The U.S. Army Campaigns of the Civil War

The

Vicksburg Camp ign

November 1862 – 

July 1863
CMH Pub 75–8

Cover: Detail from First at Vicksburg–Assault of the 1st Battalion, 13th Infantry, 19 

May 1863 (U.S. Army in Action Series)
by

Christopher R. Gabel

Center of Military History

United States Army

Washington, D.C., 2013

The

Vicksburg Camp ign

November 1862 – 

July 1863

5

Introduction

Although over one hundred fifty years have passed since the 

start of the American Civil War, that titanic conflict continues to 

matter. The forces unleashed by that war were immensely destructive because of the significant issues involved: the existence of the 

Union, the end of slavery, and the very future of the nation. The 

war remains our most contentious, and our bloodiest, with over 

six hundred thousand killed in the course of the four-year struggle. 

Most civil wars do not spring up overnight, and the American 

Civil War was no exception. The seeds of the conflict were sown 

in the earliest days of the republic’s founding, primarily over the 

existence of slavery and the slave trade. Although no conflict can 

begin without the conscious decisions of those engaged in the 

debates at that moment, in the end, there was simply no way to 

paper over the division of the country into two camps: one that 

was dominated by slavery and the other that sought first to limit 

its spread and then to abolish it. Our nation was indeed “half slave 

and half free,” and that could not stand. 

Regardless of the factors tearing the nation asunder, the 

soldiers on each side of the struggle went to war for personal 

reasons: looking for adventure, being caught up in the passions 

and emotions of their peers, believing in the Union, favoring 

states’ rights, or even justifying the simple schoolyard dynamic 

of being convinced that they were “worth” three of the soldiers 

on the other side. Nor can we overlook the factor that some went 

to war to prove their manhood. This has been, and continues 

to be, a key dynamic in understanding combat and the profession of arms. Soldiers join for many reasons but often stay in the 

fight because of their comrades and because they do not want to 

seem like cowards. Sometimes issues of national impact shrink 

to nothing in the intensely personal world of cannon shell and 

minié ball.

Whatever the reasons, the struggle was long and costly and 

only culminated with the conquest of the rebellious Confederacy, 
6 

the preservation of the Union, and the end of slavery. These 

campaign pamphlets on the American Civil War, prepared in 

commemoration of our national sacrifices, seek to remember 

that war and honor those in the United States Army who died to 

preserve the Union and free the slaves as well as to tell the story of 

those American soldiers who fought for the Confederacy despite 

the inherently flawed nature of their cause. The Civil War was our 

greatest struggle and continues to deserve our deep study and 

contemplation.

 RICHARD W. STEWART

 Chief Historian
7

The Vicksburg Campaign

November 1862–July 1863

Strategic Setting

The campaign for the control of Vicksburg was one of the 

most important contests in determining the outcome of the Civil 

War. As President Abraham Lincoln observed, “Vicksburg is the 

key. The war can never be brought to a close until that key is in 

our pocket.” The struggle for Vicksburg lasted more than a year, 

and when it was over, the outcome of the Civil War appeared more 

certain.

The centerpiece of the Vicksburg campaign was the Mississippi 

River, just as the great river is the centerpiece of the North American 

continent. The Mississippi and its tributaries drain over a million 

square miles of territory in the United States and Canada. These 

waterways included twenty thousand miles of navigable water, 

extending from Montana to Pennsylvania and from Minnesota to 

the Gulf of Mexico, making possible the large-scale settlement of 

the west. Between 1810 and 1860, the number of whites residing 

west of the Appalachians swelled from one million to fifteen million, 

thanks in large part to the availability of navigable waterways. The 

black population, mostly slaves, grew from two hundred thousand 

to over two million, concentrated along the Mississippi. The rivers 

of the Mississippi basin provided an economic outlet for corn and 

hogs raised in Iowa and Ohio, as well as the sugar and cotton grown 

on the great plantations of Louisiana and Mississippi. By 1860, railroads were beginning to penetrate the region, but access to these 
8 

western rivers remained vital to the economy of both the Midwest 

and the Deep South. 

When the Civil War started, the Mississippi and its tributaries 

proved highly important to the conduct of military operations west 

of the Appalachians. Typically, armies view rivers as obstacles. In 

the western theater of war, however, the rivers were highways that 

carried troops, supplies, and firepower. The same steam-powered 

riverboats that sustained the civilian economy made it possible to 

mount military campaigns that the bad roads and sparse railroads 

of the region could never have supported. Riverboats ranged in 

capacity from 250 to 1,700 tons. (A typical railroad train of the 

period might carry 150 tons, and a horse-drawn wagon could move 

only 1 or 2 tons of cargo.) A riverboat of 500 tons could sustain a 

typical field army for two days. One Mississippi riverboat could 

move a regiment of infantry; ten boats could transport an entire 

division. In addition, riverboats could deliver staggering amounts of 

firepower. The portion of the Union Navy’s gunboat fleet supporting 

the Vicksburg operation typically carried some 200 large-caliber 

cannon. In comparison, the Union army conducted much of the 

campaign with 180 pieces of smaller-caliber field artillery.

Although the Mississippi and its tributaries were vital for both 

civilian and military purposes, access from the river to the shore 

was not always easy. Through much of its length, the Mississippi 

is flanked on both sides by low-lying ground, interspersed with 

swamps and bayous, where dry land is hard to find. However, on 

the eastern edge of the Mississippi’s floodplain stands a line of 

bluffs extending from Kentucky into Louisiana. At certain points, 

the winding river runs along the foot of these bluffs providing 

locations where cargos could move directly between riverboat 

and high, firm ground. Additionally, these bluffs were the only 

places where artillery could readily command the river itself. 

Not surprisingly, the places where the river met the bluffs tended 

to be important for both commercial and military purposes. In 

Kentucky, the town of Columbus occupied such a location, as 

did Memphis, Tennessee. In Mississippi, Vicksburg, Grand Gulf, 

Rodney, and Natchez all sat on bluffs overlooking the river. Port 

Hudson and Baton Rouge in Louisiana were similarly situated. 

Just north of Vicksburg were Snyder’s Bluff and Haynes’ Bluff, 

where the navigable Yazoo River met the same line of bluffs. In 

the course of military operations, Confederate forces used many of 

these locations to interdict the river with cannon fire. Union forces 
9

wanted the same spots to offload armies, equipment, and supplies. 

Thus the war for control of the Mississippi was largely a struggle 

for control of these river-bluff interfaces.

The city of Vicksburg was important for other reasons as 

well. At the outbreak of the war it was the second largest town in 

Mississippi (after Natchez) and a trading center of considerable 

significance. Agricultural products raised in the fertile Yazoo Delta, 

lying between Vicksburg and Memphis, traveled down the Yazoo to 

Vicksburg, where they were transferred to larger vessels for transport to New Orleans. Other products arriving in Vicksburg by river 

were loaded onto trains of the Southern Railroad of Mississippi, 

which ran eastward to Jackson and Meridian. The thriving city was 

also home to two foundries capable of producing artillery, ammunition, railroad rail, and steam boilers. As the war closed in, Vicksburg 

became vital to the Confederacy as an east-west transfer point for 

agricultural commodities from Louisiana and weapons brought 

through the Union blockade by way of Texas.

Vicksburg was just as important to the Union war effort as 

it was to the Confederates. President Lincoln, always concerned 

about maintaining his political 

support in the Midwestern 

states, was fully aware of the 

Mississippi’s importance to the 

farmers of that region. One 

of Lincoln’s worst fears was 

that those states might seek 

an accommodation with the 

Confederacy if that was the 

only way they could gain access 

to the vital waterway. Opening 

the Mississippi was the most 

important war aim for many 

Unionists in the Midwest. The 

state of Illinois alone provided 

over 36,000 troops for the 

campaign to secure Vicksburg.

