Civil War News Update
The Battle of Vicksburg by Chris Imsdahl
Miss the Battle? Here are some facts and stats!
- There was around 37,402 casualties.
- The commanders for this battle were for the Union it was Ulysses S Grant and for the confederates was John C Pemberton.
- The Union ended up winning this battle due to good strategic planning.
Battle and Siege
- The strong Confederate work convinced Grant to take the town by siege, cutting it off from all supply. He initiated a plan that is still studied today as a classic example of how to conduct siege warfare.
- Reinforced to over 70,000 soldiers, for weeks his men dug trenches that zigged and zagged but steadily brought them closer to Pemberton’s positions. One group tunneled underneath the Third Louisiana Redan, and on June 25 detonated barrels of black powder that blasted a hole in the works. Union soldiers surged into the breach only to be met by a counterattack. Desperate fighting ensued for hours before the attackers were driven out.
- A second mine was exploded on July 1 but was not followed up by an attack. That same day, Joe Johnston finally sent a relief force from Jackson toward Vicksburg, but it was too late and did not play a role in the fighting.
- Inside Vicksburg, civilians huddled in caves to avoid the cannon shells being fired daily from Grant’s artillery around the town and the guns on the fleet in the river. Food and other supplies from outside had been cut off for a month and a half. Horses, dogs, cats, reportedly even rats became part of the diet for soldiers and civilians alike. On July 3, Pemberton rode out to discuss surrender terms with Grant. Although he had been dubbed "Unconditional Surrender" Grant after his demands to the garrison at Tennessee’s Fort Donelson the previous year, the Union commander agreed to parole Pemberton’s men. The next morning, July 4, Confederate soldiers began marching out and stacking their guns. The city of Vicksburg would not celebrate the Fourth of July as a holiday thereafter until well into the 20th century. Despite the prolonged shelling they’d endured, the Confederates’ losses during the siege had been light. Around 29,500 surrendered.
Why did this happen?
WHY WAS THIS IMPORTANT TO GET?
- Control of the Mississippi River during the American Civil War was an economic factor for both the North and the South. For many years, the river had served as a waterway for mid-western farmers shipping their goods to the eastern states by way of the Gulf of Mexico.
- The farmers, along with politicians and merchants, did not like the idea of the river being closed because of Confederate artillery looming along the banks where the “Father of Waters” flowed through the Confederacy.
- For the Confederacy, control of the lower Mississippi River was vital to the union of its states. The portion of Louisiana west of the river plus Texas and Arkansas formed the Transmississippi which held manpower and materiel that the rest of the southern military machine needed.
- Vicksburg was “the key,” as U. S. President Abraham Lincoln termed it, to the Union gaining control of the river. Lincoln looked at a map of the Mississippi River and saw that its hairpin turn in front of Vicksburg, which sat high on bluffs above the river, made boats traveling in both directions vulnerable to artillery fire from the Confederate batteries on the shore line and on the high bluffs.