Champion Hill Battlefield Tour

After learning that my Great Grandfather had been severely injured in the Battle of Champion Hill, my dream was to someday visit this battlefield. My grandson, Nathan contacted Sid Champion and made arrangements for the tour. We were taken to the site of the original Champion Home/Field Hospital, where my great-grandfather was probably treated. We toured the Hill of Death and could imagine the intense fighting that took place there. The hill is now a serene and peaceful, almost spiritual setting. We were directed to many other battle sites along the way as we drove to the Coker house, and finally to the Black River Bridge site. Sid is so enthusiastic about his historic tour that you feel as if you are a "first-hand" witness to the battle.

Thank you Sid (and Nathan) for making an old lady's dream come true.

David Bailey

North Carolina

I took the tour on 7-31-2010 and enjoyed it very much! Mr. Champion was very informative and took me around to the different sites associated with the Champion Hill battle. I would highly recommend the tour. No trip to Vicksburg and surrounding civil war sites would be complete without a walk up the "hill of death".

Thanks for the tour!

Dave Mosbruger

Phoenixville, Pennsylvania

My wife and I took Sid's tour earlier this month as part of a Civil War road trip (my agenda, with my wife bearing up as well as she could). We met Sid at a gas station, filled the tank, and followed him to the first stop, the site of his g-g-grandparents' original home during the battle. Sid asked what we were most interested in and my wife quickly said her interest was more in the people, whereas mine was in the battles. Sid accommodated both of us, with descriptions of what happened from the time Grant's forces crossed the Mississippi near Port Gibson through the engagements at Raymond, Jackson, Champion Hill, and Big Black River. He also gave descriptive accounts of what went on during the battle and how it affected his family; e.g., the home being used as a hospital and the dining room table as an operating table. He took us to the home his great-great-grandparents built after the war, now in disrepair and soon to be demolished. He pointed out the family cemetery and the copper kettle in the yard used by the Union cooks during the battle. Sid told us we would be passing an excellent view of the hill itself on a section of road we were traveling, and slowed his truck so we would know to stop for a photo. We then drove to the access point and walked the old Jackson Road to the Hill of Death. Aside from the weather (hot and humid), this stop caused my wife the most consternation. Sid said we had about a quarter mile hike, reached down to pick up a stick, and started talking about the three types of poisonous snakes in the area. My wife, like Sid, was wearing flip-flops. She was highly relieved to see Sid was using the stick to clear spider webs along the trail, not to ward off hordes of ravenous cottonmouths!

Sid also took us to the Coker House, another battle witness now undergoing refurbishment, and to the site of the Big Black River Bridge battle. Although we never saw a snake during the tour, we did see a distant crocodile in the river from this location.

Sid is accommodating, full of information, tells an interesting story, and is enthusiastic about sharing information. I was very happy I took his tour and my wife also enjoyed it. I hope to return with my sons some day.

Carolee Kuchirka
Ridgeland, Mississippi

Thanks so much for the time you took to show us around the battle area. I had no idea that the tour would be so comprehensive. After our tour we got out our Delorme map and traced where we had been so that we could remember it all. I was sorry not to have seen the house built after the war but brother Mark told me that he told you he wanted to go to the Big Black instead. Had I heard that conversation I would have put in my 2 cents. However, I have a friend who also wants to tour with you so she and I will make another trip. Of course, a second tour will not hurt me as there is so much to see and learn. You are an excellent tour guide and, of course as it is family history as well, very committed to your topic. We were well pleased.

I look forward to seeing you again soon. Thanks, again.

Kirby Smith
Barrington, Illinois

Thank you for your courtesy in showing us around your family's historic Champion Hill.

This tour was especially meaningful to me because my great great grandfather General John E Smith was involved in this action. It is also quite possible that my other great great grandfather, Dr. E D Kittoe was involved as well in treating the wounded.

Your knowledge and ability to present the historical facts of the battle of Champions Hill is outstanding. I've been on other tours and I feel that this gave me a better description of the actions of Logan's Division and John E Smith's brigade during the battle.

Lee Warren
Marietta, Georgia

Thank you so much for your hospitality in showing Miss Alma and me around your family’s Champion Hill Battlefield. It was inspiring for us to retrace the footsteps of our fore fathers in Mississippi and to feel their presence remaining still from that historic struggle.

Here below is an excerpt from our family hero’s 37th AL Infantry unit records which augment the stories you related about the events surrounding Champion Hill, perhaps the most important battle in the War of Northern Aggression. Grand Pa, Robert L Phipps, Commanding Co A, 37th AL Inf. perhaps met your g grandmother, Matilda Champion, while at her Champion Hill home.

Our chance meeting adds to our family’s acquaintance and the memory of these honorable events. Thank you again for your kindness.

Don and Kay Cornelius
Huntsville, Alabama

No matter how many historic battle sites you may have visited, you have never seen anything as powerful and moving as The Hill of Death known as Champion or Champion's Hill.

