I like to visit odd places when I travel.
Instead of places with crowds or long lines, I like spots that are famous but not exactly destinations. I believe odd places help me write. The topics that come forward aren’t beaten to death by others, and I’ll make connections I could never make on my own.
I visited an odd place a few months ago. I took a day off work and drove ten hours to Vicksburg, Mississippi. A city once dubbed “the key to the South.”
Why?
Vicksburg might be a small, lazy town now, but in 1863, it was the heart of the Confederacy. A heavily armored port on the Mississippi River and the site of the epic siege that split the Confederacy in two. We often think of Gettysburg, but the Civil War actually hung in the balance during this fight.
I visited Vicksburg in October. It’s taken three months for inspiration to strike, but it finally did.
Why the heck are you talking about this, Cal?
I’ll tell ya.
At the start of the Civil War, two notable generals led the Union. George McClellan, in the Eastern theater — tasked with seizing Richmond, and Ulysses S. Grant in the Western theater — assigned to control the Mississippi River.
The two men literally had nothing in common.
McClellan was top of his class at West Point. He was rich, successful, and popular. He was also an egomaniac, and his military strategy reflected it. He decided to place a large army in front of Richmond and wait for surrender. The Confederates saw it coming and routed him with half the men.
It was a horribly inconsiderate plan.
I went to Vicksburg to find out if Grant was any different and spared no expense doing so.
I hired a park ranger for the day. Most tourists walk the battlefield, read the plaques, and save money. Not me. I paid $70 for a personal park ranger. The guy was over the moon when I handed him the cash. I don’t think he gets many takers.
I asked the ranger about Grant’s plan to take Vicksburg. He looked shocked by the question. “Grant didn’t have just ONE plan,” he said. “This was Vicksburg. The great southern fortress. The key to the South. No one was going to let him take it.”
I had a lot to learn.
For over a year, Grant spent the campaign looking for angles.
He dug ditches. Built bridges. He crossed rivers, then recrossed them. He attacked Vicksburg head-on. He tried to bomb it to death. He constructed canals—one canal basically cut a mile-long hole into the peninsula across from Vicksburg.
He tried everything, but nothing worked. People started saying he was lazy and drinking again.
Lincoln considered replacing him.
But, like all Stoic Ohioans, he kept at it. He knew something had to crack.
Crack it did.
First, he ran gun boats past Vicksburg, then marched his entire army 30 miles below the city through a stinking swamp and fought his way back up. All without a supply line. He won battle after battle until they surrounded Vicksburg and forced it to surrender.
Vicksburg is a story about giving yourself space for flexibility.
When it comes to important goals in your life, whether that’s writing, entrepreneurship, or training for a marathon, most of us act like McClellan. We place all our chips on the table and make a fuss. Our first strategy rarely works, then we give up.
In reality, the progression happens more closely to Grant at Vicksburg.
It’s slow and irritating. The first plan doesn’t work. The second fails even worse. People want to replace you. People call you a drunkard.
But if you’re patient and have the courage to iterate after mistakes, maybe a crack can be found.
Final Thought
At the end of the tour, the ranger showed me around a museum built for a sunken Ironclad. It was one of the ships that “ran” the Vicksburg pass but didn’t make it.
“What did the Confederate general on the other side, Pemberton, think of Grant?” I asked the ranger.
“You kiddin?” He said in his Mississippi accent. “Grant had him fooled from the jump. He didn’t know which way he was comin.”
Wow, I thought. The Union was pissed at him. The enemy was confused. All that remained was Grant and his resolve.
My girlfriend likes to say, “Not my monkeys, not my circus,” when something that has nothing to do with her hurls into her atmosphere.
I’d like to believe Grant thought something similar during the Vicksburg Campaign.