Corinth, Shiloh, and the Civil War

Downtown Corinth

Okay, we freely admit that we have never been all that interested in the Civil War. And we’ve certainly never been very knowledgeable about it. But it’s impossible to read a travel book about Mississippi and not feel almost overwhelmed by the sheer number of Civil War sites – and connections. It seems that almost every town has some tie to “the war.” We grudgingly agreed that we could no longer ignore this piece of Mississippi history, so we set out to see Corinth and Shiloh.

When we scouted out our route, we saw that we would “go right by” Synagogue, Mississippi on our way. We had to see if there really was a synagogue in Synagogue – we just had to – so we marked our map carefully in order to ensure we didn’t miss it. (That means figuring out which two County Roads running off Highway 45 it lies between. “County Road,” by the way, can be anything from a beautifully maintained two-lane highway to the equivalent of a cow path.) Sure enough, when we passed County Road 8200, there was a sign…not for Synagogue, Mississippi, but for Synagogue Baptist Church! And yes, once again we tried to find a town that doesn’t exist. You’d think we’d learn.

On the way into Corinth, we stopped at the Alcorn Welcome Center – yet another beautifully designed and decorated font of information on Mississippi sites. Information there led us to the Civil War Interpretive Center. The fact that the CWIC is a National Park site should have been a clue that we were in for a good experience, but since our attitudes, uh, could have been better, we groaned when we pulled into the parking lot and realized that we couldn’t park near the front door on that scorching hot day because of an incredibly long switchback sidewalk leading to the entrance. Why would anyone design such an inconvenient handicapped entry, we wondered. Off we trudged, grousing about having to walk in the heat – right up until we realized there was “stuff” embedded in the sidewalk, interesting stuff like smashed hats, bullets, knives, tent stakes, belt buckles, horseshoes, eyeglasses, a scabbard, a shovel, a canteen, shoes, a plate, books, a comb…well, you get the picture. Every few feet there would be something else to see – a button here, a pistol there, a little treasure hunt. There was even a letter in one display, and a rifle that hangs off into the grass. Really clever.

Bronzed cap

This cup sits on the outer edge of the walkway...situated in an area that you really couldn't trip over it.

This cap sits on the retaining wall.

The belt stands up above the ground 6 - 8".

This carbine is broken and partially buried in concrete.

This complete rifle was just outside the door of the CWIC.

Things got even better and more interesting once we got inside, where the first thing we learned was…why Corinth? What was so important about this small town?

Its railroads! In 1862, Corinth was second only to Richmond in importance to military planners. Two major lines crossed in Corinth (the Memphis and Charleston and the Mobile and Ohio, if you’re curious), so whoever controlled Corinth controlled access to the Mississippi River Valley and points west. Although that “crossroads,” the point at which the railroads intersected, was the epicenter of the fighting, the battle moved around a bit as forces attacked and withdrew, resulting in a series of battles around Corinth. And by the way, although Union forces actually came down to take the crossroads, the Confederates didn’t take a purely defensive position. In fact, the Corinth campaigns are considered the last Confederate offensive in Mississippi.

The center is a beautiful building with well-done, visually-pleasing displays, the sort that make learning fun no matter your age. And, in keeping with the embedding-things-in-concrete theme, the floor of one room has railroad tracks set into it just to bring home the reason you’re there in the first place!

Railroad ties and rail buried in concrete in one of the rooms.

Our favorite display? The Mobile woman who came to nurse soldiers and left a written account of what she saw in Corinth’s Tishomingo Hotel, which had been converted into a hospital. The exhibit allows visitors to pick up a telephone and listen to what she had to say, surely one of the best ways to learn history – so personal, so interesting. There are also plenty of exhibits and interactive displays featuring memorabilia, battle plans and information, along with scores of photos, a couple movies, beautiful artwork, and some really interesting exhibits on black history. (Corinth was home to a huge Contraband Camp for slaves seeking safe harbor.) So much to see. Outside, there is a commemorative courtyard, where, according to the National Park brochure, “stone and flowing water chronicle the birth and growth of the United States, the accompanying rise of sectionalism, key events leading to the Civil War, and a symbolic representation of four years of war.” The reflecting pool contains blocks of stone representing the various battles set in a timeline, and like everything else, it’s beautifully done. The whole site is really top notch and a credit to everyone involved.