The struggle to capture 

Vicksburg in 1863 was the final 

act of a two-year contest for 

control of the Mississippi River 

(Map 1). This larger campaign 

General Grant (Library of Congress)
FORT DONELSON 14–16 Feb

FORT HENRY 6 Feb

NEW MADRID 3–14 Mar

ISLAND N0. 10 4–8 Apr

FORT PILLOW FORT RANDOLPH 14 Apr–4 Jun

FORT ST. PHILIP

FORT JACKSON 18–28 Apr

MEMPHIS 6 Jun SHILOH 6–7 Apr

CORINTH 28–30 May

NEW ORLEANS 29 Apr

VICKSBURG May-July

Mississippi R

Mississippi R

Mississippi R

Tennessee R

Cumberland R

Pearl R

Alabama R

Arkansas R

Red R

Yazoo R

Big Black R

White R

Arkansas Post

Southern Mississippi RR

Mobile & Ohio RR

Mississippi Central RR

Memphis & Charleston RR

Milliken’s Bend

Synder’s Blu

Columbus

Cairo

Paducah

Grenada

Decatur Helena

Lake Providence

Monroe

Grand Gulf

Rodney

Port Hudson

Alexandria

Selma

Mobile

Holly Springs

Meridian

Natchez

BATON ROUGE

JACKSON

NASHVILLE

LITTLE ROCK

MISSOURI

F LORIDA

KENTUCK Y

TENNESSE E

ALABAM A

L OUISIANA

MISSISSIPPI

ARKANSAS

Battle

February–July 1862

MISSISSIPPI OPERATIONS

0 50 100

Miles

Map 1
11

began in September 1861 when Confederate forces under Maj. 

Gen. Leonidas Polk occupied and fortified the bluffs at Columbus, 

Kentucky. The first major Union offensive to reopen the Mississippi 

occurred on the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers in February 

1862 when Army forces under Brig. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant and Navy 

gunboats commanded by Flag Officer Andrew H. Foote captured 

Forts Henry and Donelson. With these bastions under Union 

control, Foote sent gunboats upstream on both rivers, effectively 

outflanking the Confederate position at Columbus and forcing its 

evacuation. In April 1862, Foote’s gunboats supported Brig. Gen. 

John H. Pope’s soldiers in the reduction of the Confederate fortifications at New Madrid and Island Number 10 on the Mississippi. 

The next Confederate positions downstream were Forts Pillow 

and Randolph, protecting Memphis, Tennessee. The capture of 

Corinth, Mississippi, by Maj. Gen. Henry W. Halleck’s Union army 

outflanked these positions and forced their evacuation. Following 

a last-ditch naval defense of the city on 6 June, Memphis itself fell 

under Union control.

Meanwhile, another Union offensive opened against the lower 

Mississippi. In April 1862, Flag Officer David G. Farragut brought 

elements of the Western Gulf Blockading Squadron into the 

mouth of the river. This flotilla 

ran past Forts Jackson and St. 

Philip, defeated a Confederate 

naval force, and captured New 

Orleans, the largest city in the 

Confederacy.

The naval battles of New 

Orleans and Memphis destroyed 

most of the Confederacy’s naval 

power on the western rivers. The 

Confederates lost all fourteen of 

their rams, twenty of twenty-five 

gunboats (converted commercial vessels), and six of the seven 

ironclads either built or under 

construction. Henceforth, the 

Confederates would have to 

rely almost exclusively on shore 

batteries to challenge Union 

control of the waterways.

General Smith (Library of Congress)
12 

By the summer of 1862, Vicksburg was the last Confederate 

stronghold on the Mississippi, with five batteries of artillery overlooking the channel. On 18 May, Farragut’s ships approached 

Vicksburg from below. He demanded the surrender of the city, 

which the Confederate commander, Brig. Gen. Martin L. Smith, 

curtly refused. Farragut immediately withdrew, only to return 

several weeks later with 3,200 Army troops under the command 

of Brig. Gen. Thomas Williams. On 1 July, Farragut linked up 

with Navy Flag Officer Charles H. Davis and a flotilla of gunboats 

that had come down from Memphis. At this point in time, Union 

forces controlled the entire Mississippi River except for a two-mile 

stretch along the Vicksburg batteries. The naval vessels opened a 

bombardment of the city, while Williams’ troops attempted to dig 

a canal across the peninsula opposite Vicksburg to allow boats to 

bypass the Confederate batteries. The canal failed, and falling water 

levels threatened to strand Farragut’s ocean-going vessels. The 

arrival of a lone Confederate ironclad, the Arkansas, persuaded 

Farragut to seek the safety of deeper waters downstream, carrying 

Williams’ troops with him. Davis and his gunboats also departed, 

heading back to Memphis. The Union armies in the region, preoccupied first with efforts to capture Chattanooga and later by the 

Confederate counteroffensive into Tennessee and Kentucky, had 

nothing left with which to threaten Vicksburg. Thus, with the 

departure of Davis and Farragut, the Confederate defenders of 

Vicksburg gained a timely reprieve.

In September 1862, Confederate troops and slaves brought 

in from surrounding farms and plantations began digging fortifications on Vicksburg’s landward side. Maj. Samuel H. Lockett, 

an 1859 graduate of the U.S. Military Academy, laid out the 

fortifications using the hilly, ravine-cut terrain to best advantage. 

What Lockett created was not a continuous reinforced parapet, 

but rather a system of nine major fortifications commanding the 

roads and the railroad entering Vicksburg from the east. Rifle 

pits (infantry fighting positions) linked the major forts, creating 

a defensive line nine miles long, extending from the Mississippi 

above Vicksburg to the river below the town. Union engineers later 

described it as “rather an intrenched camp than a fortified place, 

owing much of its strength to the difficult ground, obstructed by 

fallen trees in its front. . . .” In addition to the landward fortifications, the Confederates strengthened the river defenses, which 

ultimately totaled thirteen batteries mounting thirty-seven large-
13

caliber cannon, plus thirteen lighter field artillery pieces to repel 

amphibious landings.

In the autumn of 1862 Vicksburg became the second most 

heavily fortified city in the Confederacy. Only the Confederate 

capital at Richmond, Virginia, was more strongly guarded. Not 

everyone, however, was impressed by this “Gibraltar of the West.” 

Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston sagely noted in his 

postwar memoirs that the extensive fortifications came at a price: 

The usual error of Confederate engineering had been committed 

there. An immense intrenched camp, requiring an army to 

hold it, had been made instead of a fort requiring only a small 

garrison. In like manner the water-batteries had been planned 

to prevent the bombardment of the town, instead of to close the 

navigation of the river to the enemy; distributed along a front 

of two miles, instead of being so placed that their fire might be 

concentrated on a single vessel.

Whatever its merits or deficiencies as a fortified position, 

Vicksburg commanded only a few miles of the Mississippi River. To 

block Union access to the Yazoo River, the Confederates established 

batteries for nine large guns at Snyder’s Bluff north of Vicksburg. 

Downstream from Vicksburg, 244 miles away by the winding 

Mississippi, they fortified the town of Port Hudson, Louisiana, 

perched on top of an eighty-foot bluff on the east bank overlooking 

the river. In September 1862, at the same time that Major Lockett 

was laying out the works at Vicksburg, Confederate troops under 

Brig. Gen. William Beall began the construction of a four and 

one-half mile fortified line on Port Hudson’s landward side. The line 

was strongest on the southern end, the most likely direction for a 

Union ground attack—Baton Rouge, occupied by Union troops, 

was only twenty-five miles away in that direction. Facing the river 

were nine batteries containing nineteen large-caliber guns. Maj. 

Gen. Franklin Gardner assumed command of the post in December 

1862, and presided over the influx of troops to the strongpoint. In 

March 1863, the Confederate garrison in and around Port Hudson 

reached peak strength of over five brigades and 20,000 troops. 

The river batteries at Port Hudson had an advantage over 

those at Vicksburg. Any Union boats attempting to pass the 

batteries at Vicksburg would be traveling with the current, nearly 

doubling their speed. At Port Hudson, the Union vessels would be 
14 

plodding upstream against the current, greatly prolonging their 

exposure to fire from the shore.

In July 1862, the Confederates controlled only the river 

immediately in front of Vicksburg; however, by December they 

controlled 244 miles of the great river, thanks to the batteries at 

Vicksburg and Port Hudson. This stretch of river includes the 

mouths of the Big Black River in Mississippi and, most importantly, the Red River in Louisiana. With the Red River secure, 

the Confederates possessed an excellent east-west link binding 

Louisiana and Texas to the rest of the Confederacy.

In October 1862, the Confederate War Department established 

a new geographical command, the Department of Mississippi and 

East Louisiana, incorporating both Port Hudson and Vicksburg. 

