
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, June 27, 1993                   TAG: 9306270067
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: VICKSBURG, MISS.                                LENGTH: Short

LAST OF GRANT'S CANAL GIVEN TO MILITARY PARK

A plot of Louisiana land used by Union troops to try to cut off Mississippi River traffic during the Civil War has been given to the Vicksburg National Military Park.

The gift from descendants of R.W. Burney, who bought the land in 1847, was announced Friday by the Conservation Fund, a nonprofit group that tries to safeguard land and water resources.

The three acres, just south of Interstate 20 on the Louisiana side of the river, is known as Grant's Canal.

The history of Grant's Canal is one of the Civil War's most often told stories.

Cannons in Vicksburg, on the bluffs overlooking the Mississippi River, blocked the Union plan to divide the South by taking control of the river.

Taking Vicksburg by force seemed impossible, so Union troops began digging the canal in June 1862 in hopes of changing the course of the river and making cannons in Vicksburg useless in defending it.

- Associated Press

by CNB