Besieged!

Vicksburg, Mississippi

One of our last stops as we travelled back to Texas was Vicksburg, a city on the banks of the Mississippi River in western Mississippi. This was the site of the siege of Vicksburg, in which the Union forces successfully attempted to capture the city in order to gain control of the traffic along the river. Once this was accomplished, it was a great victory for the North, and an awful defeat for the Confederates.

Vicksburg today is, of course, much different than it was back in those days, but besides the changes that men have wrought, the river has changed position as well. It is perhaps well known that the Mississippi changes its course over the years, and here it has actually moved farther away from Vicksburg.

Our destination in this place was Vicksburg National Military Park, which we found to be very interesting. Unlike the small monuments we saw in Georgia (see "Southern Monuments") at Vicksburg we found very large monuments for states on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line. One of these worthy of mention was that of Illinois, which was modelled after the Parthenon in Greece. Illinois's claim to fame, of course, is that it was the home of the U.S. president Abraham Lincoln, and around the building one can read that famous quote from him, viz: "With malice towards none, with charity for all: Let us have peace." I don't believe Mr. Lincoln's character was quite as pristine as people make it out to be when they use that quote, but that's beside the point. The Illinois monument was very masterfully carved, and above the door was a golden eagle. Upon walking up the steps to the monument, one may walk inside and view the inscriptions within. It is fashioned as a dome, with a hole in the top. Altogether it was very interesting looking and majestic.

All the monuments were very large, and some bore interesting inscriptions. I have already posted the text of the Texas monument (see "Remembering Our Soldiers") and I found the text from the Arkansas monument to be interesting as well: "To the Arkansas Confederate soldiers, a part of a nation divided by the sword, and reunited at the altar of faith."

Besides the many great monoliths erected in memory of the soldiers who fell upon the battlefield, there is also a museum there which showcases an actual Union ironclad ship that was sunk in the waters of the Mississippi and pulled out years later. During the siege, several of these ironclad warships were sent past Vicksburg during the night, trying to sneak past the Confederates who were guarding the river. All but one of these made it, the U.S.S. Cairo being sunk by a mine.

Outside the museum we saw the ship itself, and although much of its wood has rotted away, some still remains to complement the iron armour, cannons, and engine. Inside the museum one may see all the different artefacts that were found in the ship when they pulled it up, and it all gives a sense for what life was like in those not so long ago days.

As we left the park, I photographed one last monument which gave a list of the states which fought for the Southern cause:

Confederate Army

Alabama
Arkansas
Florida
Georgia
Kentucky
Louisiana
Missouri
Maryland
Mississippi
North Carolina
South Carolina
Tennessee
Texas
Virginia

"That's All, Folks"

This is the last of my thirteen blog posts about our trip to North Carolina! I hope you enjoyed reading them. However, now that I've gotten into this routine of blogging every Friday, I'm starting to think, "why not keep it up?" So, I will keep on posting every week on into 2007. I may post stories, poems, or songs that I've written, pictures I've drawn, narrations for school, interesting thoughts, and whatever else I think would make a good blog post.
Hope you have a wonderful new year, and please continue to read BenjaBlog!

(Not sure when the new millennium started? Read "The Y2K Bug".)

Cypress Trees & Bayous

(Originally published in the Wilderness Explorers newsletter)

Harrison County, Texas

We were glad to be back in Texas. After having gallivanted all over the southern states and as far east as North Carolina, we were overjoyed to see that sign on the state line as we left Louisiana—“Drive Friendly, the Texas Way”! Other places are nice to visit, but there’s just no place like the Lone Star State.

Our final camping-out destination for the trip was Caddo Lake State Park near Karnack, Texas, just across the border. Although off the beaten path, this was a place we really wanted to see, since Caddo Lake is the biggest, if not the only, natural lake in Texas.

By the time we got there it was dark, but the next morning we got a good look at the place. Being in far east Texas, the trees were very tall, and there were so many kinds! It was just neat to actually be in a forest, since we don’t really have those in our neck of the woods.

That morning as we were packing up the tent, we found a very gigantic millipede. It was so big it looked like it must have escaped from the zoo! But there it was, crawling among the dry leaves. I did pick it up, knowing of course that centipedes sting, not millipedes.

After breakfast we decided to go canoeing. Upon inquiring at the park headquarters, we learned that Caddo Lake proper was a good distance down the bayou from the state park, and that it would take us a few hours if we expected to make it that far.

