Hidden History of Vicksburg

Authors Ryan Starrett and Josh Foreman uncover all-but-forgotten elements of Vicksburg history.

Vicksburg had an especially inauspicious start when its inhabitants were massacred by locals. The generation of the city’s official founding beheld vigilantes, duelists and an early incel roaming its streets. Citizens experienced the horrors of war: hunger, diarrhea and death. About 150 years later, their descendants hid in fear from a deranged killer on the loose. In between, the city overloaded a steamboat with recently released POWs and contributed to the greatest maritime disaster in U.S. history. In the midst of war and suffering, an intrepid group of religious sisters worked to educate and nurse their fellow people. An immigrant family from Germany established a bottling empire that made them the embodiment of the American dream. Join authors Josh Foreman and Ryan Starrett as they explore the land and people who make Vicksburg one of the South’s most visited and recognizable cities.

Ryan Starrett was born and raised in Jackson, Mississippi. After receiving degrees from the University of Dallas, Adams State University and Spring Hill College, as well as spending a ten-year hiatus in Texas, he has returned home to continue his teaching career. Josh Foreman was born and raised in the Jackson Metro Area. He is a sixth-generation Mississippian and an eleventh-generation southerner. He lived, taught and wrote in South Korea from 2005 to 2014. He holds degrees from Mississippi State University and the University of New Hampshire.