From staff and AP reports

Plans being formulated for the 150th anniversary of the Civil War show re-enactors from around the country visiting Vicksburg and nine other battle sites during the next few years.

The plans were drawn up earlier this month at the Civil War 150th National Leadership Convention, which met in Chickamauga, Ga. About 75 representatives from re-enactment armies nationwide attended.

In 2011, the convention will support the first Manassas battle in Virginia and Shiloh in Tennessee. In 2012, the second Manassas battle and Vicksburg in Mississippi.

In 2013, it will be Chickamauga and Gettysburg in Pennsylvania; in 2014, The Wilderness in Virginia and Atlanta.

In 2015, they will support re-enactments at Bentonville in North Carolina and Appomatox in Virginia, where the Confederate Army surrendered.

It was unclear Tuesday how the group’s plans would fit into local commemorations of the Vicksburg campaign, which began in 1862 and ended with the city’s surrender on July 4, 1863.

Bill Seratt, executive director of the Vicksburg Convention and Visitors Bureau, said late Tuesday that he had yet to make contact with representatives of the re-enactors.

The city, whose sesquicentennial celebration will be funded by a $100,000 federal grant, has yet to spell out its plans in detail. Seratt has said the celebrations will start in 2011 and culminate in a musical event on July 4, 2013.  Additionally, officials at the Old Court House Museum and the Vicksburg National Military Park are planning sesquicentennial events.

Plans are also uncertain at the state level. Legislators last year authorized a governor-appointed commission to plan for the Civil War sesquicentennial but did not fund it. 

“And with the way the state budget is, who knows what’s going to happen with that,” Seratt said.