The Connecticut Monument at Vicksburg National Park will be formally dedicated Tuesday at the park’s Grant’s Canal Unit off U.S. Highway 80.

The monument honors the soldiers of the 9th Connecticut Volunteer Infantry, who labored to build a canal across the base of DeSoto Point opposite Vicksburg in the summer of 1862.

Union officials hoped the canal would create a channel for navigation so Union ships could bypass the Confederate artillery batteries mounted on the high ground at Vicksburg.

The black granite monument features Connecticut’s Coat of Arms, the crest of the 9th Connecticut Infantry and faces of men of the regiment etched on the granite.