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Strat map, Cincinnati has a dot Bardstown has a dot

Prior to the war, the humble hamlet of Vicksburg was just a cotton trading port on the Mississippi

River, notable primarily for its proximity to Jefferson Davis’ plantation . War turned it

into a strategic fortress. Taking Vicksburg was vital to the Union,

as it would not only reopen the river to northern commercial traffic but also close a

major Confederate supply route. Actually doing so would prove a more monumental task than expected,

but Ulysses Simpson Grant was, eventually, up to the challenge. Welcome back to our series

on the American Civil War. Join us today as the Union makes a decisive stab at the single

most vital riverway on the American continent in an attempt to cleave the Confederacy in twain.

The Real Gibraltar of the West When the war began, the Confederacy

swiftly fortified the Mississippi River. The fortifications at Island Number 10,

Fort Pillow, and New Orleans were believed to be strong enough to repel any Federal inclusion into

the river system, so little thought was given to the river’s interior, especially once Columbus

was occupied. However, Vicksburg’s position on 200 ft. tall bluffs overlooking a sharp

and narrow horseshoe-shaped meander made it an easily defendable chokepoint, so batteries were

constructed as an emergency fallback position. Farragut Fails

That emergency came unexpectedly quickly. Following the capture of New Orleans , Rear

Admiral David Farragut continued up the Mississippi, forcing every settlement along

the river to submit to the Union before reaching Vicksburg May 18th. When the batteries refused

to surrender, Farragut retreated as he didn’t actually have the forces to fight. On June 26th,

he returned with his full flotilla and additional marines to find Vicksburg was also reinforced.

Farragut ineffectually bombarded Vicksburg before running past the guns to link up

with the Western Gunboat Flotilla on the 28th following its capture of Memphis.

After the CSS Arkansas ran his blockade and several more failed bombardments,

Farragut concluded that he lacked the resources to take Vicksburg. His attempt to bypass it

with a canal across the De Soto Peninsula seemed promising, but the Mississippi’s waters refused

to enter the canal. By July 24th, subtropical diseases were taking a heavy toll on his sailors

and with water levels falling, Farragut gave up and returned to New Orleans. Vicksburg was the

army’s problem, now. Halleck Hesitates

Western theater commander Henry Halleck had dearly hoped Farragut would succeed, saving him

a logistical nightmare.The only landward approach from Corinth which avoided the morass of streams,

bayous, and swamps called the Yazoo Delta required moving directly south along exposed

railines from Holly Springs towards Jackson , then west to Vicksburg. Approaching from the

south required navigating the unmaintained roads and frequently flooding streams of backcountry

Louisiana before crossing the Mississippi, then moving north across more streams.

As Farragut was giving up, Halleck was made general-in-chief and called to Washington,

leaving Grant to finish securing the supply routes to Corinth. He was finished by November, at which

time Halleck formally gave Grant full control of all soldiers and resources in the Mississippi

theatre. Grant had full discretion regarding how to use them, though Halleck and President

Lincoln preferred operations against Vicksburg over all others. Grant was happy to oblige,

but the task proved far harder than expected. The Confederates Regroup and Reorganize

Opposing Grant was General Joseph Johnston, who had finally recovered from his Seven Pines’

wounds and was now in command of the Department of the West, encompassing all Confederate forces

between the Mississippi River and the Appalachian Mountains. However, what that actually meant was

ambiguous. Johnston only had direct control of a few regiments, and Davis never explicitly gave

him command of the other units. Johnston outranked all the previously independent

department commanders in his new department. Still, Davis never explicitly contradicted a

previous decree that department commanders were equal regardless of rank, nor explicitly told the

other generals they answered directly to Johnston. Worse, Johnston didn’t have sufficient resources

to defend everything, and he didn't know where all the resources he did have were.

The department had around 100,000 soldiers total, with the 50,000-strong Army of Tennessee defending

Tullahoma, the 30,000-strong Army of Mississippi garrisoning Vicksburg, and the remainder in

isolated garrisons or independent cavalry commands too spread out to support each other. Worse,

Davis still habitually disregarded the chain of command by issuing orders directly to Johnston’s

sub-commanders and moving troops around, seemingly arbitrarily and without telling

Johnston. Consequently, Johnston frequently didn’t know where his units were or what they were doing.