But we rented a couple of canoes anyway, and paddled out across Saw Mill Pond. This pond (a view of which is pictured above) was unlike any pond I had ever seen before. There was a great abundance of cypress trees, and estimating the size of the pond was very difficult due to this fact. As we were pushing off from the shore, we saw a great blue heron (Ardea herodias) standing among the lily pads, the same type of bird of which I wrote in the January 2006 issue. I was in possession of the camera at that time, and I was able to get a few pictures of the curly-necked bird.

Although much of the pond was covered with lily pads (whether native or not, I do not know), there was a path carved through them which led out of Saw Mill Pond to the bayou. You can ask Deborah about lily pads; she has a great dislike for them due to a bad experience at Fort Parker State Park.

Once we left the pond to paddle the bayou, however, there were no more lily pads. When we reached Big Cypress Bayou, we went to our left, the opposite direction from Caddo Lake. The bayou was very wide and deep, and lined with cypress trees on both sides.

Nearly all the cypress trees there were decked with Spanish moss, which gave them an old, gray appearance. Although the moss anchors itself to the branches of these trees, it is not a parasite, as might be expected. In fact, its roots serve merely to hold onto the branch, and the moss gets all the nourishment it needs from the air.

By all appearances, the bayou along which we were paddling seemed much like a river. In fact, until just recently I did not know the difference between these two terms. Although both bayous and rivers are channels of water, the difference is that bayous flow very slowly (some even contain stagnant water), whereas rivers are usually faster-moving. Also, bayous tend to be wide, and rivers come in all sizes.

After we had gone a good ways down the bayou, we went under a bridge. Shortly after that we decided to turn back and start heading back to the pond.

As we turned our canoes and reentered Saw Mill Pond, we spied a heron among the lily pads, presumably the same one we had seen earlier. As Deborah and I were fighting our way through the lily pads on an alternate route (how did Daddy talk us into that?), Mommy had the camera and was closely following the movements of the bird, waiting for it to take flight. Finally it did, and she was able to get an excellent photograph of the heron in mid-air, along with a splash of water.

Once the canoes were landed, we decided to go on the nature trail not too far off. The trail led through the forest among the tall trees, and here and there were interpretive signs, alerting us to the fact that we had just entered a different vegetation zone, and containing other pieces of information.

Having already looked at the map, I decided to take the trail labeled “Steep Rugged Footpath”, which led away from the nature trail. Daddy went with me, and Deborah and Mommy continued following the nature trail and went back to get the car. We agreed to meet them at the other end of the Steep Rugged Footpath, where it met the road.

Although the trail had a formidable title, for us who are used to hiking mountains in New Mexico, this one was easy to conquer. It did go uphill for a while, but it was nothing too difficult. As we went along, I marvelled at all the different types of trees and plants that were there, and took pictures of some of them. At one point along the trail I even spotted a five-lined skink (Eumeces fasciatus), with a bright blue tail. We don’t see skinks very often around here, and as far as I know there is only one species of skink in Parker County, the ground skink. It’s not every day that you see a lizard with a blue tail, and although I pursued it with the camera, it got away from me.

Daddy and I soon arrived at our point of rendezvous, and were soon picked up by Deborah and Mommy. Although we could have stayed longer at the state park, we had everything packed up already, and we were ready to head home. So once we were back in the car we left the state park, although we had one more stop we wanted to make before we headed west.

On the park map, I saw an arrow pointing north next to FM 2198, which was labeled “To Uncertain”. Having heard of that place before, I knew what it meant, and I was eager to go. There is nothing spectacular about Uncertain, Texas, but even though it was a little out of our way, we didn’t want to miss the opportunity to visit this little town when we were so close.

So to Uncertain we went, although we weren’t sure how far up the road it was. We knew for sure that we had reached it, however, when we saw the city limit sign. We couldn’t resist the chance, and we all got out to take our picture by the sign.

After that, we were really ready to go home. We bade farewell to east Texas, and drove west, back to our home in Parker County.

Freedom of Thought

Although we very often hear of the various rights and privileges that we have here in America, such as freedom of religion and freedom of speech, something that is not often mentioned is our freedom of thought.

Many people look to the Bill of Rights and the Constitution as the documents that gave us these rights, but the fact is that they were only created to protect these rights. Men everywhere have always had these rights, not granted to them by any earthly government, but by God. This is the premise of common law, the foundation of which is, in simple terms, that there is a Higher Power than the government, and the job of the government is to discover the law and enact it, insofar as it does not encroach upon the rights and morals given from above.

