RAYMOND — Known and unknown Confederate soldiers lie beneath tombstones in the historic Raymond cemetery, and many local heroes and prominent citizens rest there, too.

If you go

Events for “A Place Called Raymond,” the 11th annual Raymond fall pilgrimage, will be Thursday through Oct. 10. For tickets or information, visit www.friendsofraymond.org or call 601-857-8041.

• Evenings at St. Mark’s lecture, film and performance series — 6:30 Thursday; author Alan Huffman speaking about his book, “Sultana: Surviving the Civil War, Prison and the Worst Maritime Disaster in American History”; St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, 205 W. Main St.; free with reception following at Probate Building, 234 Town Square.

• “Presence With the Past” stroll through Raymond Cemetery — 5 p.m. Oc.t 3 and 6:30 p.m. Oct. 9 from the Port Gibson Street entrance; locals portraying soldiers, heroes and prominent residents buried in the cemetery; adults, $10, children under 10, $5; reception to follow at Dogtrot Cafe and Coffee Shop on the square at Main and Port Gibson Road.

• Jubilee Singers Concert — 4 p.m. Oct. 4 at St. Mark’s; free; plantation spirituals and other traditional music by Hinds Community College group followed by community-wide sing-along and potluck supper.

• Evenings at St. Mark’s — 6:30 Oct. 6; showing of film “The Ponder Heart,” based on the novel by Eudora Welty; free with reception following at the church.

• Evenings at St. Mark’s — 6:30 Oct. 8; Chimneyville Readers Theatre’s presentation of dramatic reading of Welty’s “Petrified Man”; free with reception following at the Probate Building.

• Raymond Battlefield Ribbon-Cutting Ceremony — Oct. 10, Mississippi 18, free.

A living history presentation will bring some of them to life during the city’s 11th annual fall pilgrimage, “A Place Called Raymond,” Thursday through Oct. 10 at several venues in the city.

“Presence With the Past,” an evening stroll through the historic Raymond cemetery featuring local citizens, costumed and portraying some of the dead, will be at 5 p.m. Oct. 3 and again at 6:30 p.m. Oct. 9.

“We’ll have people who were prominent in founding Raymond and making Raymond what it is today,” said pilgrimage chairman Bonnie Menapace. “This is their story, their history at certain points in time. We’re strolling through history as we stroll through the cemetery.”

A section dedicated to the Confederate dead is set apart in the cemetery, the well-kept graves bounded by a lichen-covered wrought-iron fence, but one of the stroll performers will portray an unknown Union soldier, Menapace said.

The cemetery stroll is the sole pilgrimage event requiring a ticket. Adults are $10, and children younge rthan 10 are $5. Funds collected benefit the Friends of Raymond, a group dedicated to historic preservation in and around the city. The group first organized the annual pilgrimage to raise money to save the hallowed battlefield ground, which had been targeted for a residential subdivision, said Menapace.

Rebels battled Union troops May 12, 1863, in plantation fields along 14-Mile Creek, about a mile south of the city, trying to turn them back from their march toward Vicksburg. Raymond women prepared picnic lunches for the Confederate boys, expecting to see them marching triumphantly back up the Port Gibson Road that afternoon, said Raymond resident George McFarland, a retired Methodist minister and volunteer chaplain.

Instead, the ladies went down to bury the dead and nurse the wounded.

Much of the battlefield along the creek has been preserved and memorialized at the Raymond Military Park, south of the cemetery near the intersection of Port Gibson Road and Mississippi 18.

“The terrain is exactly the way it was in 1863,” McFarland said. “The site is pretty much intact, and that’s unique. There are not many battlefield sites that have not been tampered with.”

The park, which was dedicated in 2007, features a three-quater mile trail around a 24-acre tract of battlefield maintained as cropland. The walking trail winds through woodland bordering the fields and includes interpretive markers and a kiosk detailing Raymond’s role in the Vicksburg Campaign.

The battlefield site has recently doubled, benefiting from the acquisition of nearly 67 acres purchased by the Friends of Raymond in conjunction with the national Civil War Preservation Trust. The purchase also makes possible a preservation easement of additional acreage, bringing the park’s effective total to about 150 acres.

A ribbon-cutting ceremony celebrating the new battlefield preservation lands will be at 2:30 p.m. Oct. 10.

The hard-pitched, six-hour battle resulted in more than 1,000 combined casualties, writes local historian Rebecca Blackwell Drake. The Hinds County Courthouse on West Main Street, near the landmark Raymond water tower, was one of the local buildings pressed into service as a makeshift hospital.

Another was St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, next to the courthouse, where wounded Union soldiers were taken.

“If you go inside, you can still see the blood of the Yankees on the floor,” McFarland said.

St. Mark’s will be the site of an afternoon concert and a series of evening events, all free.

Thursday at 6:30, Alan Huffman, author of “Sultana: Surviving the Civil War, Prison and the Worst Maritime Disaster in American History,” will speak about his book, which depicts three soldiers who endured the war only to face the horrors of the Sultana’s explosion and sinking.

The ship, a wooden paddlewheeler usually carrying a crew of 85 and with a legal capacity of 376, was jammed with 2,400 Union soldiers, most just released from prisoner-of-war camps being ferried north on their way home. More than 1,800 of them lost their lives when one of the ship’s four boilers exploded near Memphis and the ship burned and sank.

Oct. 4 at 4, St. Mark’s will feature a free concert by the Jubilee Singers of Hinds Community College. The all-men, black choir dates to the 1920s and sings plantation spirituals and other traditional music.

“The acoustics in the church are almost perfect,” said Menapace. “When the Jubilee Singers perform, it just gives you goose bumps. It’s awe-inspiring.”

The concert will be followed by a community sing-along and potluck supper on the church grounds.

Other events at St. Mark’s will include an Oct. 6 showing of the film “The Ponder Heart,” based on the Eudora Welty novel, and an Oct. 8 dramatic reading of Welty’s “Petrified Man” by the Chimneyville Readers Theatre. Both begin at 6:30 p.m.

This is Menapace’s first year as pilgrimage chairman, after moving to Raymond with her husband two years ago.

“We were both really impressed with the historical preservation there,” she said. “We love the small-town feel and wanted to get involved and keep it that way.”

More information about the battle, including first-hand stories and related links, can be found at www.battleofraymond.org. Additional information about the pilgrimage is available at www:friendsofraymond.org or by calling 601-857-8041.

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Contact Pamela Hitchins at phitchins@vicksburgpost.com