Coach Nutt says, Rebel's Football Stadium suddenly a Hornets Nest.. .

VAUGHT-HEMINGWAY STADIUM "Nickname" Poll U 92 University Radio Oxford, Ms.
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Nicknames of great sports arenas intellectuals concede are and have been originated or absorbed by their surrounding environments. And in Ole Miss and Oxford's early developments nothing left its mark as did the Battle of Shiloh , which was fought to protect Mississippi's Northern Borders, securing rail-lines and river-ports from Memphis and Vicksburg. And nothing defines Shiloh as the name HORNETS NEST.

This term was derived from a huge and powerful Army of the Mississippi overlooking a sunken Shiloh road, fortified and heavily concentrated with yankee forces. And this was named the hornet's nest by rebel field forward observers who noted that the mass rifle shots fired resembled angry hornets flying through the surrounded union positions. Furthermore, federal troops reported overhead flying ballistics sounding of bee’s swarming. Nevertheless, the yankees still held their ground till late afternoon, only surrendering after the rebel’s sixty-two cannon ‘Point-Blank’ volleys aided the confederate’s advancements. The South’s documented 62 battery placements was the largest artillery assembly America had ever witnessed. Shiloh’s two day battle revealed as many causalities as the European Battle of Waterloos, but the differences in the American Civil WAR and the Napoleonic War is their were twenty more Waterloos to come. Even the notorious General Sherman replied “ Shiloh †when asked which battles of all battles he fought was the bloodiest and most sanguinary.

After this notable battle, thousands of wounded solders, of both the blue and the gray, were transported to Ole Miss’s Lyceum. The Lyceum on the Historic Circle just steps from Vaught-Heminway Stadium was converted into a hospital to treat the sick and dying from this horrific battle. Soon thereafter; Oxfords bazaar was burned by the invaders torch, where only a single building surrounding the Main Court Square survived. Moving westward across University Avenue Ole Miss too is altered, as the Circle becomes the new military headquarters for our future President, General Ulysses S. Grant.


Yet, today encamped in the Grove, with expectations of new campaigns, football fans again hear drums and distant horns echoing from Vaught-Hemmingway’s walls, with Rebel Yells reverberating from deep within our HORNETS~ NEST ! !

Auspicious nickname indeed... even Houston Nutt himself said on an E.S.P.N. "late night" ( 8: 00 pm ) kick-off, post game interview many years ago,that ( I knew that "WE WERE GOING INTO A HORNETS NEST" ) referring to Oxford Mississippi's Vaught-Hemingways Staium.

So Now lets Resolve to move forward past just agreeing to disagree on the MISS. Rebel Football Stadium nickname and give OLE MISS a legitimate name to Vaught -Hemingway. the House that Buford (MAGEE) Built.. . HA!! WE Love YOU , BUFORD !!!! HOTTY TODDY