An image of the USS Cairo on the Yazoo River during the Civil War will be on one of five coins issued next year as part of the America The Beautiful Quarters Program.

Inscriptions are “Vicksburg, Mississippi, 2011,” and “E Pluribus Unum.” The coin was designed by AIP Master Designer Thomas Cleveland and sculpted by United States Mint Sculptor-Engraver Joseph Menna.

The U.S. Mint will issue in 2011 commemorative quarters for Chickasaw National Recreation Area, Gettysburg National Military Park, Glacier National Park and Olympic National Park. Vicksburg’s will be the fourth of the five to be released.

The America the Beautiful program was authorized by Congress in 2008 to celebrate the nation’s legacy of conservation. Each state and U.S. territory has selected one of its parks or preserved areas to be featured on the reverse side of a quarter. The coins will feature 48 national parks, two U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service refuges and six U.S. Forest Service sites.

The program is a multi-year initiative authorized by the America’s Beautiful National Parks Quarter Dollar Coin Act of 2008. The act directs the U.S. Mint to create and issue 56 circulating quarters with reverse designs emblematic of a national park or other national site in each state, the District of Columbia and the five U.S. territories, which are the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, the United States Virgin Islands and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands.