Scene of one of the most decisive battles of the Civil War, Vicksburg has for many years contained the Vicksburg National Military Park and the Vicksburg National Cemetery.

Thursday, March 22, 2001

Scene of one of the most decisive battles of the Civil War, Vicksburg has for many years contained the Vicksburg National Military Park and the Vicksburg National Cemetery.

How many years ago I wandered across that battlefield I cannot say, but, though it was close to a century after the Civil War, it brought that tragic episode in our history very close. The graves of 16,653 Union soldiers lie there. Three-fourths of them, according to the Britannica, marked &uot;unknown.&uot;

There is a bronze statue of Jefferson Davis in the park. As I remember every state in the United States has a statue representing it. The saddest statue, I thought, was the statue representing Missouri, two brothers one in Confederate uniform, one in the uniform of the North, dying in hand to hand combat.

Most of the state statues were of soldiers. The one exception, I believe was the statue representing Indiana. That statue was of a civilian, Oliver P. Morton, governor of Indiana, who pushed what might have been a border state into passionate support of the Union.

My great-grandfather had moved with his wife and children to Indiana and was, in consequence, disowned by his slave-owning father who wanted him to return to Kentucky. The youngest of my great-grandfather’s children, was my great-uncle Mort, my maternal grandmother’s brother.

Born long after the Civil War, he was named for the Indiana governor. Uncle Mort did fight in the Spanish-American War. He told me with pride that starting with the American Revolution the family had sent soldiers to every war, including Indian uprisings.

&uot;No one was ever drafted, we all enlisted.&uot;

I was very fond of my great-uncle. I don’t know whether anyone still remembers the Andy Hardy movies, if so you will know what I mean when I say Uncle Mort looked and acted like Judge Hardy.

Like all my family on both sides, he was a bit strange. Someone for whom he’d done a favor once presented him with a baby pig. It became a pet. At least once a week Uncle Mort set a wash tub out in the yard and scoured the creature to a gleaming pinkness. On Saturday nights, adorned with a wide pink satin band, topped off with a huge bow, she accompanied him on his promenade around the little Nebraska town in which he lived.

When at last she died, at a ripe old age from natural causes, she was given a decent funeral, buried and mourned for many weeks.

Despite his differences from his neighbors, Uncle Mort was well liked. Back before Nebraska became unicameral, a political group came to request him to run for the Nebraska Senate.

&uot;Why would you want me to do that?&uot; he asked looking up from his gardening.

&uot;Because you haven’t an enemy in the world,&uot; was the answer, &uot;Everybody likes you.&uot;

&uot;And I plan to keep it that way,&uot; said Uncle Mort, and went back to his gardening.

I confided to him once my regret in being a Midwesterner. I thought being from the South would be so much more romantic or being from New York so much more exciting.

&uot;Why, Missy,&uot; he said, &uot;Your grandparents and great-grandparents homesteaded this country. When they came across the prairies in covered wagons some of those wagons had signs that read ‘the cowards never started and the weak ones died on the way.’ When those that came faced up to droughts and grasshoppers a lot of them turned tail and went back home again. You be proud of those that stayed and proud of the Midwest. It’s a special place.&uot;

I’ll always be grateful for seeing that Midwest for a moment the way the pioneers saw it. That’s one of the things I owe to my great-uncle.

Love Cruikshank is an Albert Lea resident. Her column appears Thursdays.