Dear Editor:

I hate to take issue with an article about the Vicksburg National Military Park (VNMP) when it is in there we discover that “VNMP experienced far greater cutbacks than other parks (and) we were the third largest cut in the country, at 30%.” This news is important and is a scandal.

However, it is incorrect to state in the article that VNMP “is not only a Vicksburg asset, it is a Mississippi asset.”

In fact, the park is not only a Vicksburg and Mississippi asset. It is a NATIONAL asset, a fact which is repeatedly ignored by historians, the media and national political figures.

I have been appalled for many years by the unequal treatment that VNMP receives in the hierarchy of national military parks. As of last year, the VNMP received $3.9 million in federal funds compared with the $9 million that Gettysburg received.

Though the two parks commemorate events that concluded at virtually the same time in 1863, Vicksburg was the much more important of the two. As Lincoln said, “Vicksburg is the key! The war can never be brought to a close until that key is in our pocket.” In addition, VNMP is a much more fragile national park because of its geology and soil. It also requires much more field maintenance than Gettysburg because of the far-longer growing season.

Bearing its importance and unique challenges in mind, the state of the park is a national scandal. The state of the ironclad Cairo is a national scandal. Friends of the VNMP pick up the slack courageously, but they are facing an uphill battle.

Having been aware of this situation for a long time, I wrote in February to President Trump and to the secretary of the interior asking them to send a “special envoy” to look into the affairs of the park in the hope of finally winning it the national attention and the resources it deserves, including adequate staffing, maintenance and marketing.

The City of Vicksburg would benefit from such attention, and so I also asked President Trump to please come to visit Vicksburg some time during his term, which would make him the 12th U.S. president to do so.

I await acknowledgements and replies from Washington, D.C.  

Yours sincerely,

Bernadette Cahill

Vicksburg, MS