions when it survived the winter and provided new growth in the following summer. Jones (1969) recorded 21 percent survival of plants at Samford after a winter in which the lowest temperature reached -8.3°C.

Tolerance of drought and flooding
It escapes drought by its free-seeding habit. Phasey bean is fairly tolerant of waterlogging and frequently grows in the drains (or water-tables) on the edge of highways in areas where it is adapted.

Vigour of seedling, growth and growth rhythm
It has a vigorous seedling and establishes readily. Grows vigorously in the warm moist summer period.

Response to photoperiod and light
It is day-neutral. Capable of climbing tall grasses, it is not unduly suppressed by absence of light except in the seedling stage.

Minimum germination and quality for commercial sale
Seventy percent germination with a purity of 98 percent and a maximum hard-seed content of 10 percent in Queensland. Seed is germinated at 25°C.

**** LINKS :
plants.usda.gov/java/profile?symbol=MALA9
www.hear.org/starr/plants/images/species/?q=macroptilium+...
davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/62217/


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