Outside the CWIC, this water sculpture was awesome. Boxes are labeled representing the battles of the Civil War and are staged along a timeline -- Fort Sumter to Appomattox.

This Battery Robinett replica can be viewed from inside the CWIC.

The center sits on land near the site of Battery Robinett, which was built by the Federal Army following the Siege of Corinth in April - May 1862. It was the site of heavy fighting in October of 1862, during the Second Battle of Corinth. There are graves behind the building to prove it, and, like everything else about the Interpretive Center, it’s beautifully maintained. By the way, all this is free. They accept donations, but it’s free.

Confederate Brigadier-General Joseph Lewis Hogg was buried near the CWIC. He died of dysentery May 16, 1862, during the Siege of Corinth -- April ~May 1862.

Confederate soldiers from the Siege of Corinth, buried behind the CWIC.

Corinth does a spectacular job directing traffic to their historical sites. Really…we’ve never seen a city so well-marked, it’s easy to find everything, despite the fact that some places are far off the beaten path. Still, most things, including the center, are woefully under-attended.

We took a lunch break after the center – vegetable plates at Martha’s Menu downtown. Then we walked around a bit and re-visited Borroum’s Drug Store, the oldest continually operating drug store in the state. Then we dropped in on Wait’s Jewelry store, the oldest store in town and far and away the store with the most beautiful ceiling in town. Ernest Wait himself painted murals on the (very high) ceiling in 1925 and they’re a treasure. We also stopped in at Franklin Cruise. The building dates to 1886 and has been beautifully restored as a fine home-goods/antique store with two luxury hotel suites upstairs. Sort of a mini hotel/shop – really cool. We looked around for the former Tishomingo Savings Bank just because it was once robbed by Jesse James and his gang and, while no one we encountered could identify exactly which building had been the bank, consensus was that it was the Federal Land Bank building. Then we drove around admiring some of the beautiful old homes and the beautiful renovations downtown.

Caboose on the grounds of the Depot Museum

We kept driving until we got to the Crossroads Museum at the Depot. This sits on ground zero, the reason everyone came to Corinth in 1862. There’s a beautifully restored depot there that houses a diverse and interesting museum. There are exhibits related to the war, of course, but it also contains interesting exhibits on local history, archeology, and its own little Coca Cola museum – a real trip down memory lane. We really enjoyed the film on local aviation pioneer Roscoe Turner. Like so many early aviators, Turner was a barnstormer, a racer (he broke the east/west transcontinental air speed record in 1930), a WWI pilot, a movie stunt flier, a WWII flight instructor, and the founder of a couple early incarnations of commercial airlines, among many other endeavors. One of the more colorful aspects of his career would have to be his co-pilot, a pet lion named Gilmore, a gift/publicity stunt from the good folks at Gilmore Oil, one of his employers. All told, this farmer’s son from Corinth did pretty well for himself; he landed on the cover of Time magazine. Gilmore didn’t do badly either, although his honor is somewhat less enviable. He’s at the Smithsonian (stuffed). The Crossroads Museum is a small museum, but well worth the $5 admission.

Doesn't look like much now, but, this crossroad of tracks made Corinth ground zero in 1862. Originally, there were 4 tracks crossing at this point -- only 2 exist now. This picture was taken from a window in the Depot.

We enjoyed our visit, but by then our interest in the Civil War had been piqued to the point that we were actually anxious to see Shiloh – a battle so famous that it’s almost synonymous with the war. We thought we had studied up on Shiloh, so imagine our surprise when we realized it was in Tennessee! For some reason this took both of us totally by surprise. In the most technical sense, of course, we knew where it was, but Shiloh is so closely associated with Corinth and Bryce’s Crossroads – and we had historically paid such pitifully little attention to anything related to the Civil War – that we hadn’t really thought it out.