Confederate Priorities Davis ordered Johnston to prioritize defending

Vicksburg , calling it the nailhead holding the Confederacy together. By June 1862, it was the

only link between the Trans-Mississippi Department and the rest of the Confederacy . To expand and

protect the critical Red River supply route and take some pressure off Vicksburg, a cotton-trading

jetty named Port Hudson was converted into another fortress at PGT Beauregard’s recommendation. At

the same time, Vicksburg was further reinforced and fortified. Incorporating learnings from the

past year, the riverside batteries were lengthened to provide a longer gauntlet of fire for ships to

cross and many guns mounted on swivels to make aiming easier. The landward defences became a

murderous series of redoubts, trenches, and lunettes with overlapping fields of fire.

Johnston was impressed, but had his reservations. No matter how strong the fortifications were,

the Union had the resources to besiege them, and Grant had the stubbornness to see any siege

through. Given his lack of men and material for a relief effort, Johnston’s best hope was to keep

Grant out of Mississippi. If that failed, Johnston wanted to pull out of the defences and fight

Grant in open country, where at least he could retreat if defeated. A fortress could be retaken,

but a trapped army was destroyed forever. The First Attempt

Grant decided not to overcomplicate his November 1862 campaign against Vicksburg. He had about

70,000 soldiers ready, and fresh recruits were arriving in Memphis every day, while Johnston

couldn’t have more than 50,000 soldiers to resist him. Therefore, Grant would divide and conquer his

enemy by the direct route. He’d take 40,000 men in two corps to Holly Springs, then straight down the

Mississippi Central Railroad, expecting to fight Johnston in the open between Oxford and Grenada.

His most trusted subordinate, William T. Sherman, would load 35,000 men in four divisions onto Rear

Admiral David Porter’s river fleet near Memphis, sail to the Yazoo River, disembark as close to

Vicksburg as possible, then advance on the city to pin its garrison. Trapped between the two forces,

the Confederates would either yield Vicksburg and be trapped by a pincer in open country,

or retreat into the defences and fall to a siege. The two movements began in late November. However,

Grant’s plan was too obvious to succeed. Grant expected Nathan Forest to raid his supply lines

in Tennessee and planned accordingly, but he wasn’t prepared for Earl van Dorn. Following

Second Corinth, van Dorn was removed from the Mississippi Department command and given a cavalry

division instead. Davis ordered him to join the Army of Tennessee, but Johnston had him delay

the move until it could be done as a strategic raid. Grant’s advance provided that opportunity,

and on December 20th, van Dorn completely destroyed Grant’s base at Holly Springs,

including the rail lines and every bridge he could find before continuing onto Tullahoma. With his

lines of supply and communication cut, Grant retreated. His men were forced to

live off the land as they marched, which Grant noted was much easier than expected.

Meanwhile, Sherman had been successfully debarked at Johnston’s Plantation and attempted to advance

on Vicksburg through Chickasaw Bayou. Opposing him were 14,000 men from the Army of Mississippi,

now led by Lt. General John Pemberton. However, it was the terrain that actually defeated Sherman,

as his men struggled through thick forests and chest-deep bayou before they could even reach

the defences, which were protected by a high bluff and felled trees. Unaware that Grant had

turned back and the operation was cancelled, Sherman attacked twice, reasoning that he’d

have to lose men to take Vicksburg. One place was as good as any other, but they made no progress

and retreated on December 30th. In the aftermath, Johnston inspected Pemberton’s defences and warned

him that if the Federals ever took Hayne’s Bluff, Vicksburg was indefensible and he was to evacuate

immediately. This was when a lingering problem in Grant’s department made itself known. John

McClernand was a prominent Illinois War Democrat who’d served under Grant since Cairo and whose

battlefield competence was balanced by his being a ladder-climbing backstabber at headquarters. He

constantly denigrated colleagues and superiors to the press, the War Department, and Lincoln in his

quest to raise his own star and get an independent command, much to Halleck and Grant’s disgust.

In October, he’d taken a leave of absence to propose his own strategy to Secretary of War

Edwin Stanton and Lincoln. Claiming that the problem with the army was a conservative cabal

of West Point incompetents, McClernard proposed that he would raise a new army in Illinois,

then take riverboats directly to Vicksburg. His fellow political general Nathaniel Banks

would bring the Army of the Gulf northward, and the two forces would take the Mississippi River.

