The Windsor Ruins

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     After a short drive traveling south on U.S. 61 from Vicksburg, Mississippi  you reach the town that General Ulysses S. Grant described as "too beautiful to burn"...Port Gibson, Mississippi.  Turn right at the Exxon station located at the corner of  U.S. 61 and Rodney road (552). Continue on Rodney road toward the river (you are traveling southwest) for approximately 13 miles.  Look for the sign displayed by the Mississippi department of Archives and History on your left. You will travel south on a gravel road to the ruins. There is no gate or entrance fees.    

     Built in 1859-61 the Windsor mansion is reported to have been constructed by builder David Shroder for Smith Coffee Daniells II for a little over $140,000.  Mr. Daniells, a wealthy cotton farmer who owned over 20,000 acres of land in Louisiana and Mississippi, died shortly after the Mansion was completed.  The Windsor Mansion is described as being the largest Greek Revival Antebellum home ever built in Mississippi. Although a large number of mansions did not make it through  the Civil war, the Windsor mansion is believed  to have survived due to the southern charm and quick wit of the mansion's mistress and it's potential to the North as a Union Hospital and observation post. Windsor is also believed to be the first Mississippi mansion Grant's men  encountered  on April 30, 1863 shortly after crossing the Mississippi river from the  Louisiana side on their way to cut off Vicksburg from the south.  The mansion burned in 1890.

     Notables that stayed there include Samuel "Mark Twain" Clemons, who described it's grandeur in "Life on the Mississippi". The Ruins have also been  used as background in several movies...the 1957 movie "Rain tree County" starring Elizabeth Taylor, Montgomery Cliff, Lee Marvin....and more recently in  "The Ghosts of Mississippi".  

     The Windsor architecture included 25 rooms, water tanks in the attic which  provided water for the indoor baths and an above ground  basement that was large enough for a small school, dairy and root cellar. Twenty-eight fluted columns made of brick and mortar and topped with cast-iron Corinthian Capitals gave the massive structure it's stately image.  Of the original twenty-eight fluted columns  twenty-three remain at full stature. It's a haunting place but you can judge that for yourself.