Not surprisingly, Shiloh is beautiful. It, too, is under the control of those wonderful National Park people, whose maintenance talents are much to be admired. As we drove in, it was apparent to even Civil War novices like us that Shiloh was a major battle site. The sheer number of monuments was impressive, and there’s something to see at every turn: signs relating the history of that particular site, statues, cannons, and monuments, monuments, monuments…an incredible number of which are there courtesy of the people of Illinois. Illinois monuments are everywhere!

Grant's line of cannons pointing across an open field toward the Sunken Road.

First, we went to the Shiloh Battlefield Visitors Center, where we watched a film about the two horrible days in April of 1862, when the area around Shiloh Church became a battlefield. (The church didn’t make it through the battle, but the Tennessee Sons of the Confederacy built a replica on the site a few years ago and it does look authentic.) The park ranger at the center told us that we’d be seeing a film about the battle, and that the film had been made in the 1950s (there’s a new one coming out any time now). Our excitement level dropped precipitously when we heard that, but – surprise! – it was really well-done, not nearly as dated as we would have thought. It gave a really even account of what had gone on, both the military aspects and the personal ones, and we really enjoyed it. Then we hopped in the car and set off on the well-marked driving tour of the battle grounds, where we found that the park is not just beautiful, it’s user-friendly too. We had several things that we particularly wanted to see: Shiloh Church, the Confederate Monument, the row of cannons that mark Grant’s last line, and at least one of the Confederate mass graves, but the battlefield is so well-marked and accessible that we managed to see most everything...and were impressed and humbled by everything we saw.

Shiloh Church Although the original church was destroyed during the battle, this is "a near exact replica of that original church. Much detail went into building this church, using hand hewn logs approximately 150 years old that came from this area. This church was started in 1999 under the direction of the Shiloh Sons of Confederate Veteran Camp #1454 and Shiloh Methodist Church." Quotation is from the plaque that is on the church grounds.

Behind this monument is one of the mass graves of the Confederate soldiers who were killed at the Battle of Corinth. At the time, Confederate dead were not permitted burial in U.S. military cemeteries. Later - muuuuucccch later - this was changed.

Welcome Centers

Mississippi's Welcome Centers are state treasures that hum along under the radar of most residents. There are twelve of them, believe it or not, situated to cover most routes into Mississippi. They came about in the mid 1960s, with the advent of interstate highways and Lady Bird Johnson's push for the Highway Beautification Act. And, those of us who remember when people threw anything and everything out their car windows and never gave it a second thought will be ever grateful to Mrs. Johnson for helping eradicate that blight on our national face.

The centers themselves are lovely, elegantly furnished places. They're all different, but all built to resemble the antebellum homes so closely associated with Mississippi in most visitors' minds. They're staffed 8-5, seven days a week, and they're a wealth of free information on the state and what's going on. Stop in next time you see one, even (or especially) if you have one in your area. They're listed below by county as that's how they are known, but the towns (and sometimes a little more information) is listed to give you a better idea of exactly where the center is.

Alcorn - Corinth
Itawamba - Tremont (Fulton)
Desoto - Hernando
Delma Furniss - Lula (Highways 49 & 61)
Washington - Greenville
Warren - Vicksburg
Lauderdale - Toomsuba
Adams - Natchez
Pike - Magnolia
Pearl River - Picayune
Hancock - Pearlington (Gulf Coast)
Jackson - Moss Point

For more info, check out www.visitmississippi.org and click on Welcome Centers.

