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Southern Cedars Receives
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The 8th Annual Raymond Fall Pilgrimage, held on October 3-14, kept with tradition while offering new events for the entire family. What began in 1999 as a one-day event, blossomed two years ago into a two-day city-wide activity and this year has flowered into a two-week affair.
Park Day 2007
Despite an unusual cold snap of 48 degrees on April 7, Friends of Raymond volunteers rose to the occasion for FOR's annual "Grassroots Preservation" activities during the annual Park Day on the Raymond Walking/Interpretive Trail. As a reward, the chilled but enthusiastic workers received History Channel T-shirts, a hotdog lunch, and a history lecture by FOR President Parker Hills, along with the satisfaction received from a job well done.
Dennis Driscoll To Finance
Reconstruction of a
FOR Cannon
On June 8, 2006, during a luncheon at the Dupree House for a Hinda Incentives Leadership and Teamwork seminar, Friends of Raymond received a financial windfall when Dennis Driscoll of Safety Harbor, Florida, presented a check to finance the construction of a cannon for the Raymond battlefield. Driscoll, a principal in Driscoll and Associates, had toured the battlefield as part of the Hinda training exercise, and had listened intently as FOR president Parker Hills had explained not only the battle and the leadership elements involved in the events of 1863, but also the efforts of Friends of Raymond in preserving and interpreting the battlefield itself.
Then, as part of a teamwork exercise, the group went through a cannon-loading exercise (without gunpowder, of course) that emphasized cross-training and trust. Driscoll then realized that the existing cannon on the battlefield serve both an interpretive and a training purpose. Then, upon being told that FOR’s goal is to place 25 cannon on the fields of Raymond, just as there were in 1863, the Floridian quietly made up his mind to help finance the project.
After the training session on the Raymond Interpretive Trail, the group adjourned to the Dupree House for a true Southern feast prepared by Brenda Davis and a crew of her own. Brenda’s guests, associates of Hinda Incentives of Chicago, IL, numbered nearly 30 and hailed from all over the United States, but none from Mississippi. Thus, the delicacies that graced Brenda’s table were a delightful surprise to most. But the greatest surprise came when Dennis, at the conclusion of the meal, presented Hills with a $2,500 check to FOR--the average cost of the restoration and fabrication of a cannon.
Dennis Driscoll is an avid Florida Gators fan, and undoubtedly is beside himself over the upcoming BCS Championship game. He promised to return to see the cannon he so graciously financed, and Friends of Raymond anxiously awaits his return to Raymond. The gun is nearly ready, Dennis, so go to your ball game, and this spring be prepared to come on down and see FOR’s new Gator gun!
Battlefield Signage Installed
Walking Trail Project Completed
The first walking trail to be constructed on the Raymond battlefield—an asphalt ribbon that encircles the 23.6 acre Friends of Raymond tract located at Fourteenmile Creek west of modern Highway 18—has been conpleted.
Funding for the nearly $250,000 trail comes from a Tea 21 federal grant to the State of Mississippi. The one mile trail, with visitor parking lot, will serve as the lynchpin for battlefield visitation and interpretation. Upon completion of the trail, plans include battlefield interpretive signage and Civil War cannon.
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Rare Whitworth Cannon Shell Donated to FOR
Doug Waters of Plano, TX (L) presents the Whitworth bolt to Friends of Raymond president, Parker Hills, on the site of the Whitworth cannon during a recent battlefield tour. Photo by Len Riedel, Blue and Gray Education Society, Danville, VA. |
Doug Waters and his father, Ed Waters, donated a rare and valuable artifact, a Confederate Whitworth cannon shell, to Friends of Raymond during an October 21, 2006, Raymond battlefield tour attended by Doug, who works for Gallagher Bassett Services, Inc. in Plano, TX. The younger Waters, who is intensely interested in Texas’ participation in the American Civil War, has often visited Raymond, where Colonel Hiram Granbury’s Seventh Texas Infantry Regiment fought on May 12, 1863. On his most recent visit Waters came bearing the prized Whitworth shell, which was manufactured in England; was shipped to the Confederate States in America; and was dug out of the ground near Warrenton, VA. The non-explosive shell was manufactured to exacting specifications and was designed to be fired by the English-made Whitworth rifled cannon.
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Raymond
Battlefield Trail Officially Opened
Friends of Raymond dedicated the Raymond
Battlefield Walking/Interpretive Trail in a ceremony conducted at the
Raymond Battlefield at
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Raymond to be
Featured on the
History Channel’s “Sacred Soil”
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Raymond’s battlefield, listed by the Civil War Preservation Trust as one of the Ten Most Endangered Civil War Battlefields, will be featured in a documentary entitled “Sacred Soil” tentatively scheduled for a November telecast on the History Channel. A Take 2 Entertainment film crew from Pittsburgh, PA, visited Raymond on June 26 to conduct interviews as to the importance of the Battle of Raymond in the Vicksburg Campaign and the efforts of Friends of Raymond to preserve and interpret Raymond’s history.
“The progress of Friends of Raymond has been significant, but we have much more to do,” stated FOR president Parker Hills during the taping at the Raymond Courthouse and at the battlefield. “Raymond has a key place in the history of the city Vicksburg Campaign — a campaign that, in Grant’s own words, ‘sealed the fate of the Confederacy.’ Thus, the Vicksburg Campaign is a signal moment in history. We, as Americans, are obligated to remember and to learn from our history. If we don’t know where we have been, we cannot know where we are to go.”
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Copyright (c) Friends of Raymond 2005-2007. All Rights Reserved.
Last Modified
5/22/2007