| Home | Grant's March | Pemberton's March | Battle of Champion Hill | Order of Battle | Diaries & Accounts | Official Records |
| Killed & Wounded | Kaleidoscope of History | Re-enactments & Events | Books & Gifts | Battlefield Tour | Visitors |

"Grant's crown of immortality was won, and the jewel that shone most brightly in it was set
there by the blood of the men of Champion Hills ...... Six thousand blue and gray-coated men were lying there in the woods, dead or wounded, when the last gun of Champion Hills was fired.

Major S. H. M. Byers, Fifth Iowa Infantry













SEARCH
Battle of Champion Hill

 


"The Hill of Death"
Historic Marker


"THE HILL OF DEATH" read by Edwin C. Bearss, Historian Emeritus, National Park Service

<click for more>


RECENT ARTICLES

Lieut. Col. Leonidas Horney Killed
  Rebecca Drake
Union Occupies Cook Plantation
  Rebecca Drake & Sue Moore
Diary of Pvt. Arthur McCullough
  Co. D, 81st Ill
Discovering Names & Faces of
  Civil War Soldiers

Fighting for Vicksburg
  B.F. Boring, 30th Ill.
Alvin P. Hovey Reminisces
  Rebecca B. Drake
"Three Years with Grant"
  Sylvanus Cadwallader
Memorial Dedicated at St Albans
  Rebecca B. Drake
America History Tours Visits
  Champion Hill, Oct 2, 2009
Memoirs Historical and Personal
  Ephraim Anderson, 1st Missouri
2009 Anniversary Event
  Rebecca B. Drake
Tilghman Monument Dedication
  Rebecca B. Drake
Five Generations of Sid
 Champions
, Rebecca B. Drake
The Long Road Home
  Pvt. Myron B. Loop
1864 Pywell Photograph
  Big Black River Station
Coker House to be Razed
  Rebecca B. Drake
Administering Last Rites
  Father John Bannon
Maltida Champion: "I was in
  the Cellar During the Fight"

Mary Dabney Ware:
 "Behind Enemy Lines"
Margie's 1960 Scrapbook:
  Charm, Dot & Paul Jones
Battle of Big Black River Bridge
  Rebecca Blackwell Drake
Champion Dedication
  Grady Howell. Jr.
Capt. Samuel Ridley:
 "Bravest of the Brave"
Battle of Champion Hill:
  Killed and Wounded
The Battle of Baker's Creek
  W.T. Moore, Miss Light Artillery
Charles E. Comstock Diary,
  Co G, 34th Indiana
Gen. Cumming's Letter
  to Gen. Stephen D. Lee
Matilda Champion:
  "A Sorrow's Crown of Sorrow"

Vignettes of Champion Hill
  Margie Bearss
Champions of Champion Hill
  Rebecca B. Drake
Diary of William Montgomery:
  Confederate Scout
Will Montgomery: Scout
  Kay Cornelius
Brother Against Brother
  Rebecca B. Drake
History of the 78th Ohio
  Rev. Stevenson, Chaplain
Champion Hills
  Alonzo L. Brown, 4th Minnesota
Battle of Champion Hill
  G. B. McDonald, 30th Illinois
The Death of Gen John Bowen
  Rebecca B. Drake
Lt. William Drennan:
  Letters to His Wife
The Defense of Vicksburg
  Maj. Samuel Lockett
Letters of George B. Boomer
  Mary Boomer Stone
Vivid Experiences
  Pvt. A. H. Reynolds, 19th Ark.


Margie Bearss'

Vignettes of Champion Hill

Now In Audio

Night Music at Champion Hill
Remains of the Charm
Visiting the Hill of Death
Call of the Whippoorwill
Robert Younger: Memoriam

 

Cistern Quenches Soldier's Thirst
Out of the Mists
Discovering Charm&Paul Jones
Mystery of the Dot
The Roberts Family Cemetery
Brandishing a Fire Poker
Call of the Whippoorwill
The Daffodils of Champion Hill
Thanatopsis
Matilda’s Wartime Letters
Visiting the Hill of Death
Mural Depicted Francis Cockrell
Battle Moves to the Big Black
Finding a Carpet Bag
Frozen Charlotte Dolls
Fascination with Minié Balls
The Lazarus Cook House
The Dueling Pistols
Hiawatha and Tilghman’s Death

Finding a Rebel Belt Buckle
The Perfect Arrowhead
Explosive Miniés
‘Miss Ruth’ Champion
Visiting the Old Home Site

 

~ COMMEMORATING ~

150th ANNIVERSARY

 

A Day on the

Champion Hill Battlefield

May 18, 2013

 

Sponsored by
The Champion Heritage Foundation

 


Janesville Daily Gazette

Champion Hill Battle Field

Tuesday, May 26, 1863

 

The federal army under Gen. Grant has won another glorious victory. A furious battle, lasting nearly five hours, has resulted in the defeat of the enemy at all points, with the loss of from two to three thousand killed and wounded, three complete batteries heavy rifled cannon, besides several single pieces, and from 1,500 to 2,000 prisoners in our hands, and an immense quantity of small arms and camp equipage. Our success is signal and complete. Nothing mars the intense satisfaction of officers and men but the heavy sacrifice of life by which it was achieved.