Authorities in Richmond selected Lt. Gen. John C. Pemberton to 

command this vital department. Pemberton was a rather unusual 

choice for such an important position. A Pennsylvanian by birth, 

he was an 1837 graduate of the U.S. Military Academy who had 

spent most of his career, including the Mexican War years, as a 

staff officer. In 1848, he married 

the daughter of a prosperous 

Norfolk, Virginia, businessman. 

When Virginia seceded from 

the Union in 1861, Pemberton 

was torn between his own 

family’s loyalty to the Union 

and his wife’s staunch support 

of Virginia. Lacking any strong 

political convictions of his own, 

he ultimately resigned from 

the U.S. Army and accepted a 

commission as a major in the 

Confederate army. Two days 

later Pemberton received a 

promotion to the rank of brigadier general, perhaps as a result 

of his father-in-law’s influence. 

In January 1862 he became a 

major general, despite having 

had no combat experience 

in the present conflict. After 

a somewhat turbulent stint 

General Pemberton 

(Library of Congress)
15

in the Department of South Carolina and Georgia, Confederate 

President Jefferson Davis promoted Pemberton to the rank of lieutenant general and sent him west to command the Department of 

Mississippi and East Louisiana.

From the beginning, Pemberton perceived his mission to be 

strictly the defense of his department, primarily the retention of 

Vicksburg and Port Hudson. Accordingly, he pressed ahead with 

the construction of fortifications already underway, and directed 

that supplies be stockpiled in Vicksburg sufficient to maintain a 

force of 17,500 men for five months. As a department commander 

Pemberton saw his role to be that of a manager of resources, 

dispatching subordinate commanders to handle local threats while 

he remained at headquarters.

Two organizational complications made Pemberton’s job 

more difficult. First, Pemberton’s department was itself part of the 

larger Department of the West, commanded by General Johnston. 

But Pemberton’s orders told him to report directly to the War 

Department, not through Johnston, thus muddling the chain of 

command. Secondly, the western boundary of Pemberton’s department was the Mississippi River itself. He had no authority over the 

troops on the far bank. It is an axiom of war that one should not 

place a unit boundary along a route that the enemy might use as an 

avenue of attack, because the seams between units are commonly 

the weakest points of a defensive line. In this case the seam was 

the Mississippi River itself. This boundary between Pemberton’s 

Department of Mississippi and East Louisiana, to the east of the 

river, and the Department of the Trans-Mississippi, to the west, 

had already served as an enemy avenue of attack and would almost 

certainly be threatened again. Nor could Pemberton expect much 

help from the hard-pressed Confederates on the far side of the 

river. The governor of Arkansas, weary of seeing troops from the 

Trans-Mississippi go east, never to return, had already threatened 

to secede from the Confederacy if the government in Richmond 

failed to protect his state.

Ultimately, Pemberton’s department would contain 43,000 

troops organized into five divisions. The division commanders 

were General Smith, who had defended Vicksburg against 

Farragut’s incursion in 1862, Maj. Gens. John H. Forney, William 

W. Loring, and Carter L. Stevenson, and Brig. Gen. John S. Bowen. 

Four of the five were graduates of the U.S. Military Academy, the 

exception being Loring who had risen from the ranks to become 
16 

a colonel in the prewar Army. For most of the campaign, there 

were no corps headquarters in Pemberton’s department. In fact, 

his forces did not constitute a clearly organized field army, nor did 

Pemberton see himself as an army commander, during much of 

his tenure in department command.

Pemberton’s chief adversary in the unfolding contest was 

Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant. The contrast between the two men was 

striking. Grant came from humble origins. Born and raised in rural 

Ohio, he graduated from the U.S. Military Academy in 1843, served 

with distinction in the Mexican War, and married the daughter of a 

slave-owning Missouri farmer. His career went downhill from there. 

The tedium of peacetime service and the long separations from his 

family left him bored, depressed, and lonely. He acquired a reputation as a heavy drinker. Finally, he resigned his commission in 

1854. Grant tried his hand at farming and real estate, without much 

success. The outbreak of the Civil War found him working as a clerk 

in his father’s Galena, Illinois, leather goods store.

General Stevenson 

(Library of Congress)

General Bowen 

(Battles and Leaders of the 

Civil War)
17

From that point on, Grant’s rise to prominence was rapid. He 

began his Civil War career in June 1861 as a colonel commanding 

a regiment of Illinois volunteers. From there he rose through 

progressively larger commands, gaining valuable experience at 

each level. By February 1862, he commanded a corps-size force 

in the capture of Forts Henry and Donelson, which brought him 

to national prominence and earned him a promotion to the rank 

of major general and command of the Army of the Tennessee. 

Modest, quiet, and unpretentious, Grant won the respect of his 

troops and his superiors alike. President Lincoln was pleased to 

have a general who was more interested in taking the fight to 

the enemy than in self-promotion: “What I want, and what the 

people want, is generals who will fight battles and win victories. 

Grant has done this and I propose to stand by him.” Unlike most 

of his counterparts, Union or Confederate, Grant always based 

his plans on what he could do to the enemy, rather than worrying 

about what his enemy might do to him. This mindset got Grant 

into trouble on several occasions, most notably at Shiloh in April 

1862, when a Confederate army under General Albert Sidney 

Johnston surprised Grant’s army in its camps and nearly drove it 

into the Tennessee River. Unperturbed, Grant rallied his troops, 

brought up reinforcements, and commented, “Not beaten yet. Not 

by a damn sight.” Most generals would have retreated after such a 

mauling. The next day Grant counterattacked at dawn and drove 

the Confederates from the field. 

Most importantly, Grant was one of the first Union generals 

to recognize the fact that the Civil War could not be won simply 

by outmaneuvering the enemy or occupying a few vital centers. 

Shiloh taught Grant that the conflict would not end until the 

Confederate armies were beaten into submission. He believed in 

seizing the initiative and never relinquishing it, giving his opponents no opportunity to rest or reconstitute. Grant would be a 

dangerous opponent indeed for the inexperienced Pemberton.

Operations 

Grant’s Army of the Tennessee was a seasoned force consisting 

largely of veteran troops accustomed to marching and fighting as 

a unit. Grant’s principal subordinates were Maj. Gens. William T. 

Sherman, John A. McClernand, and James B. McPherson. Sherman 
18

and McPherson were both U.S. Military Academy graduates. 

McClernand was a political general—a Democratic politician from 

Illinois who was instrumental in maintaining that state’s support 

of Lincoln’s war efforts. McClernand, anxious for an independent 

command, successfully lobbied with the Lincoln administration 

for permission to raise his own “Army of the Mississippi,” which 

McClernand would lead in a separate campaign to open the river. 

Upon obtaining the authorization he desired, McClernand went back 

to Illinois to raise the troops. General Halleck, no friend of political 

generals, promptly assigned the new recruits to Grant’s army.

The man who would become Grant’s naval partner in the 

campaign for Vicksburg, R. Adm. David D. Porter, assumed 

command of the Mississippi River Squadron in October 1862. 

Porter controlled approximately fifty-eight combat vessels, 

including thirteen ironclads, thirty-four “tinclads” (commercial 

vessels fitted with light armor and artillery pieces), two “timberclads,” and six rams. His force also included thirteen mortar boats, 

each of which mounted a single 13-inch siege mortar firing a 

200-pound shell. Moreover, Farragut’s Western Gulf Blockading 

Squadron maintained a presence below Port Hudson with its 

seagoing ships. In addition to the Navy’s combat vessels, the river 

carried a sizeable fleet of Army transports and hospital boats. 

Thus Grant was assured of ample supply and overwhelming firepower any time his army had access to navigable water. Grant and 

Porter formed an effective team, despite the fact that neither held 

command authority over the other. By this point in the war Grant 

knew what the Navy could reasonably be asked to do, and Porter 

knew what type of support the Army needed. Grant planned 

the campaigns, but Porter had veto power over all river-related 

operations.

Grant’s First Offensives

Ironically, Grant’s first deliberate offensive in the direction of 

Vicksburg took place well inland, far from the Mississippi River 

and Porter’s gunboats. Experience in the war so far had shown that 

the most economical way to eliminate a Confederate river fortress 

was to outflank it from the landward side rather than assaulting 

it directly. Accordingly, in November 1862, Grant began preparations for an advance from western Tennessee toward Jackson, 

Mississippi, which, if successful, would force the evacuation of 

Vicksburg, just as earlier offensives had outflanked Columbus, 
General Sherman 

(Library of Congress)

General McClernand 

(Library of Congress)

General McPherson

(Library of Congress)

Admiral Porter 

(Library of Congress)
20 

Kentucky, and Memphis, Tennessee. There was one major difference: whereas his earlier operations had followed the course of 

the Tennessee River and could readily be supported by riverboat, Grant’s proposed thrust into the heart of Mississippi would 

have to rely upon railroad and wagon haul for logistical support. 

Ultimately, this would prove to be the undoing of the expedition.

The Union offensive began on 26 November 1862. Forty-five 

thousand troops, organized into three “wings,” advanced from 

western Tennessee into northwestern Mississippi. The main body 

advanced from Grand Junction, Tennessee, and marched along the 

Mississippi Central Railroad. In order to supply his force, Grant 

established a railhead at Holly Springs, Mississippi, and had his 

troops strip the countryside of provisions as they advanced. To meet 

this threat, Pemberton assembled 30,000 troops and directed them 

to prepare defensive positions along the Tallahatchie River. But when 

Grant’s army reached the Tallahatchie on 2 December, and prepared 

to give battle, the Confederates were gone. A force of 7,000 Union 

troops from the Department of the Missouri, under the command of 

Brig. Gen. Alvin P. Hovey, had crossed the Mississippi from Helena, 

Arkansas, and conducted a raid 

deep behind Pemberton’s line. 

On 30 November, Pemberton 

had ordered his troops to 

abandon their positions on the 

Tallahatchie and fall back to the 

Yalobusha River fifty miles to the 

rear.

Grant, confronted with an 

opponent who would not stand 

and fight, and concerned for 

the safety of his lengthening 

supply line, directed Sherman 

to take one division back to 

Memphis, gather more troops 

there, and mount a river borne 

attack against Vicksburg itself 

while Grant advanced to the 

Yalobusha. Grant reasoned that 

Pemberton lacked the strength 

to fight both threats simultaneously and that one prong or the 

General Van Dorn

(National Archives)
21

other was bound to puncture any Confederate defense. But Grant 

was never able to mount an attack on the Yalobusha river line. On 

20 December, Confederate cavalry raiders under the command of 

Maj. Gen. Earl Van Dorn captured the Union army’s main logistical base at Holly Springs. Meanwhile, another body of cavalry 

raiders led by Brig. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest attacked the 

railroads deep in the Union rear. Grant had no other option but to 

break off his offensive and withdraw (Map 2).

The raid on Holly Springs was noteworthy for a number of 

reasons. It was the only time during the Civil War in which a cavalry 

action decided the outcome of a campaign. It also marked the last 

occasion during the struggle for Vicksburg in which Confederate 

forces managed to seize the initiative on a large scale. From Holly 

Springs until the ultimate surrender of Vicksburg, Grant acted and 

Pemberton reacted.

Meanwhile, Sherman proceeded with his river borne operation. At the very least, Sherman hoped to secure a lodgment and 

logistical base somewhere near Vicksburg to re-provision Grant’s 

main body when it would march south from the Yalobusha. At 

best, he hoped to capture Vicksburg itself. In either case, time was 

of the essence. Not only did Sherman believe he needed to force 

a landing quickly to relieve the pressure on Grant, but he wanted 

to attack before McClernand returned from Illinois to stage his 

own offensive on the Mississippi. As a result, Sherman’s embarkation from Memphis was a hurried and haphazard affair. To 

augment the division he had brought back from the Tallahatchie, 

Sherman hastily assembled two more divisions from the forces in 

and around Memphis and impetuously threw the combined force 

onto transports. In the words of one newspaper correspondent, 

“companies were separated from their regiments, and officers 

from their companies; batteries were on one boat and caissons 

belonging to them on another; and the horses and artillerymen 

on still another.” Escorted by gunboats from Porter’s squadron, the 

convoy pulled out from Memphis on 20 December, the same day 

as the raid on Holly Springs. On its way downstream Sherman’s 

expedition picked up an additional division from the Department 

of the Missouri as it passed Helena, Arkansas.

The massive convoy of sixty transports, plus its gunboat 

escorts, could not pass unnoticed. On 24 December, a Confederate 

observation post near Lake Providence, Louisiana, spotted the 

armada and telegraphed the news to DeSoto, across the river from 
GRANT

SHERMAN

SHERMAN

McCLERNAND

2 Dec

ARKANSAS POST 9–11 Jan

HOLLY SPRINGS

20 Dec

CHICKASAW BAYOU 29 Dec

Mississippi R

Mississippi R

Pearl R

Arkansas R

Red R

Yazoo R

Yalobusha R

Big Black R

Tallahatchie R

Southern Mississippi RR

Mobile & Ohio RR

Mississippi Central RR

Memphis & Charleston RR

Synder’s Blu

Corinth

Grand Junction

Grenada

Helena

Lake Providence

Monroe

Grand Gulf

Rodney

DeSoto

Port Hudson

La Grange Memphis

Vicksburg Meridian

Natchez

BATON ROUGE

JACKSON

LITTLE ROCK

TENNESSEE

L OUISIANA

MISSISSIPPI

ARKANSAS

Union Movement

Confederate Retreat

Battle

26 November 1862–11 January 1863

MISSISSIPPI OPERATIONS

0 75 

Miles

Map 2
23

Vicksburg. The Vicksburg garrison quickly manned its defenses. 

Sherman, recognizing that the heavy batteries at Vicksburg made 

an attack on the town itself impractical, directed his force to turn 

up the Yazoo River and debark at some plantation landings ten 

miles northwest of Vicksburg. 

On the morning of 26 December, twelve of Porter’s gunboats 

led the convoy into the Yazoo, clearing “torpedoes” (mines) and 

proceeding upstream to bombard Snyder’s Bluff as a diversion. 

Meanwhile, the transports carrying Sherman’s four divisions 

began nosing into the riverbank near the point where Chickasaw 

Bayou flows into the Yazoo. As the troops disembarked, Sherman 

paid the price for the haste with which he had loaded his force at 

Memphis. Confusion reigned, with “companies seeking their regiments, officers seeking their companies; men hunting for missing 

horses; wagoners seeking their teams, and everybody looking for 

something which could not be found.” Moreover, Sherman had 

unknowingly landed his force on what was virtually an island, 

bounded on one side by the Yazoo and by lakes and bayous on the 

other three. Two miles of bottomland stood between the riverboats 

and the high, dry ground of the bluff line. It took two days for the 

Union force to sort itself out, reconnoiter usable approaches, and 

push aside the Confederate obstacles and skirmish lines that sprang 

up along the way. Finally, by nightfall on 28 December, Sherman’s 

four divisions, totaling 30,000 men, closed in on Chickasaw Bayou 

where it flowed sluggishly along the base of the bluffs.

The Confederates had not been idle. General Smith, 

commanding the Vicksburg garrison, had 6,500 troops on hand 

when news of Sherman’s approach first arrived. All but 1,000 of these 

marched out of Vicksburg and manned defenses along Chickasaw 

Bayou, under the tactical command of Brig. Gen. Stephen D. Lee. 

Pemberton—no longer threatened by Grant—rushed reinforcements by rail from the Yalobusha line to Vicksburg. Pemberton 

himself arrived on 26 December, the day Sherman’s force landed. 

By the time Sherman’s troops were in position to cross the bayou 

and assault the bluffs, Pemberton had 15,000 men waiting to meet 

them.

Sherman planned a three-pronged assault for 29 December. 

The division under Brig. Gen. George W. Morgan was to make 

the main effort with three brigades, crossing Chickasaw Bayou on 

an existing causeway bridge and on a pontoon bridge to be laid 

the night before. Supporting Morgan on the left was Brig. Gen. 
24 

Frank P. Blair’s brigade of Brig. Gen. Frederick Steele’s division. 

On Morgan’s right the divisions of Brig. Gens. Morgan L. Smith 

and Andrew J. Smith were to ford the bayou and fix the enemy in 

their front. The infantry would have to attack with limited artillery 

support because of the restricted fields of fire on the floodplain. 

