Paper Conservator Theresa Shockey with Harpers Ferry Center in West Virginia separates saturated material recovered from the Louisiana Monument time capsule Wednesday as Civil War re-enactors Tommy Anderson, left, and Byron Denham with the Madison Parish Light Artillery look on at the Vicksburg National Military Park.(Melanie Duncan Thortis The Vicksburg Post)

[7/17/03]Just like in 1920, it seemed fitting for Confederate veterans to be around for a ceremony involving a time capsule in the Louisiana Monument.

In 1920, the capsule was being put into the memorial at the Vicksburg National Military Park. On Wednesday, it was being opened.

And the two Louisiana Confederate men sporting 1861 Madison Parish Light Artillery uniforms weren’t veterans; they were re-enactors who drove from Tallulah hoping to see pictures, newspapers, coins, ammunition and other documents inside the car battery-sized time capsule put into the ground in 1920 by Civil War veterans.

Capt. Tommy Anderson, 61, of Tallulah, said he and Pvt. Byron Denham, 39, also of Tallulah, dressed for battle and drove to the military park because it wouldn’t be right if Louisiana were not adequately represented at the opening.

Park officials and conservators hoped to find the contents in good shape inside the capsule, removed from a corner at the base of the Louisiana Monument June 25. However, water leaked into the metal box, saturating much of its contents.

The monument, struck twice by lightning in May 1999, was dismantled to allow the damaged structure to be rebuilt.

“My ancestors fought right here,” said Anderson, with a sheathed battle saber at his hip. He said he hadn’t been to the Vicksburg park much, but heard about the capsule opening and thought it would be fun to see.

Like everyone else standing around, Anderson looked at the metal box in the blue, 50-quart ice chest filled with water, wondering if the pictures and other papers had turned to pulp. The capsule had been kept in water since it was pulled from the monument, waiting for National Park Service conservators to open it. Onlookers waited for the Louisiana and West Virginia conservators to remove the contents, piece by piece.

When a park ranger removed the capsule’s lid, the water inside it looked like muddy pond water that had been stirred with a stick.

At first, Louisiana State Conservator Doug Harrison and Harpers Ferry Center Paper Conservator Theresa Shockley plucked what looked like metal chips from the murky water.

An hour into the capsule inspection, the conservators managed to get the smelly, wet clump from the box and tried to separate it, layer by layer, including shell fragments and bullets.

“It may be alive,” joked park Superintendent Bill Nichols, staring at the green mass of history a few feet away.

Even though the newspapers had been soaked in water for possibly decades, the headlines from the 1920 New Orleans and Vicksburg newspapers could still be read. Wet and very mucky, much of the paper materials were still intact.

Shockley said all of the materials, wrapped up in plastic storage bags, would be frozen so they could be treated easier later. She said salvageable artifacts will be on display at some point.

Park Historian Terry Winschel said the paper material will be frozen at the Mississippi Museum of Natural History in Jackson.

He said he had hoped to put the capsule contents into a new waterproof capsule to be sealed into the rebuilt Louisiana Monument, on track to be completed in three months, but the paper wouldn’t be conserved in time. Instead, they will be displayed at the Vicksburg park when conservation is complete.

Winschel said a new time capsule may be put in the Louisiana Monument, filled with the 1920 coins from the old capsule and the new Mississippi and Louisiana quarters.

The Louisiana Monument was the only monument, marker, plaque or tablet of the 1,329 in the park to have a time capsule in placed in it by Civil War veterans.