Early this morning Gen. McClernand’s corps was put in motion. Gen. Hovey’s division was on the main road from Jackson to Vicksburg, but the balance of the corps was a few miles to the southward. On a parallel road, Gen. McPherson’s corps followed Hovey’s division closely.

click for more  >>>

 


Lieut. Col. Leonidas Horney
Killed at Champion Hill

By Rebecca B. Drake

On February 16, 1866, a funeral procession for Lieut. Col. Leonidas Horney, killed May 16, 1863, during the Battle of Champion Hill, took place in Littleton, Schuyler County, Illinois. A large crowd of citizens came to pay their respects to the fallen hero and to be a part of the patriotic proceedings held posthumously in his honor.

A company of Union veterans and a military band led the half-mile long funeral cortege through town and out to the graveyard. The sad beat of the muffled drums was a reminder of the sacrifice that Col. Horney had made for his country. After arriving at the burial site, the soldiers were drawn up in order and, at the word of command, fired three volleys over the grave. The assembly was then dismissed, the grave filled up and all that was mortal of Col. Horney was left to its last long silent sleep.

 click for more  >>>


~ A Photographic Journey ~

A Day at Champion Hill

May 14, 2011
148th Anniversary

Photography by Rik Hall 

click for more  >>>


Mannequin Display Featured at
148th Anniversary Event

By Rebecca B. Drake

Bertha Lewis, a native of Bolton, designed and created
ten life-sized mannequins to commemorate the 148th Anniversary of the Battle of Champion Hill

As the crowd gathered on May 14th to commemorate the 148th Anniversary of the Battle of Champion Hill, they were delighted to find life-sized mannequins situated around the Champion Hill MB Church grounds. The display featured images of the Champion family prior to the war as well as an exquisite mannequin of the diarist Darwina Loud, a Freedman school teacher who came from Pennsylvania in 1864 to help teach the newly-freed Slaves to read and write.

 click for more  >>>


Fighting For Vicksburg

What a 30th Illinois Boy Experienced in
the Campaign Against the Rebel Gibraltar

By B. F. Boring
30th Illinois Infantry

 

"Our part of the line seemed to monkey or maneuver all forenoon, and finally took position in an open cornfield, on a sloping, sandy hillside, where the burning rays of a Mississippi sun had a fair sweep at us."

 

The two armies camped on the night of May 15 in close proximity. The pickets were very active, and their firing was brisk all night, and as the dawn of the 16th approached, clear and hot, the clatter of the picket-line soon swelled into the road of the battle. We were now fighting a new foe, Pemberton instead of Johnston, with Johnston somewhere in our rear, likely at any moment to open upon us. It soon developed that that the heat of the battle was to the left of us, and in front of Gen. Hovey’s Division.

click for more >>>


Announcing

Champion Hill Tours
With Sid Champion V

Tour Champion Hill with Sid J. Champion (Sid V), the great-great-grandson of Sid and Matilda Champion.

  • The Cross Roads

  • Old Jackson Road

  • The Hill of Death

  • Original House Site and Historic Marker

  • Midway Station

  • Family Cemetery and Memorabilia

  • Margie Bearss Memorial

$50 per person (minimum of 2)  Call 601-316-4894

<click for more
 and tourists comments>

 

Visit us on facebook

 


NEW

LEAVES
The Diary of Elizabeth Meade Ingraham

The Rebel Sister of
General George Meade

By Rebecca B. Drake & Sue B. Moore

<click here to order>


Collected Stories of the Vicksburg Campaign

By Rebecca Drake and Margie Bearss

<click here to order>


Darwina's Diary: A View of Champion Hill ~ 1865
Edited By
Rebecca Drake and Margie Bearss

<click here to order>


My Dear Wife ~
Letters to Matilda

The Civil War Letters of Sid and Matilda Champion

By Rebecca Drake and Margie Bearss

<click here to order>


In Memoriam
Margie Riddle Bearss

October 22, 1925 — October 7, 2006

Memorials to Margie Bearss
  Matriarch of Mississippi History
Remembering Margie Bearss
  A Photographic Journey
Tribute to Margie Bearss
  Rebecca Blackwell Drake
A Photographic Journey
  Clione Rochat & Henry Little
Eulogy to Margie
  Billy Ellis
A Day to Remember
  Rebecca Blackwell Drake
Margie's Scrapbook
  Salvaging Charm & Paul Jones



Photography from Anniversary Events

click for more >>>


Copyright (c) James andby James Drake
Webmaster@BattleofChampionHill.org