The massive guns on Porter’s gunboats, two miles to the rear, were 

of no use whatsoever.

The attack began to unravel even before it got underway. 

Troops assigned to emplace the pontoon bridge for General 

Morgan’s division discovered that some of the components had 

been left behind in Memphis, and then in the darkness they 

proceeded to place the bridge on the wrong body of water. By the 

time their error was discovered, dawn broke and Confederate fire 

prevented the emplacement of the bridge on Chickasaw Bayou. 

The loss of this bridge reduced Morgan’s assault force from three 

brigades to one.

Nonetheless, General Morgan ordered the attack. A single 

brigade, under the command of Col. John F. DeCourcey, crossed 

Chickasaw Bayou on the causeway bridge and pushed onto the 

upward-sloping ground beyond. Lee’s brigade of Confederates 

stopped DeCourcey with fire from the front and both flanks. Blair’s 

brigade, which assaulted to the left of DeCourcey, met a similar fate. 

“All formations were broken; the assaulting forces were jammed 

together,” Morgan reported. To Morgan’s right, Brig. Gen. John M. 

Thayer’s brigade of Steele’s division attempted to force a crossing of 

the bayou, but in the confusion only one regiment actually made 

it into the fight. When Thayer saw DeCourcey and Blair retreating 

across the causeway bridge, he recognized that “it was nothing but 

slaughter to remain,” and he too withdrew.

The fixing attack on the right side of the Union line fared no 

better. Just one brigade from General Morgan Smith’s division 

managed to engage the enemy in force. A few elements crossed 

Chickasaw Bayou only to be pinned down on the far bank by fire 

from Brig. Gen. Seth Barton’s Confederate brigade. The survivors 

huddled behind the protection of the bayou’s bank until nightfall, 

when they withdrew.

Although Sherman’s force outnumbered the Confederates 

by two to one, the assault of 29 December never had much of a 

chance to succeed. Due in part to the nature of the terrain and in 

part to confusion in the Union ranks, only four of Sherman’s ten 
25

brigades were fully engaged. This fraction could not prevail against 

a stout Confederate defense.

Sherman did not immediately abandon the expedition. In 

conjunction with Porter, he laid plans for a surprise assault against 

Snyder’s Bluff to be launched in the early morning hours of 31 

December. Heavy fog forced the cancellation of this enterprise. 

Only then did Sherman acknowledge defeat and order a withdrawal from the Yazoo.

The battle at Chickasaw Bayou was a costly one for Union 

forces. Casualties totaled 208 killed, 1,005 wounded, and 563 

missing. The Confederates reported 57 killed, 120 wounded, 

and 10 missing. But even if Sherman had succeeded in crossing 

Chickasaw Bayou and storming the bluffs beyond, he would have 

been in a precarious position. Grant, with the main force, was no 

longer advancing for a linkup. Pemberton could have turned his 

full weight to eradicating whatever lodgment Sherman might have 

been able to establish.

An irate McClernand met Sherman’s convoy when it sailed 

down the Yazoo and out into the Mississippi. McClernand had 

returned from Illinois to Memphis only to discover that the troops 

he had raised for his own expedition had been diverted by Grant 

and Sherman. By virtue of seniority of rank and the president’s 

authorization for an independent river campaign, McClernand 

assumed command of Sherman’s expeditionary force, which he 

renamed the Army of the Mississippi and organized into two 

corps, commanded by Sherman and Morgan.

The Army of the Mississippi’s first and only operation was 

not on the Mississippi at all. It took place on the Arkansas River, 

well upstream from Vicksburg. On 5 January 1863, McClernand 

led his army on sixty transports upstream toward a Confederate 

fort twenty-five miles up the Arkansas. This position, called 

Arkansas Post, was a strongly fortified camp with three heavy 

guns overlooking the river. It also served as a base of operations for Confederate raiders harassing Union transports on the 

Mississippi. The Confederate garrison numbered 4,900 when 

McClernand’s force arrived on 9 January. Porter’s gunboats shelled 

the post that day and the next, silencing the three guns. Meanwhile, 

McClernand’s troops landed three miles downstream from the 

fort and began working their way toward the enemy stronghold. 

On 11 January, McClernand launched a ground assault against 

the battered fort. Hard fighting ensued, but as the Union troops 
26 

reached the main parapet white flags appeared spontaneously 

along the Confederate defenses. Confronted by the collapse of 

part of his line, the Confederate commander, Brig. Gen. Thomas 

J. Churchill, surrendered the fort and 4,791 troops. Another sixty 

Confederates died in the fighting, with an additional seventy-three 

wounded and eighty missing. McClernand’s forces lost 134 killed, 

898 wounded, and 29 missing. On Porter’s ironclads, six sailors 

died and twenty-five were wounded.

Relishing his first victory in independent command, 

McClernand intended to continue up the Arkansas River to Little 

Rock and beyond. When informed of these plans, Grant vetoed 

them and directed McClernand to return to the Mississippi. 

McClernand disputed Grant’s authority, asserting that the Army 

of the Mississippi was independent of Grant’s department. When 

McClernand appealed to Washington, Halleck backed Grant 

and instructed Grant either to relieve McClernand or to take 

command of the riverine force himself. Grant opted for the latter. 

“Two commanders on the same field are always one too many,” 

he observed. On 30 January 1863, Grant’s headquarters issued 

a General Order announcing that Grant assumed command of 

the river borne army and that Grant’s headquarters would be 

“with the expedition.” He brought with him much of the force 

from western Tennessee. The Army of the Mississippi was 

absorbed into Grant’s Army of the Tennessee. Grant organized 

his enlarged command into three corps—the XIII Corps under 

McClernand, the XV Corps under Sherman, and the XVII Corps 

under his young protégé, McPherson. (Another corps, the XVI, 

remained in Tennessee.) Grant assembled his command at two 

bases, Milliken’s Bend and Young’s Point, on the west bank of the 

Mississippi a few miles upstream from Vicksburg. Thus, almost 

by accident, the main effort in the contest for Vicksburg shifted 

to the Mississippi River.

The Bayou Expeditions

Grant’s immediate problem was to get his army out of the 

malarial floodplain and up onto the bluffs on the east side of the 

river. A direct assault on Vicksburg itself was not feasible given 

the vulnerability of steam-powered riverboats to artillery fire. The 

Vicksburg batteries blocked the Mississippi downstream, and the 

guns on Snyder’s Bluff prevented any movement by boat upstream 

on the Yazoo. Accordingly, Grant sought some means to bypass 
27

one or the other of those fortified places, allowing his army to 

reach the bluffs either north or south of Vicksburg.

The weather quickly compounded Grant’s difficulties. 

Heavy rains began to fall, and by 20 January the back swamps 

covering much of the floodplain were full of water. Then the 

Mississippi began to rise, breaching levees and flooding much 

of the remaining dry ground. The flooding continued for nearly 

three months. A representative of the Sanitary Commission 

described the scene: “The lower Mississippi was on a rampage, 

and was all over its banks. It was shoreless in some places, and 

stretched its dull, turbid waste of waters as far as the eye could 

reach. . . .” Dry ground was at a premium, with scarcely enough 

room for Grant’s men to pitch their camps. At Young’s Point, the 

only ground available was the levee along the river. Disease broke 

out in the sodden camps and mortality rose. According to the 

Sanitary Commission agent: “For miles, the inside of the levee 

was sown with graves. . . . In most cases the poor fellows had 

been wrapped in their blankets and buried without coffins. . . . In 

places the levee was broken or washed out by the waters, and the 

decaying dead were partially disinterred.” 

As if oblivious to the suffering of his men, Grant proceeded 

with his efforts to outflank Vicksburg. Since maneuver by marching 

was clearly out of the question, Grant sought ways to maneuver 

by boat. Between late January and early April, Grant initiated five 

different projects designed to get around Vicksburg. Some of these 

expeditions ran concurrently, and although none succeeded, they 

certainly illustrate Grant’s tenacity of purpose (Map 3). 