Lincoln was under pressure from midwestern War Democrats to reopen the Mississippi for commercial

traffic and approved McClernand to raise troops. Stanton, who shared McClernard’s disdain for West

Pointers, went further and authorized a new army, which led to Stanton and Halleck having strong

words about undermining field commanders. A concerned Grant asked for and received

confirmation from Halleck that he was in control of all operations in his department. He then went

back to work, no longer concerned. Halleck was far more worried and quietly undermined McClernand by

forwarding most of the units he raised to Grant. Halleck then delayed McClernand’s arrival in

Memphis until after Sherman began the Chickasaw Bayou operation. Angered, McClernard complained

to a chastened Stanton, who informed him that instead, he’d command the Army of the Tennessee’s

13th Corps. McClernand caught up with Sherman after Chickasaw Bayou declared himself in command

as the senior officer and said that the force was his promised Army of the Mississippi. However,

he didn’t make any further moves until Sherman suggested capturing the Confederate garrison at

Arkansas Post to secure their supply line. This was accomplished by January 11th, but Sherman and

Porter reported that McClernand had no idea how to command an army. Consequently, Halleck telegraphed

McClernand that he couldn’t just declare himself an army commander, and Grant arrived to reabsorb

the force on January 17th, reducing McClernand to corps command. Secretly, Grant began looking for

an excuse to dismiss the irritating intriguer. Grant’s Winter Experiments

Dealing with McClernand forced Grant to switch bases from Corinth to Memphis while leaving the

problem of getting to Vicksburg unchanged. Lincoln liked the idea of a joint push up and down the

Mississippi, and asked Grant to work with Banks. Dutifully, Grant did contact Banks, but the latter

was busy securing southern Louisiana’s bayous amid fierce resistance, and he wasn’t sure when

he could realistically attack Port Hudson. Thus, Grant continued to work against Vicksburg alone.

The direct route was too vulnerable to cavalry raiding to try again, which meant that he’d have

to find a way along the Mississippi River. Falling back on his West Point engineering training,

Grant attempted five “experiments” to bypass Vicksburg. Grant would claim in his memoirs

that their only real purpose was to keep his men busy during the winter, but most historians and

contemporary sources agree that Grant hoped they would work, even if he expected failure.

The quickest way to bypass Vicksburg’s guns remained Farragut’s abandoned canal, so in

late January, Sherman’s 15th Corps got digging. Without the summer mosquitoes tormenting them,

Sherman’s men fared better than Farragut’s, but they were still unsuccessful. The six-foot deep,

six-foot wide dry ditch was insufficient for either naval traffic or for the river to actually

enter, so Grant ordered it deepened and expanded to seven feet deep and 60 feet wide. However, the

river broke the dam at the canal’s mouth, quickly flooding it and then silting it in. Steam-dredgers

were called in, but the additional activity attracted Confederate cannon fire, and the canal

was abandoned. Meanwhile, McPherson’s 17th Corps built another canal from the Mississippi to Lake

Providence , then through connecting bayous to the Red River, enabling Grant to transport his army

to Port Hudson instead. By March 18th, McPherson reported that the canal was sufficiently complete

for riverboats, but fluctuating water levels along the route led Grant to abandon the project.

It is likely that this project really was just a make-work effort, as Grant didn’t want to get

close enough to Banks for the latter to claim command of the expedition through his seniority.

In February, Porter attempted to bypass Hayne’s Bluff to the east via a disused riverboat route

called the Yazoo Pass. If successful, it would open a route to Yazoo City and the

flat ground east of Vicksburg. To reach the Pass, on February 3rd, a levee was blown near Helena to

raise the water level and allow 10 gunboats and 13 transports into Moon Lake. Progress was achingly

slow due to inconsistent water levels, thick swamp grasses, and tangled masses of trees. Worse,

the trees were full of flood-stranded wildlife, which began raining onto the passing gunboats. The

soldiers and sailors found themselves shooing away everything from raccoons and snakes to

cougars and bears. Meanwhile, Pemberton fortified the riverbend just north of Greenwood. When the

expedition reached Fort Pemberton on March 11th, they found formidable defences above ground,

too marshy for an infantry attack. After several days of ineffectual bombardment, the expedition

turned around and rejoined Grant on April 14th. Once word of Fort Pemberton’s existence reached

Porter, a second naval expedition was launched through Steele’s Bayou to outflank the position.

The initial movement through the Bayou was successful, but upon reaching Deer Creek,

it rapidly bogged down. The Creek was far narrower and overgrown,

slowing the squadron to a crawl. Confederates began felling trees to further block the ships

from in front and behind, trapping them. Sherman dispatched troops to rescue Porter on March 22nd,

safely returning to Millikin’s Bend by March 27th. That day, Grant decided to try one final canal,

this time connecting Duckport Landing to New Carthage via Walnut Bayou. Once again, the digging

went well and on April 13th, the protective levee was opened to fill the canal. However,

Mississippi silt began to clog the route, and the region’s water levels began falling, leaving less

than six inches of water inside the canal. The Vicksburg Campaign

This was the final straw for Grant. Cleverness had failed to get him around Vicksburg. It was

time for brute force. Having had ample time to survey Vicksburg’s riverward defenses,

he’d concluded that the high bluff was actually a weakness as the guns couldn’t depress far enough

to hit the nearest third of the river . Therefore, transports could steam right under the guns and

survive. After convincing Porter to make the run, Grant planned a multipronged deception to

disguise his intentions until the crossing was complete. McClernand’s troops quietly built a

military road from the supply base at Milliken’s Bend to Hard Times Landing, where Grant intended

to cross. Meanwhile, Sherman would leave one division to feint against Snyder’s Bluff to

pin Pemberton while the rest of his corps made demonstrations to the north to divert attention

from McClernand and McPherson’s crossing, then follow behind . Finally, a cavalry raid through

central Mississippi would draw resources and Johnston’s attention away from the river.