Having said this, our freedom of thought has been given to us by God, who has also given us all other freedoms. It may be pointed out that this freedom is not expressly set out in the Bill of Rights, but most likely the reason for this is that the writers did not see fit to include it, seeing that it is a freedom that cannot be taken away anyway.

This is the unique characteristic of freedom of thought. We may think whatever we want, about whatever we want, and no man can take this away from us. Let us not take this as a license to think on evil or sinful matters, however. God has given us the ability to make choices for ourselves, and He will not prevent us from taking the wrong path. It is up to us to believe the truth. May we never take our freedom of thought for granted, and let us use it to our advantage in glorifying God.

The Civil War?

Although I used to use the term above to refer to the awful and bloody war of the 1860's, I have since repented. There are various reasons why I don't call it "the Civil War" anymore, one of which is the simple fact that they did not call it that back then. In the years immediately following the War, they called it simply "The War", and everyone knew which war was being referred to. However, as time rolled on as it is wont to do, more wars were fought, and other terms came into use to refer to the War.

Of these, I usually use "The War Between the States", as it accurately describes the situation, and is unbiased toward either side. Other names include "The Lost Cause", "The War of the Sixties", "The War of Northern Aggression", "The War of Southern Rebellion", "The War of Southern Independence", and many others.

According to dictionary definition, the term "civil war" means "A type of war fought between members of a single nation or similar political entity." According to this definition, I submit to you that the War Between the States was, in fact, not truly a civil war. Let us reflect upon the circumstances. In the early 1860's, because of the Federal Government's encroachments upon the rights of the southern states, some of them seceded from the Union (as was their sovereign right), and were soon joined by other states, thus forming the Confederate States of America, a separate country. Shortly thereafter, the Union government declared war against the South, viewing its secession as open rebellion.

The War was not civil in the least, and especially when subjected to the true meaning of the term "civil war". It was our attempt to free ourselves from the tyranny and injustice of the U.S. government, and to secure for ourselves a free nation. However, as all the world knows, this ended in failure and defeat for the southern people. Although our country was devastated and received no comfort from the "Reconstruction" afterwards, we have recovered after so many years of hard work, and hope never again to have to take such desperate measures.

Tsalagi

Cherokee, North Carolina

It was raining and foggy as we drove through the mountains and crossed the border into the Cherokee Indian Reservation. Through the mist I spied a torch burning upon a sign which read, in Cherokee letters, "Detsvyadanilvga — Tsalagi Aniyvwiyasdv Atselovi". Under this, in English, it said "Welcome — Cherokee Indian Reservation". I had been looking forward to going to this place, and I was certainly not disappointed. I was delighted to see the bilingual sign welcoming us, and as we drove through town there were even more signs in Cherokee. The Cherokee Hardware & Building Supply had "Tsalagi Anesgesdodi" emblazoned at the top of its sign, and nearly every street sign in the reservation was bilingual! I thought it was so cool to see "Tsali Tsuwasohisdi" printed under "Tsali Boulevard", and "Lii Tela" under "Lee Taylor Rd".

The interesting thing about the Cherokee language is that it is not written with the Roman alphabet, but has its own syllabary. The Cherokee syllabary was most likely devised in the early 1800's by George Guess (Ssiquaya), a monolingual Cherokee. He borrowed some letters from the Roman alphabet, but gave them completely different sounds. An example of this is the word "Tsalagi", which means "Cherokee". In the syllabary it looks very similar to "CWY".

While in Cherokee we worshiped with the congregation of the Lord's church there, and found that several of the members were native speakers of the language. That afternoon we visited the Museum of the Cherokee Indian, which we found to be very interesting. It followed the history of the Cherokee people, from the time when they lived in their ancestral homelands, until most of them were forced to go to Indian Territory on the Trail of Tears. The Cherokees that are in North Carolina today are descendants of those Cherokees who were able to remain, for various reasons.

After we went through the exhibits, we had to look in the gift shop. My sister bought a hat with "Tsalagi" embroidered on it, I found a patch, and also—the most exciting of all—I bought a Cherokee New Testament! It is a reprint of the original that was printed in the 1800's, and is printed entirely in the Cherokee syllabary. It is black, with gold letters on the front reading "Itse Kanohedv Datlohisdv". Although I do not know Cherokee, I can read (but not understand) it with some difficulty.

As we left the reservation continuing our journey, we saw a billboard encouraging speakers of Cherokee to speak the language at home. Visiting the Cherokees was a very interesting experience, and I am glad that they are working to preserve their language for the generations to come. For more information about the Cherokee language and other Native American tongues, visit my website at www.hello-oklahoma.com.