The first of these projects was a renewed attempt to cut a 

canal across the peninsula opposite Vicksburg, which would have 

allowed transports to bypass the batteries and land below the 

town. Labor details from Sherman’s XV Corps began digging a 

canal sixty feet wide, six feet deep, and over a mile long, with the 

hopes that when water was allowed into the ditch the river itself 

would scour out a permanent navigable channel. Work continued 

throughout February, with runaway slaves and two steam dredges 

augmenting Sherman’s men. Then on 7 March, the river broke 

through the dam at the upper end of the ditch driving out the work 

details. A Confederate artillery battery, sited below Vicksburg to 

fire along the length of the canal, eventually put an end to all work.

Meanwhile, McPherson’s XVII Corps began another project 

far upstream at Lake Providence, Louisiana. The plan here was to 
1

2

2

2

3

3

4

4

5

Mississippi R

Mississippi R

Pearl R

Arkansas R

Red R

Yazoo R

Big Black R

Tallahatchie R

Lake Providence

Arkansas Post

Fort Pemberton

Southern Mississippi RR

Mississippi Central RR

Milliken’s Bend

Synder’s Blu

Young’s Point

Grenada

Greenwood

Greenville

Helena

Monroe

Grand Gulf

Raymond

Port Gibson

Rodney

New Carthage

Vicksburg

Natchez

JACKSON L OUISIANA

MISSISSIPPI

ARKANSAS

Sherman’s Canal

Lake Providence Route

Yazoo Pass Route

Steele’s Bayou Route

Duckport Canal

Proposed Route

Navigated Route

January–April 1863

BAYOU EXPEDITIONS

0 50 

Miles

1

2

3

4

5

Map 3
29

breach the levee separating Lake Providence from the Mississippi, 

allowing the Mississippi’s waters to flood a network of swamps, 

bayous, and rivers leading ultimately to the Red River, which 

emptied into the Mississippi far below Vicksburg. Work began on 

3 February, and the Mississippi duly flooded the backcountry, but 

McPherson’s men found the task of cutting a passage through the 

cypress swamps to be insurmountable. They labored on through 

February and March before the project was abandoned.

On the same day that work began at Lake Providence, engineers cut the levee at Yazoo Pass even farther upstream. The intent 

was to admit the waters of the Mississippi into the tributaries of 

the Yazoo, creating a navigable passage that would allow troops 

to land above the batteries at Snyder’s Bluff. In this case, the engineering concept was sound and a feasible route created, only to 

be frustrated by Confederate countermeasures. A Union flotilla 

of ironclads, gunboats, and transports successfully navigated the 

breach and threaded its way through 200 miles of narrow waterways to the vicinity of Greenwood, Mississippi. There it encountered a fortified Confederate position, Fort Pemberton, manned 

by troops under General Loring. On 11 March, Union ironclads 

engaged the Confederate position but could not silence the heavy 

guns emplaced there. For the next three weeks the Union gunboats 

and troops drawn from Arkansas and from McPherson’s corps 

tried in vain to silence or capture Loring’s position. On 5 April, the 

expedition gave up and steamed back north.

The fourth experiment was actually Admiral Porter’s idea. On 

14 March, supported by troops from Sherman’s XV Corps, Porter 

took five gunboats into the Yazoo and then up Steele’s Bayou with 

the expectation that he would find a navigable route through a 

tangle of swamps and bayous that would actually take him back out 

to the Yazoo above Snyder’s Bluff. The torturous route might just 

have been feasible until Confederate patrols dropped trees into the 

channel ahead. When the Confederates began to drop trees behind 

him, Porter gave up and backed his way out of the trap.

These failures did have one positive effect—they lulled 

the Confederates into a false sense of security. Pemberton was 

undoubtedly well aware that Northern newspapers, appalled at 

the disease and suffering in the Union camps and by the string 

of failed expeditions, were clamoring for Grant’s removal. He 

became inured to news of Union troops probing here and there 

in the Mississippi floodplain. Such threats took a long time to 
30

unfold, so there was no need for Pemberton to make rapid decisions. Moreover, other than sending troops to assist Loring in 

defeating the Yazoo Pass expedition, Pemberton had to do very 

little to thwart Grant’s plans. There was no need for Pemberton to 

show any initiative—Grant was apparently wrecking the Army of 

the Tennessee all on his own.

Grant had one last bayou expedition up his sleeve. By 

digging a three-mile canal between the Mississippi and Big Bayou 

at Duckport, Louisiana, he hoped to open a navigable route to 

New Carthage, bypassing the guns at Vicksburg. Troops from 

McClernand’s and Sherman’s corps began work on 31 March, 

and on 13 April the waters of the Mississippi were admitted into 

the canal. The first vessels were using the new route when, on 18 

April, the Mississippi receded rapidly. The Duckport canal dried 

out within a week. The failure of this particular project was of 

little consequence, however, for the Duckport canal was in reality 

just one nonessential component of a larger, more daring enterprise—the movement by land of Grant’s entire main body down 

the Louisiana side of the Mississippi River.

Outflanking Vicksburg

On 31 March, the same day that work began on the ill-fated 

Duckport canal, the lead elements of McClernand’s XIII Corps left 

their camps at Milliken’s Bend and headed south. McClernand’s 

orders were to open the road to New Carthage on the west bank 

of the Mississippi. As they marched, the troops “corduroyed” the 

muddy roads by laying timber across impassable sections, and 

bridged innumerable low spots still covered by water. Their route 

was a circuitous one, following the banks of Roundaway Bayou 

as it looped its course well west of the Mississippi. McClernand 

reached New Carthage with his advance party on 6 April, the four 

divisions of the XIII Corps following one by one. As McClernand’s 

troops cleared the camps at Milliken’s Bend, McPherson’s XVII 

Corps took their place, ready to march south in turn. Sherman’s 

XV Corps remained behind, guarding the base of operations north 

of Vicksburg. (See Map 4.) 

Here Grant used his three corps commanders to the best 

advantage. The battle-hardened political general, McClernand, 

had many faults but timidity was not one of them. Grant could 

count on him to press the march along. Grant himself, characteristically, accompanied the lead corps where he could keep an eye 
on the wily politician in uniform. McPherson, the young, bright, 

but inexperienced protégé, occupied the middle of the line of 

march where there were unlikely to be any unpleasant surprises. 

Sherman, Grant’s most trusted subordinate, commanded the rear 

guard in what amounted to an independent mission.

With his army slowly gathering on the west bank of the 

Mississippi below Vicksburg, Grant needed transports to cross the 

river and gunboats to protect the crossing operations. On the night 

of 16–17 April, Admiral Porter made good those requirements. 

About 2115 that evening, a force of seven ironclads, one ram, three 

transports, and one tug left its anchorage near the mouth of the 

Yazoo and headed downstream with eighteen barges lashed to the 

sides of the vessels. The barges carried coal for the ironclads and 

supplies for Grant’s army in addition to protecting the hulls of the 

boats they were attached to. A nineteenth barge, carrying ammunition, was cut loose to drift downriver unattended when none of the 

boats’ captains would consent to tow it. At 2310, Porter’s flagship, 

the ironclad Benton, silently rounded the bend above Vicksburg 

and drifted down on the town followed by five more ironclads 

and then the transports. The seventh ironclad brought up the rear. 

Confederate sentinels on the shore opened fire with their muskets, 

alerting the artillerymen of the river batteries. Bonfires were lit 

31

Admiral Porter’s fleet running the rebel blockade of the Mississippi at Vicksburg, 

16 April 1863 (Library of Congress)
Map 4

SHERMAN

M

SHERMAN

McCLERNAND

SHERMAN

GRANT

M cPHERSON

GRANT

McCLERNAND

S

PEM BE R TON

29 Apr

1 May

17 May

Mississippi R

Roundaway Bayou

Yazoo R

Big Black R

Bayou Pierre

Willow Cr

Chickasaw

Bayou

Haynes’ Blu

Synder’s Blu

Young’s Point

Milliken’s Bend

Hankinson’s Ferry

to Rodney

Grand Gulf

Hard Times

Bruinsburg

Port Gibson

New Carthage

Warrenton

DeSoto

Duckport

VICKSBURG

L OUISIANA

MISSI
McPHERSON

McPHERSON

McPHERSON

McCLERNAND

SHERMAN

SHERMAN

McCLERNAND

SHERMAN

LORING

GREGG

JOHNSTON

PEMBERTON

14 May

12 May

16 May

Big Black R

Fourteen Mile Creek

Pearl R

Pearl R

Champion

Hill

Crystal Springs

Utica

Burtonton

Raymond

Clinton

Edward’s Depot

JACKSON

ISSIPPI

Union Movement

Confederate Retreat

Battle

31 March–18 May 1863

OUTFLANKING VICKSBURG

0 10 

Miles
34 

and six minutes later the first cannon opened fire on the Union 

flotilla. Guns on the ironclads thundered back at the shore batteries. 

