Trace Adkins Performance @ Vicksburg National Military Park

Last evening my daughter Kathy and I attended the Vicksburg Sesquicentennial Commemoration Concert and The Mississippi Symphony Orchestra with featured special guest, Trace Adkins.  My daughter, Debra, her new husband, Matt, with granddaughter, Lucy, also met us there.  It was a very memorable and moving experience and a great event for my hometown, Vicksburg. 

About 3,000 were on their feet when country music star Trace Adkins took the stage as part of a free concert at the Vicksburg National Military Park, but did not perform his scheduled song and left without completing his performance The Vicksburg Post said. 

He was set to perform "Til the Last Shot is Fired" with the orchestra, but instead he took the stage alone, singing "If the Sun Comes up," over what sounded like a karaoke track.

He also was slated to recite a famous letter from Union Maj. Sullivan Ballou but, at the last minute, it was announced that Walt Grayson of TV's "Mississippi Roads" would perform the reading. 

I knew something was strange because it was not time for intermission according to the scheduled they gave out and all the people in the orchestra left the stage.  All of a sudden while everyone was taking a break they announced him.  Everybody came running up towards the stage, taking pictures and clapping.  The Vicksburg National Military Park declined to make an official statement on why Adkins left, but several people involved in producing the concert said Adkins had a dispute with the sympathy Friday.

 

Adkins great-great-grandfather fought here in the Siege of Vicksburg.  His name was Pvt. Henry T. Morgan of Company E of the 31st Louisiana Infantry.  "He was wounded and taken prisoner of Vicksburg," Adkins said during a press conference when he was elected in 2011 to the board of trustees for the Civil War Trust.  

Trace said that the first time he ever came to Vicksburg, he got to stand where he knew he was within 100 feet or so of where his great-great-grandfather was positioned in the battle.

He spoke of the sacrifices made by all members of the military, including his great-great-grandfather.  "Their main concern was us," Adkins said.  "And that is why they went and did what they did from the Revolutionary War through today."

Trace Adkins performed in his great-great-grandfather's memory without pay.