| A two-story double-pile brick house with a later three-bay, double-tiered portico. There are distyle-in-antis frontispieces on both the first and second stories. During most of the 47-day siege of Vicksburg, beginning in late May 1863, Confederate commander Lt. Gen. John C. Pemberton and members of his staff occupied this large house in the center of the city as their headquarters. In this house, July 3, 1863, Pemberton held a council of his chief officers to discuss plans for capitulation, prior to his decision to surrender. In August 2003 this building was acquired by the National Park Service as part of the Vicksburg National Military Park. It was listed on the National Register on 23 July 1970, from a nomination prepared by Elbert Hilliard, who was at that time the Director of the Division of Historic Sites and Archaeology, MDAH. It was designated a National Historic Landmark on 8 December 1976. It was later included as element #38 in the Uptown Vicksburg Historic District, which was placed on the National Register on 19 August 1993, and it was more recently included as element #40 in the Uptown Vicksburg Amendment and Boundary Increase No. 2, which was added to the National Register on 4 February 2020. This house is included in "Old Homes of Mississippi, Volume I: Natchez and the South" (1977, 1979) (p. 94), the "Historic Vicksburg Walking Tour Guide" (1987) (#23, pp. 19-20), "The Majesty of the Mississippi Delta" (2002) (pp. 24-25), and "Buildings of Mississippi" (2020) (p.78, in the listing for the Balfour House, YB17). A Historic Structure Report has been done for this building. [HABS: MS-266 (1972)] |