The story of Vicksburg as told in school classrooms throughout the country and the world centers around the 47 day siege and the epic and bloody military engagements resulting in great sacrifice of life between the Confederate and Federal forces that occurred within the boundaries of the Vicksburg National Military Park.

In reality, the military engagement between the Federal and Confederate governments began a full year prior to the battles that occurred in the the loess hills and ravens east and north of the 19th century city limits. Our tours follow the lives of prominent citizens; river men, merchants and lawyers, and the women who contributed significantly to their successes in the decades leading up to the Civil War. These civilian men and women lived in opulent mansions and planters cottages according to their means, in a suburban villa neighborhood south of the city limits.

Vicksburg Tours specializes in the houses (some no longer extant) and their owners leading up to the siege in the neighborhoods at the south side of the city and the suburban villa area outside of it. These men and women had a ringside seat when the Federal Navy sailed up the Mississippi River in the Spring of 1862 demanding the surrender of the Gibraltar of the South.