Belmont - Woodall Mountain - Iuka - Corinth - Blue Mountain March 26, 2009

Marian and I started our adventure in Belmont, where we planned to have breakfast at the Belmont Hotel. Unfortunately, the hotel wasn’t open, which is a shame because it looked charming (which was our whole reason for wanting to go there for breakfast). It has only about 15 rooms, and operates more as a B and B than a standard hotel. If they don’t have any guests, it probably functions just as the owners’ home – supposedly he is a local pastor. We had planned to try to visit again during Belmont’s “high season,” when there would be a better chance of it being open, but since then I’ve read online reviews that mention something about there being Pop-tarts for breakfast, so…maybe not. 

We don’t care for Pop-tarts. I don’t know if it’s because we think of them as a processed food product rather than as real food, or if it’s because they taste bad, but regardless, we don’t care for Pop-tarts and certainly don’t plan to drive all the way to Belmont to eat one. At any rate, the hotel is an old beauty built around 1924, when there was real craftsmanship involved in building. A peek through the windows showed a very elegantly decorated interior.

 

Downtown Belmont is only a block or two – a tiny town, but pretty. Once we got over our disappointment about the hotel being closed, we moved on to our second (and really, only) choice for breakfast: Sparks’ Restaurant. We knew it would be good when we saw that it was where the town’s old men gather every morning to drink coffee, smoke cigarettes and exaggerate past accomplishments. Marian and I each had a scrambled egg and bacon biscuit and a bowl of grits – all homemade, all delicious, all served by women who called us “Hon.” Bliss.

From Belmont we headed to Golden and ended up at TMI, a warehouse full of "items" made in China. But there are two small rooms full of really cool paper products where we spent a good half hour ooohing and aaahing over diaries and stationary. 

Next stop was Woodall Mountain – the highest point in Mississippi. We like visiting the highest points in various states. They’re all different, but Woodall has to be one of the very few that is in a neighborhood, or rather, that has had a neighborhood grow up around it. Usually a state’s highest point is in a national park, or at least a state park. But here, you drive out in the country and turn right by somebody’s house in a subdivision and head uphill. 

The brochure put out by the Tishomingo county Visitor’s Bureau refers to it as a “scenic gravel road,” but I believe all of us who were raised in Mississippi have a good idea how that translates in real life. The “mountain” is forested, and as you drive downhill and see the treed hillside dropping away, you do get some sense of being on a mountain. Driving uphill, your ears pop, but that’s about it. 

This was my third trip to Woodall, and Marian’s second. This was due to the fact that we couldn’t seem to get there before the sun set, no matter how hard we tried. Poor planning, we suppose, but we were determined to see it. It turns out that the darkness had been a blessing, and that the top of Woodall Mountain is best seen in total darkness. 

To say that it is “not scenic” borders on shameless praise coming from women who have no real interest in propane tanks, cinderblock storage buildings, or radio towers. That’s what greets visitors at the top of Woodall Mountain. Well, that, a sprinkling of litter, and a small cement table with benches (one’s broken). There’s a bronze marker too, telling you that it’s the highest point in Mississippi at 806’; but Marian’s GPS said 819’ and we're going with the satellite. 

Bear in mind that the lovely marker pictured here is the most beautiful thing on Woodall’s summit! There is one place that offers a narrow vista of the surrounding area; elsewhere, you’re just looking at trees with ugly propane tanks and buildings in front of them.

For history buffs, Woodall is known (although we don’t know by whom) as America’s bloodiest high point. That's because of the Battle of Iuka in 1862. That’s an honor no other state will try to snatch from Mississippi’s grasp!

 

After Woodall, we went to Iuka, a town I had never even thought about visiting. Interestingly enough, there once was a person named Iuka, a Chickasaw Indian chief. 

What a lovely little town! It’s a genteel Southern town with beautiful old houses and a nice little downtown. There’s also a park – Mineral Springs Park – that is very old and very charming. Iuka’s spring water won the 1902 World’s Fair prize for best mineral water, by the way. 

The park has, among many other offerings, a dogtrot log cabin that dates to 1879, and a covered bridge! The covered bridge is so small, pretty, and well-kept that we were afraid to drive through it – we thought it might be there just for show – but we decided to go for it and our reward was getting to see the beautiful old homes on the other side of the creek.