The night of April 16th, Porter sent seven gunboats shielding three transports floating

downriver towards Vicksburg. With engines muffled and no lights allowed,

Porter hoped to simply float past the guns unnoticed on a moonless night. However,

Confederate sentries spotted them anyway and raised the alarm, interrupting a grand ball

being held in town. As Grant predicted, the guns mostly overshot and the squadron took minimal

damage beside many holes in smokestacks. By the time the Confederates realized the problem and

began elevating their guns, Porter was through and Grant had his transports. Six days later,

six supply ships attempted the run, with five making it through.

Grierson’s Raid With Porter clear,

the second phase began. Colonel Benjamin Grierson was a music teacher who hated horses, but two

years of war had turned him into a hardened cavalryman ready to teach the Confederates a thing

or two about strategic cavalry usage. Launching from La Grange the morning of April 17th,

Grierson led his 1700 troopers 600 miles through central Mississippi to Baton Rouge, arriving May

2nd. Travelling in multiple columns led by scouts dressed as Confederates, Grierson’s Raid destroyed

thousands of arms caches, dozens hundreds of warehouses, wrecked over 50 miles of railroad,

liberated hundreds of slaves, and inflicted over 100 casualties for only 19 losses. Johnston and

Pemberton diverted all available cavalry and an infantry division to ineffectively

chase Grierson and protect supply lines, completely taking their attention off Grant.

By April 29th, Grant’s army was assembled for crossing, and he wired Sherman to start the

distraction at Snyder’s Bluff. However, his intended landing point at Grand Gulf was held

by a Confederate division from Pemberton’s army. Porter tried to force the landing by

bombarding the defences, but failed to reduce their positions. Rather than waste more time,

Grant ordered him to run the transports downriver while the gunboats covered them with another

bombardment, which succeeded with no losses. He’d cross at Disharoon’s plantation instead.

Battle of Port Gibson Acting on advice from a local slave,

Porter began ferrying McClernand and McPherson’s corps across to Bruinsburg on April 30th.

By May 1st, 24,000 Union soldiers were across the Mississippi, the largest American amphibious

landing until World War 2. Fearing just such a flanking maneuver, Pemberton had

sent reinforcements to defend Port Gibson, which held the road inland from Bruinsburg. The 8,000

Confederates deployed along a series of ridges and ravines straddling the road, which provided

excellent defensive ground but also prevented the units from communicating directly with each other.

McClernand made contact with the Confederates at 06:30, pushing back the brigade holding

Rodney Road until being checked by Confederate reinforcements. Following an artillery barrage,

McClernand ordered another attack, only for it to fail when the units didn’t attack together.

However, at 10:00, McClernand finally got all his units to advance together, and the Confederate

frontline buckled and fell back. Grant sent reinforcements, and the attack continued until

the Confederates withdrew at 15:00. With a Federal beachhead established, the Confederates at Grand

Gulf withdrew to rejoin Pemberton. Meanwhile, Grant established his communication lines and

brought the rest of his 40,000-man field army across the Mississippi. Marching for Raymond,

he ordered his troops to travel light and to forage for supplies, which the men did with gusto,

stripping all the local plantations of food. Battles of Raymond and Jackson

Following Davis’ orders, Pemberton ordered John Gregg’s brigade to establish a defensive line

at Raymond rather than Jackson. On May 12th, McPherson made contact with Gregg,

who aggressively attacked the unknown force. McPherson’s vanguard was pushed back before

superior numbers nearly enveloped Gregg, who just barely escaped. While barely a hiccup to

his march, Grant decided to swing east to drive off Johnston before he could gather enough forces

to be a threat. Johnston had been with the Army of Tennessee when Grant crossed the Mississippi.

