Shaifer House is restored

Published 10:42 pm Sunday, January 20, 2008

PORT GIBSON (AP) — From museums to meticulously preserved battlefields, Vicksburg abounds with reminders of Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant’s 1862-63 effort to capture the city and take control of the Mississippi River.

To see the site of the campaign’s first battle, though, one must penetrate the tree-studded ravines of Claiborne County to the yard of an inconspicuous building that, until recently, was in danger of falling down.

Restored by the Mississippi Department of Archives and History and rededicated in November, the structure is the Shaifer house, named for the family living there in April 1863.

That was when the Confederate army stationed an advance unit at the home to guard against advances on Port Gibson by Grant’s forces, which had crossed the Mississippi River west of town on April 30. Shortly after midnight the next morning, the pickets traded fire with the Union troops, inaugurating the brief Battle of Port Gibson.

Because the shots represented the first action in the first battle in the campaign for Vicksburg, the Shaifer house is regarded by historians as the place where the military struggle for control of the city began.

Unfortunately for historical preservationists, the structure’s status as a historic landmark did not exempt it from damage caused by nature and vandals. Officials said the house’s walls were covered with graffiti in 1999, when the Legislature gave the Mississippi Department of Archives and History control over the property.

Even more troubling, there was a ‘‘huge soil erosion problem’’ that threatened to collapse the rear part of the Shaifer home into a gully, said Jim Woodrick, acting director of MDAH’s historic preservation division.

‘‘You can’t imagine’’ the extent of the danger, Woodrick said. ‘‘I was scared to walk into the back of the house.’’

An answer to the house’s troubles was found in Civil War Trails, a $6.2 million state program funded mostly by a grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation and used to restore historically important sites in Corinth and Edwards.

Work on the Shaifer house began in 2006 and was concluded in November with a ceremonial rededication of the home. The house was re-roofed, the marks of vandalism erased and the gully into which the building seemed prone to fall filled in.

More improvements are in store for the site, said Jim Barnett, the head of the archives department’s historical properties division and the official charged with day-to-day care of the Shaifer house.

The department is planning to add signs explaining the historical significance of the home and placing the battle that occurred there within the broader context of the Vicksburg campaign, Barnett said.

The house itself is now locked and empty, but the public may visit the grounds of the property.

For all of the restoration work, Barnett said the site will remain difficult for the archives department to manage for a simple reason — it’s in the middle of nowhere.

The house is about 4 miles outside Port Gibson. The route to the structure includes some roads that are in the same condition as they were when the passers-by were wearing blue uniforms and carrying Enfield rifles.

For hard-core Civil War buffs, this can be appealing.

‘‘So many Civil War battlefields have been covered over by cities and towns and shopping malls,’’ Barnett said. ‘‘This is a place where you can get out and really sense the history of the battle.’’

This feel of the past is alluring to Larry Barnes, a Vicksburg man who is ‘‘kind of in charge’’ of a Confederate re-enactment detail known as Swett’s Battery.

Barnes said the group likes to camp and drill on the grounds of the property because ‘‘there are no power lines or other extraneous modern-day things.’’

However, the remoteness of the Shaifer house also makes it impossible for the archives department to station staff there or care for it constantly, Barnett said.

For now, Barnett said he relies on Barnes and other groups of interested citizens, as well as his own periodic visits to the site, to ensure that the Shaifer house is maintained.

He said that the archives department’s ‘‘long-term plan’’ involves the possible transfer of the property to the National Park Service.

The NPS, the authority in charge of the Vicksburg National Military Park, has ‘‘a lot more wherewithal, funding and resources to maintain these historical sites, especially a property as far from civilization as the Shaifer house,’’ Barnett said.

For that to happen, the NPS would have to make known its willingness to take the property from the state archives department and then be authorized by Congress to accept it.

Such a move would be natural if funding permitted, Barnett said.

While the campaign for Vicksburg culminated in the 6-week siege of the city, the struggle also involved a series of smaller battles, including clashes in Jackson, Raymond and Port Gibson. The national military park commemorates the siege, but battlefields and properties associated with the earlier battles are outside the NPS’ care.

‘‘Currently, the Park Service only interprets the final chapter of this campaign,’’ Barnett said, referring to the Vicksburg park. ‘‘The potential is there to interpret the entire campaign.’’

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Information from: Vicksburg Post, http://www.vicksburgpost.com



AP-CS-01-20-08 1344EST