There are many unique things about Iuka, but one that I thought was especially interesting was that there’s a beautifully maintained old apartment building downtown (brick, two or three stories, circa 1930 maybe?). Think about it. Small Southern towns aren’t known for having desirable old downtown apartment buildings. If it was in most any city, it would be a much sought-after place to live, and we hope it is in Iuka. 

Downtown Iuka also has a real keeper of a church, the Church of our Savior. Pictured here, it’s an “1873 board and batten Carpenter Gothic Episcopal Church” according to the brochure, and it was purchased and restored by local citizens in 1985. God bless them for doing it; it’s a really charming and picturesque place that can be rented for weddings. 

Iuka is the only place we have ever visited that has a museum devoted to aprons. Yes, just aprons. A disturbingly large proportion of those aprons depict Aunt Jemima or one of her relations. We can’t believe people ever did that! There are also aprons depicting various states – souvenirs of 1950's travel – as well as new aprons and beautifully well-preserved handmade antique aprons. The lady who owns the store (there are aprons and knick-knacks for sale, so it’s a store/museum) is very nice, and it turns out that she hadn’t intended to open an apron museum at all. She had planned to open an antique book store. I had a bit of trouble following her story from books to aprons, but somehow it happened and now she has a store that’s almost totally devoted to aprons.

 

Downtown Iuka has been/is being gentrified/spruced up, and  they’re doing a fine job of it. We went to one of their restaurants; it was full of interesting old photos, antique clothing and other historical-type decorations, but we were  more interested in the other people in the restaurant. It was a very “citified” crowd: men in business suits and women in stylish attire. It’s funny how towns are like that, how one town can be so different from the towns around it. At any rate, our impression of Iuka was that it was sophisticated and upscale – a really nice place to visit.

From Iuka, we zipped up to Corinth. We were working against the clock there, as we were determined to try the famous Corinth slugburger and we had to get there before the store closed at 3 or 4:00. We wanted to do it right, so we went to the home of the slugburger, Borroum’s Drug Store. What a delightfully charming place Borroum’s is. The building was built in 1873, and it exudes character. The drugstore was founded in 1865 by Dr. Borroum, a Confederate surgeon, and it’s still family run. In fact, there are several large family portraits hanging in the drugstore, and one of them is Dr. Borroum. The drugstore also has a real old-fashioned soda fountain that serves vanilla phosphates, no less. 

The unappealing name slugburger comes from its original price, which was a nickel, AKA, a slug. The burger (and I’m using the word very loosely here), was a product of the depression, a way to stretch meat by adding fillers. Sadly, this is a textbook case of over-achievement. A standard slugburger which, by the way, is dropped into a vat of hot grease and deep-fried, comes with mustard, pickle and onions to disguise the taste. Marian liked hers, but I am getting a little queasy just writing about slugburgers. It sat in my stomach like a brick. As it turns out, the people behind the counter admitted that they “replace” slugburgers with real burgers if asked. That’s very telling and I wish I had listened. 

After the slugburgers, we went for tamales. No, we weren’t hungry; Marian was full and I was nauseous, but Corinth is famous for its tamales too and we didn’t want to miss anything. Again, we searched for the original – Dilworth’s Drive Through – and I have to say, they were delicious. Neither of us could finish even one of the tiny tamales, but they were really good and I’m glad we tried them. As for the rest of Corinth, there is so much to see around there that we will make it a trip in itself. We were just trying their local foods this trip.

From Corinth we headed to Blue Mountain to spend the night. I had an aunt who went to Blue Mountain College, and both Marian and I had grandmothers who went there, so we have heard about the place all our lives. Weeks earlier, we had gotten in touch with BMC’s director of Alumni Affairs and booked a room in Stewart Hall. It seems that the college rents out rooms for alums or “friends” of the college; a double with bathroom goes for $25. No kidding. Anyway, we got to Blue Mountain about dusk, checked in, and got a wonderful night's sleep - with the window open to let the quiet in!