Grand Gulf Military State Park preserves a Civil War battlefield and the remains of Grand Gulf, a former Mississippi River port that later became a ghost town. In this 400-acre park, the earthwork batteries Fort Cobun and Fort Wade repelled Ulysses S. Grant’s forces during the Battle of Grand Gulf, and after Port Gibson, Grant used the site as a base of operations in the Vicksburg campaign and the wider contest for control of the Mississippi River. Grand Gulf declined after being burned during the war, and a later change in the river’s course hastened its abandonment. The site now preserves both the military landscape and the vanished town.