Vandalism across Warren County: Park monuments, statues, churches spray-painted

Published 12:00 am Friday, November 21, 2003

Red paint marks the base of a statue of Brig. Gen. Lloyd Tilghman near the Louisiana monument at the Vicksburg National Military Park Thursday. (Melanie Duncan ThortisThe Vicksburg Post)

[11/21/03]]Graffiti artists with an evangelical message and a Southern twang have spread their efforts into the Vicksburg National Military Park, where officials take defacing sacred monuments seriously.

“Jesus is coming. Repent y’all” was found painted in about 12 areas along the federal park’s 16-mile main tour road Thursday, including the state memorials of Illinois, Mississippi and Wisconsin.

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“This is a shame,” said park employee Bendel White as he used lacquer thinner, a rag and a wire brush to begin cleaning the red paint off the bronze plaques inside the Illinois Memorial.

The same person or people have been at work in other areas of the city and county. The message, or parts of it, were also painted on three church buildings, all with Church of Christ in their name. The words were found by a police officer at 12:42 a.m. today at the Church of Christ, 725 Mission 66; at 11:54 a.m. Thursday at Bypass Church of Christ, 787 U.S. 61 North; and at 12:04 p.m. Thursday at Church of Christ-Warrenton, 150 Redbone Road.

Similar graffiti was also reported seen on property at Warren Central High School, but that was not confirmed by anyone with the Vicksburg Warren School District.

Under federal law, Congress decreed the park a near-sacred area in 1899. Past vandals have included three Indiana men who “anointed” park monuments here and elsewhere with oil in 1997. They were given five-year suspended prison terms and $5,650 fines each after pleading guilty.

The monuments painted Wednesday night or Thursday morning are scattered along the main tour route of the 1,728-acre park.

“At about 10 p.m., I was notified by park guards giving tours that someone saw graffiti in the Illinois Memorial, and I came right out,” Supervisory Park Ranger Patty Montague said.

Also defaced were statues of Confederate Brig. Gen. Lloyd Tilghman and President Jefferson Davis; a bust of Maj. Gen. Dabney Maury of Mississippi and a relief faceplate of Capt. Toby Hart of Louisiana; on a cannon on Navy Circle and the Widow Blakely cannon at Louisiana Circle; and on smaller state monuments to units from Indiana, Louisiana and Minnesota.

Investigation was ongoing, Montague said. She added that the graffiti may have been applied overnight Wednesday. The park roads are closed to vehicles at sunset.

The vandals did “thousands and thousands of dollars” in estimated damage, she said.

Another man accused of vandalism in the park in 2001 faced federal penalties of up to two years in prison and a $250,000 fine as a felony offense. He later pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge.

The 60 bronze plaques inside the Illinois Memorial display the names of 36,325 soldiers who served their state during the campaign and siege of Vicksburg during the summer of 1863. Dedicated in 1906, the 62-foot, Roman Pantheon-based memorial is made of Georgia granite and white marble.

The spray paint on the statues of Tilghman and Davis was confined to their pedestals. The paint on the Mississippi monument was on the sidewalk at its base and was not visible from the park’s tour road.

Paint on the other monuments was, however, visible from the road.

“I believe it will eventually fade on out,” said White of the painted letters on the plaques.

The Widow Blakely cannon is “one of the few guns that we know actually was here” during the 1863 campaign, park historian Terry Winschel said.