Felled trees along Pemberton Road and near the Illinois Memorial at the Vicksburg National Military Park mean a planned Civil War battlefield restoration project is underway.

Work began Monday to clear about 80 to 90 acres and restore them to their 1863 appearance, said park Superintendent Mike Madell.

The landscape in those areas will then more accurately represent what the terrain looked like when Confederate soldiers defending Vicksburg battled Union troops commanded by Gen. Ulysses Grant in two May battles and a six-week siege that ended with the July 4 surrender of the city.