Our tour, on a lovely, sunny. day, began with Sid Champion V, great-great-grandson of the owners of the property on which this battle raged, showing us the huge iron pot which had belonged to Sid and Matilda Champion before the war. After the battle, the house was converted into a Union hospital and the Yankees used Matilda's iron pot to make soup for the wounded soldiers.

We saw the old railroad tracks over which trains carried soldiers and goods. Then, having gone as far on any road as possible, we walked to the crest of the hill itself. In the midst of a mixed hardwood forest, the rolling land is dotted with so many deep ravines that one can easily see why this battle turned into the hand-to-hand, kill or be killed combat that proves that "the hill of death" is an accurate name for the place.

Now, an all-encompassing peace prevails here. It is as if Nature attempts to heal the horror which happened here by offering her best gifts, the soothing wind sighing in the tree tops and the melodious tones of song birds, while underfoot, ancient forest loam covers most of the sacred spots where many men on both sides bled and died.

We are forever grateful to our friends, Jim and Rebecca Drake, and especially to Sidney Champion V, for giving us the absolutely unforgettable experience of touring Champion Hill with them.

Eddie and Felicia Lanham
Brooks, Georgia

During the fall of 2005, Felicia and I walked up the sunken Old Jackson Road to The Hill of Death with Sid Champion. Earlier in the year, I had researched the dead and wounded of the Georgia regiments who were engaged in the battle of Champion Hill. I had become familiar with each of the 179 Georgians that were killed and the 375 that were wounded in the hard-fought battle.

Walking northward from The Cross Roads and along the line of battle was a "step back into history" as we traced the footsteps of the Georgia Brigades (Stevenson's Division) that lined Champion Hill and the Old Jackson Road. It was an eerie experience knowing that we were standing on that hallowed ground.

When we arrived at the crest, a Rebel flag was firmly planted on the The Hill of Death overlooking the peaceful landscape. The beautiful fall colors and calm provided a quiet peace to the land where the fierce battle had raged. Leaves on the forest floor covered the sacred grounds where so many bled and died.

Felicia and I enjoyed our trip back into history with Sid Champion. Sid told the story of his great-great grandfather, Sid Champion I, who fought with the 28th Mississippi Cavalry and how he was at Edwards Station with his regiment during the battle - watching the smoke of battle from afar. As he looked toward the distant horizon, he wondering if his plantation had been burned. And, he wondered about his wife, Matilda, whom he later learned was in the cellar of their house clutching her youngest baby in her arms during the fight. Sid is a great story teller of true stories that happened to his family during the war. He is also a gracious host and a super guide.

Rebecca B. Drake
Raymond, Mississippi

I’ll never forget the first time I toured Champion Hill with Sid Champion. We parked at The Crossroads then proceeded to walk the sunken Old Jackson Road which eventually led to a sharp incline which peaked at "The Hill of Death.” As I stared down to the valley below I suddenly got chill bumps thinking of all the soldiers, blue and gray, who had lost their lives on this hallowed ground.

My dear friend and co-author, Margie Bearss, now deceased, expressed similar sentiments: “As Ed [Bearss] and I climbed the side of the hill, I began to feel uneasy and apprehensive. Too many men had died in the various charges on this hill. It was a solemn place of death. As I reached the top, my hair stood out from the back of my neck and my arms broke out in chill bumps. I could almost feel the menace of the Yankee charge breaking across the field. I have never since felt such unease and apprehension on the hill.”

Later, as Margie and I began to write about Champion Hill, I would enjoy many excursions in the company of Sid. One particular day he showed me a large pasture down by the railroad bridge over Baker’s Creek. Sid said his grandfather, Sid Champion III, had told him that in years gone by, people gathered there to catch the train. I later discover that site was described in the Official Records as being Midway Station. On another visit, we visited other sites such as the hillside on the Old Jackson Road where Sid and Matilda’s first home stood. It was later burned by the Yankees. Daffodils continue to bloom in the spring and mark the house site as well as the overseer’s house site a short distance down the road.

The Champion Hill battlefield is unique because it is pristine. Little has changed since 1863 when blue met gray and, led by Pemberton and Grant, engaged in one of the bloodiest battles of the campaign for Vicksburg.

During my visits with Sid, he would tell me stories of the Champion family and show me all of the sites. Not even the heat of a 100-degree day would deter us from our destination. When talking about his great-great grandmother, Matilda Champion, he would look at her photograph and lovingly and, “Yep, that’s the old gal - that’s Matilda alright.” Of his great-great grandfather Sid Champion I, Sid would comment, “I look just like him, - don’t you think?” And he did.

As I listed to Sid’s stories which he told with a mesmerizing Southern drawl, I found myself being carried back in time and identifying with all of the Champions who at one time called Champion Hill home.