Learning of the situation on May 9th, he’d raced back to Jackson to find only 6,000 men

ready to defend the city, though Davis assured him that reinforcements were coming. However,

Sherman and McPherson arrived first on May 14th. Rather than fight a hopeless battle,

Johnston ordered Gregg to delay the Federals while he evacuated everything he could. The Union attack

began in a rainstorm at 10:00, and by 14:00, Johnston was clear. Gregg successfully disengaged

and rejoined him on the Canton Road . Battle of Champion Hill

There, Johnston was reinforced to 15,000 and ordered Pemberton to advance from Edward’s

Station and engage Grant near Clinton, where Johnston could join him. However,

Pemberton ignored the order and instead tried to raid Grant’s supply line. However, Grant

was advancing too quickly. Pemberton switched to obeying Johnston, but it was too late . At

07:00 on May 16th, Pemberton’s countermarch was intercepted at Champion Hill. While his 23,000

men quickly formed a strong defensive position along the ridges overlooking Jackson Creek,

it did not cover the Jackson Road on the left flank around Champion Hill. McPherson’s corps was

using that road while McClernand moved toward the Confederate right along Raymond Road . At 11:30,

McPherson engaged, and by 13:00, he’d broken through while McClernand was stymied. Pemberton’s

position crumbled, and his men fled across Baker Creek towards the Big Black River Bridge,

their only remaining escape route. One division was cut off and would instead

sneak around Grant to join Johnston. Battle of Big Black River Bridge

Pemberton retreated back to Vicksburg, leaving two brigades to hold the Big Black River Bridge in the

hope that the missing division would arrive. Instead, McClernand arrived early on May 17th,

and an artillery duel began. Scouting under the cover of cannon smoke, a Union brigade discovered

that a river meander scar led right into the heart of the Confederate line. The brigade

rushed into the scar, then charged into the Confederate line, which crumbled from the shock.

The routing rebels burned not only the bridge but a riverboat serving as a ferry to unsuccessfully

delay the Federal advance. As Pemberton withdrew from Hayne’s Bluff, Johnston knew

that Vicksburg was doomed and ordered him to evacuate before being trapped. However,

Pemberton chose to ignore Johnston and follow Davis’ order to hold Vicksburg at all costs.

The Siege of Vicksburg By May 18th, Grant was outside Vicksburg.

Unwilling to let Pemberton’s men recover, he ordered an immediate storming attack, which

failed on May 19th. On the 22nd, Grant ordered another assault after heavy bombardment from both

his artillery and Porter’s gunboats. While this more carefully planned attack took some outworks,

the defences ultimately held. Accepting failure, Grant prepared to take Vicksburg by siege and

began calling in all his reinforcements, including the troops he’d left north of the city to distract

Pemberton. Meanwhile, Banks finally disengaged from operations along the Red River and besieged

Port Hudson on May 22nd. As Grant built his siege lines, he initially couldn’t completely surround

Vicksburg, and Pemberton could have escaped via unguarded roads to the south. Johnston

repeatedly ordered him to do so, but Pemberton instead obeyed Davis’ orders to hold and wait

for the relief army Davis promised Johnston was building . Johnston was assembling troops in

Jackson, but he couldn’t find enough artillery, ammunition, or muskets for all 32,000 soldiers,

most of whom were raw conscripts. Worse, by early June, Grant was reinforced to 77,000,

with Sherman guarding the Big Black River crossings with 40,000 men. Grant also found

the excuse to fire McClernand after he defied orders about talking to the press on June 18th.

The situation was hopeless, so Johnston called for help from other departments. On June 7th,

the Trans-Mississippi Department sent a Texas brigade to break Grant’s supply line at Milliken’s

Bend. The Louisiana Colored Brigade stationed there repelled the attack with heavy losses,

ending the only serious attempt to break the encirclement. Johnston finally moved to break

the siege on June 28th, but a series of probing attacks on July 1st showed that Sherman’s position

was too strong for his poorly-trained troops, and Johnston retreated to preserve the army. On June

25th and again on July 1st, Grant’s engineers detonated mines under the Confederate lines to

prove the futility of further resistance. With the city out of food, Pemberton finally agreed

to surrender on July 3rd. Initially, Grant offered only unconditional surrender, but he

was convinced to offer parole instead to avoid having to transport 30,000 prisoners northward.

Vicksburg formally surrendered on July 4th, and Port Hudson followed on July 9th. The Confederacy

was split in two, and Davis was furious. He blamed Johnston for not aggressively breaking the siege,

while Johnston shot back that Davis had made empty and wildly unrealistic promises about the relief

army. In any case, coupled with the victory at Gettysburg, Vicksburg turned the tide of the war,

and Grant was given supreme command of the Western armies as a reward.

Join us next time, as we return to Tennessee to watch the seminal clash

between the Army of the Cumberland and the Army of Tennessee at Chickamauga,

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