For the next two hours cannon flashed and shells filled the air as 

Porter’s flotilla ran the two-mile gauntlet of batteries. An observer 

in Vicksburg reported, “It was the grandest spectacle of my life . . . 

our batteries were in full play, blazing away at the line of gunboats 

making their way past them and giving shot for shot. . . . The whole 

landscape was as light as day. . . .” An observer on Grant’s headquarters boat, anchored on the far side of the DeSoto peninsula, recalled: 

“Shells were flying in every direction. With their burning fuses they 

made their circles, dropping down out of the sky like stars of the first 

magnitude, now and then . . . bursting in mid-heaven with a million 

scintillations of light.”

Some of the Union pilots lost their bearings in the smoke 

and confusion of battle. Vessels spun end-for-end in the treacherous eddies, and there were collisions among the boats. The 

formation fell apart as vessels groped their way individually 

downstream. One transport lost power when a shell severed its 

steam line, and was taken under tow by an ironclad. A second 

transport, disabled and set on fire by shells, was abandoned. It 

burned to the waterline. Surprisingly, this transport and one coal 

barge were the only vessels lost. Personnel losses came to only 

twelve wounded, with no fatalities. At 0200, the flotilla cleared 

Vicksburg and the guns fell silent. Porter was below Vicksburg 

in force.

On 22 April, six unarmed transports, manned largely by 

Union volunteers, attempted to repeat Porter’s feat. The Confederate 

gunners, untouched by return fire, did somewhat better on this 

occasion. They sank one of the transports and six of twelve barges. 

Nonetheless, Grant now had the naval force he needed, both 

gunboats and transports, to cross the river.

Few on the Confederate side realized that the strategic 

situation had changed dramatically with the running of the 

Vicksburg batteries. Pemberton reported to the Confederate 

War Department only that he was now cut off from the TransMississippi Department. He did not appreciate the fact that Grant 

was in a position to cross the river and outflank Vicksburg. Back 

in Virginia, the Union Army of the Potomac was preparing for 

another offensive against Richmond; therefore nobody in the 

Confederate capital paid much attention to events on the fardistant Mississippi River.
35

Within his own department, other Union activity drew 

Pemberton’s attention away from the Mississippi River and Grant’s 

march down the far bank. On 2 April, Steele’s division of Sherman’s 

XV Corps landed at Greenville, Mississippi, well north of Vicksburg, 

and for the next three weeks raided and devastated the rich Yazoo 

Delta, with little opposition from the Confederates. And on 17 

April, Col. Benjamin H. Grierson rode south from La Grange, 

Tennessee, at the head of 1,700 cavalrymen on a daring raid that 

carried them through the length of eastern Mississippi. Cutting telegraph wires, tearing up railroad track, and confiscating livestock, 

Grierson’s raiders spread panic and confusion throughout the state. 

Eluding the cavalry and infantry forces Pemberton sent to trap him, 

Grierson rode into Union lines at Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on 2 May.

Back at his headquarters in Jackson, Pemberton was clearly 

off-balance. He reported to Richmond that the “enemy is constantly 

in motion in all directions.” Regarding the Union movement on 

the far side of the Mississippi, he wrote: “Also reported, but not yet 

confirmed, movement under McClernand, in large force, by land 

west of river and southward. Much doubt it.” Moreover, by sending 

off his cavalry in its futile pursuit of Grierson, Pemberton deprived 

himself of his most important means of reconnaissance. At the 

very time that Grant was deciding where to make his crossing of 

the Mississippi, Pemberton was operating in the dark.

In choosing a landing place 

on the east bank, Grant naturally preferred a spot where the 

Mississippi flowed along the base 

of the bluffs lining the eastern 

edge of the floodplain. The next 

such spot below Vicksburg was 

Grand Gulf, some thirty miles 

distant by road. However, Grand 

Gulf was defended by two fortified 

batteries, containing eight heavy 

artillery pieces. Manning the post 

was the division under General 

Bowen, perhaps the most capable 

of Pemberton’s subordinates. 

Grant and Porter reconnoitered 

the position by boat and decided 

that the batteries could indeed be 

Colonel Grierson

(Library of Congress)
36 

silenced and a landing carried out. Meanwhile, McClernand moved 

his corps southward to a staging base at Hard Times, Louisiana, just 

upstream from Grand Gulf. McPherson moved south to the same 

point with two of his divisions. Finally, on 29 April, the date scheduled for the crossing attempt, Sherman staged yet another diversion 

at Snyder’s Bluff just to keep the Confederates guessing.

At 0730 on 29 April, Porter’s seven ironclads pulled away from 

Hard Times, followed by six transports carrying 10,000 men from 

McClernand’s corps. The ironclads ran downstream past the Grand 

Gulf batteries, firing volleys as they went, and then came about, 

bows in the current for better control, to silence the Confederate 

guns. There then ensued a brutal, close-range artillery duel lasting 

five hours. The ironclads pounded the fortified works with 2,500 

rounds, silencing some, but not all, of the Confederate guns. The 

Confederates, who suffered only three killed and nineteen wounded, 

gave better than they got, scoring over 200 hits on the ironclads, 

killing eighteen and wounding fifty-seven. Among the wounded 

was Admiral Porter. Clearly, the unarmored transports carrying 

troops had no chance of making a landing. At 1300, Porter called 

off the bombardment and the boats returned to Hard Times. Porter 

displayed some irritation toward the Army in the congratulatory 

order he issued subsequently to his men: “Those who have shared 

in the engagement of the 29th of April may always speak of it with 

honest pride. It is not our fault that the enemy’s guns and munitions 

of war are not in our hands. Ours is the duty to silence batteries; it 

cannot be expected that we shall land and take possession.”

Undeterred by this setback, Grant and Porter looked for 

another option. Learning that evening of a plantation landing at 

Bruinsburg, ten miles below Grand Gulf, Grant marched his men 

past Grand Gulf on the Louisiana side of the river while, under 

cover of darkness, Porter ran the ironclads and transports past the 

damaged Confederate batteries without further loss.

General Bowen telegraphed news of the Grand Gulf engagement to department headquarters at Jackson while the bombardment was still in progress. At last, Pemberton began to perceive 

the significance of recent events. In response to Bowen’s pleas for 

reinforcement, Pemberton called back the troops engaged in the 

futile pursuit of Grierson. Additionally, he ordered two brigades 

to march from Vicksburg toward Grand Gulf. Pemberton had 

three Confederate divisions in and around Vicksburg. Given 

the magnitude of the threat, he would have been well-advised to 
37

leave a few brigades in Vicksburg and rush the three divisions to 

Bowen’s support. Pemberton’s response was both too little and 

too late.

On the morning of 30 April, Union transports and gunboats 

nosed into the plantation landing at Bruinsburg and the troops 

of McClernand’s XIII Corps began going ashore. There was no 

opposition at the riverbank, but the tactical risks were nonetheless 

great. As at Chickasaw Bayou the preceding December, the landing 

took place on the floodplain. A mile of low ground stood between 

McClernand’s troops and the bluffs. Moreover, his initial force 

of 17,000 men was significantly smaller than the army Sherman 

brought ashore at Chickasaw Bayou. If the Confederates reached 

the bluffs before McClernand did, this operation could fail too. But 

the Confederates offered no resistance at Bruinsburg. By evening, 

McClernand was up on the bluffs pushing inland while the boats 

began bringing in the two divisions of McPherson’s XVII Corps. 

Perhaps the Confederates can be excused for not having defenses 

in place at Bruinsburg—not even Grant knew he was going there 

until the evening before the troops went ashore.

