VICKSBURG, Miss. - A group of U.S. Transportation Command, Air Mobility Command and Military Surface Deployment and Distribution Command workers took a bus ride into the past last month as they participated in the command’s annual Vicksburg staff ride.
The staff ride is a professional development exercise which involves extensive historical study of a battle, coupled with a visit to the battlefield itself to derive lessons from the past that are applicable to the present. USTRANSCOM has conducted annual staff rides to Vicksburg, Miss., since 2004.
“Participants should have an interest in military history,” said Jay Smith, USTRANSCOM Research Center director, “ and be willing to complete preparatory work and contribute to the staff ride through role playing, and have a sense of adventure.”
Although not as well known or studied as the eastern campaigns of the American Civil War, the Vicksburg campaign raises issues at the strategic, operational, and tactical levels of war that are relevant to a joint logistics organization such as USTRANSCOM. It also offers case studies in leadership, planning, joint force operations, mobility, logistics, the impact of terrain, and risk assessment.
“This year’s staff ride participants had a special treat,” Smith said. “While we were visiting the Vicksburg National Military Park, one of the park’s rangers offered to take the group into the museum’s basement and under the USS Cairo.
“The Cairo was a Union ironclad river gunboat under the command of Lt. Thomas O. Selfridge, Jr.,” Smith continued. “On 12 December 1862, the Cairo was the lead ship of a flotilla ordered to destroy Confederate batteries and clear the Yazoo River channel of underwater mines.”
According to historical accounts, the flotilla came under fire and as the Cairo turned towards the shore to return fire, it was rocked by two explosions from underwater mines and became the first ship in history to be sunk by an electrically detonated mine. The Cairo was raised from the Yazoo River mud in December 1964.
The park ranger showed the group many items retrieved from the ship including mounds of cannon balls, shells, canister rounds, light fixtures, and pieces of the ship’s superstructure. They were even allowed in the area directly below the Cairo to see the timbers and construction of the ship.
On this staff ride, as on several occasions in the past, Sid Champion V, a descendant of the Champion’s of Champion Hill, a site of one of the battles of the Vicksburg Campaign, talked to the group about the battle from a Southern family’s viewpoint and showed artifacts from the battle.
Staff ride participants are asked to fill out anonymous surveys after the event.
One response was typical of the group. “Outstanding,” it read. “A great opportunity to see something important to our nation’s history as well as re-living a little bit of that by role playing. I also liked the opportunity to get to know a lot of people that work at USTRANSCOM than I have never had the chance to meet previously.”
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