The 28th Illinois Infantry saw action at the Battle of Fort Henry, the momentous, bloody Battle of Shiloh, and the Siege of Corinth, Mississippi. Grant's Central Mississippi campaign ( November 2, 1862—January 10, 1863) culminated in the Siege of Vicksburg (June 11—July 4, 1863), one of the most important Union victories of the war. It opened the Mississippi River for the Union and cut the Confederacy in half. The Vicksburg victory effectively finished the Confederacy in the West, severing Texas, Arkansas and large parts of Louisiana from the remainder of the insurgent states.