Cranford's Confederate Colonel and July 4

July 4, 1863 -- exactly 150 years ago -- was a good day for the Union during the Civil War. Robert E. Lee's battered army was in retreat from Gettysburg, and Vicksburg -- the all-important Rebel stronghold on the Mississippi River -- finally fell to General U.S. Grant. Samuel H. Lockett, the Confederacy's West Point-trained engineering officer, had designed and supervised Vicksburg's defenses, so instrumental in denying Grant his prize for many months. Twenty years later, Colonel Lockett and his family would live in Cranford while he designed the pedestal and foundation for the Statue of Liberty, and his two sons attended Rutgers College. It is an exquisite piece of historical irony that the man who spent four years of his life attempting to tear apart the United States in the interest of slavery would later design the underpinning of the Nation's most enduring symbol of freedom. Today -- July 4, 2013 --  the Statue of Liberty reopens after surviving Tropical Storm Sandy.