In one of the most eloquent passages of his memoirs, Grant 

describes his sentiments upon achieving the landing at Bruinsburg:

I felt a degree of relief scarcely ever equalled since. Vicksburg 

was not yet taken it is true, nor were its defenders demoralized 

by any of our previous moves. I was now in the enemy’s country, 

with a vast river and the stronghold of Vicksburg between me 

and my base of supplies. But I was on dry ground on the same 

side of the river with the enemy. All of the campaigns, labors, 

hardships and exposures from the month of December previous 

to this time that had been made and endured, were for the 

accomplishment of this one object.

General Bowen, the Confederate commander at Grand Gulf, 

possessed the only force in a position to contest Grant’s movement 

inland. Not knowing exactly where Grant would land, he posted a 

brigade on each of two roads running from the Bruinsburg area to 

Port Gibson. A third brigade camped north of Port Gibson while a 

fourth remained in reserve at Grand Gulf. At least Bowen enjoyed 

the advantage of defensible terrain. The ground south and west of 

Port Gibson was a jumbled mass of ridges and steep ravines. In 

Grant’s words, “the country in this part of Mississippi stands on 
38 

edge, as it were.” The ridgetops were cleared and under cultivation, 

but the ravines were choked by cane and vines. Troops could move 

and deploy on the ridgetops, but movement through the ravines 

was very difficult.

Having reached the top of the bluffs at Bruinsburg on the 

evening of 30 April, the aggressive McClernand kept his troops 

moving inland after night fell. The landing would not be secure 

until the Union forces got clear of the tangled terrain along the 

river and reached Port Gibson. A Union brigade commander 

observed, “The road over which we marched passed through a 

country much broken by gorges and ravines, and thickly covered 

with tall timber, underbrush, and cane, so peculiar to the Southern 

country.”

Shortly after midnight, McClernand’s advance elements on 

the Rodney–Port Gibson road encountered Brig. Gen. Martin E. 

Green’s brigade while still a few miles short of Port Gibson. When 

daylight came, McClernand brought two of his divisions into line 

(Brig. Gen. Eugene A. Carr and General Hovey, commanding) 

with a third (General Andrew Smith) in reserve. He sent his fourth 

division, commanded by Brig. Gen. Peter J. Osterhaus, along 

a farm road leading off to the left toward the Bruinsburg Road, 

where Brig. Gen. Edward D. Tracy’s brigade, recently arrived from 

Vicksburg, awaited them.

On the Rodney Road, there was scarcely room for three divisions to deploy along the narrow ridgetops. Attempts to outflank 

Green’s brigade by working through the vegetation-choked 

ravines proved difficult, so McClernand finally resorted to an 

artless but powerful frontal attack. Green’s heavily outnumbered 

men resisted stoutly, even launching a counterattack against 

the blue hordes, but in the end were driven from their position. 

Bowen pulled them out of the fight and sent them to the rear to 

reorganize, for Green had bought time for two more Confederate 

brigades to take position on the Rodney Road. One of these was 

Brig. Gen. William E. Baldwin’s brigade that had marched in 

from Vicksburg, and the other was Col. Francis M. Cockrell’s 

brigade from Grand Gulf. Rather than placing these troops on 

a ridgetop where they could be swept by Union artillery fire and 

where they would be silhouetted against the sky to Union troops 

advancing out of the ravines, Bowen placed Baldwin astride 

the Rodney Road in the low ground along Willow Creek, with 

Cockrell on his left flank.
39

As he closed in on the new Confederate line, McClernand also 

received reinforcements from McPherson’s corps. After holding 

off an audacious counterattack by Cockrell’s brigade against his 

right flank, McClernand again opted for steamroller tactics. 

Eventually he massed twenty-one regiments against Baldwin’s 

center. According to one Confederate, “the noise was so incessant 

that no orders could be heard; and the bullets flew so thick that 

hardly a leaf or twig was left on the bare poles of what had been a 

diminutive forest when we entered it.” Finally, both Cockrell and 

Baldwin gave way.

Meanwhile, Osterhaus’ division had problems of its own 

on the Bruinsburg Road off to the Union left. Disordered by the 

jumbled terrain and by Confederate skirmishers, it took hours 

for Osterhaus to even reach the Confederate line. His first assault 

failed, though a Union bullet killed General Tracy, leaving the 

Confederate force under the command of Col. Isham W. Garrott. 

Having given Green’s battered brigade time to reorganize after 

the morning’s fight on the Rodney Road, Bowen sent it to the 

Bruinsburg Road, reinforcing Garrott. After a pause in the fight, 

Osterhaus renewed his attack. This time he succeeded in turning 

the Confederate right flank, forcing Garrott and Green to fall back. 

With his troops in retreat on both the Bruinsburg and Rodney 

roads, Bowen recognized that he could do no more to slow Grant’s 

advance. Accordingly, at 1730, he ordered all of his troops to break 

contact and withdraw. 

The battle of Port Gibson cost the Union 131 killed, 719 

wounded, and 25 missing. Confederate losses were 60 killed, 340 

wounded, and 387 missing, but given the smaller size of his force 

(8,000, versus 18,000 Union troops engaged), Bowen’s casualties 

were proportionately heavier than McClernand’s. Grant’s young 

son Fred, accompanying his father on the campaign, visited 

the battlefield that evening: “I joined a detachment which was 

collecting the dead for burial. Sickening at the sights, I made my 

way with another detachment, which was gathering the wounded, 

to a log house which had been appropriated for a hospital. Here 

the scenes were so terrible that I became faint, and making my 

way to a tree, sat down, the most woebegone twelve-year-old lad 

in America.”

Essentially, Bowen’s sacrifice bought Pemberton a day 

with which to formulate a response to Grant’s crossing of the 

Mississippi. Informed by telegraph of the battle, Pemberton 
40 

finally recognized the magnitude of his peril. In an anguished 

message dispatched to the Confederate president in Richmond, 

Pemberton observed: “Enemy can cross all his army from Hard 

Times to Bruinsburg, below Bayou Pierre. Large reinforcements 

should be sent from other departments. Enemy’s movement 

threatens Jackson, and, if successful, cuts off Vicksburg and 

Port Hudson from the east. Am hurrying all reinforcements I 

possibly can to Bowen. Enemy’s success in passing our batteries 

has completely changed character of defense.” In actuality, 

Pemberton did little more than order Loring’s division, which had 

been chasing Grierson, from Jackson toward Port Gibson. The 

three divisions in and around Vicksburg stayed there. Pemberton 

himself moved his headquarters out of Jackson—not toward the 

enemy to take personal control of the fight, but to Vicksburg. 

Bowen’s brave stand at Port Gibson accomplished little.

Grant, on the other hand, was quick to take advantage of the 

opportunities that the battle afforded him. The next day, 2 May, 

McPherson’s corps occupied Port Gibson, a few miles beyond 

the battlefield. Finding the bridge across Little Bayou Pierre 

in ruins, Union engineers and labor details created a floating 

raft bridge 166 feet long and 12 feet wide, using material pulled 

from nearby buildings, and had it open to traffic by the end 

of the day. On 3 May McPherson drove toward the Big Black 

River, forcing the Confederates to evacuate Grand Gulf and, by 

the end of the day, capturing an intact bridge over the Big Black 

at Hankinson’s Ferry. 

Campaign of Maneuver

With Grand Gulf in Union hands and with the Confederates 

pushed north of the Big Black River, Grant’s lodgment in 

Mississippi was relatively secure. The roads radiating out of Port 

Gibson afforded him considerable freedom of action. From 3 to 9 

May, Grant paused in the area between the Big Black River and Big 

Bayou Pierre and prepared for future operations. The first order 

of business was to bring up Sherman and the XV Corps, which 

was still guarding the bases at Milliken’s Bend and Young’s Point. 

Sherman started south on 2 May, leaving behind one division of 

his own corps and one of McPherson’s corps to protect the line 

of supply in Louisiana, augmented by several newly organizing 

black regiments. Sherman’s corps landed at Grand Gulf on 7 May 

and advanced to join the main body. 
41

The problem of logistics also required attention. In order to 

maximize combat power for the landing at Bruinsburg, Grant’s 

army had left behind most of its wagons, draft animals, and provisions. The pause from 3 to 9 May enabled Grant’s logisticians to 

get wagons, baggage, and badly needed supplies to the army by 

way of Grand Gulf. Nevertheless, the logistical situation remained 

worrisome. Supplies for Grant’s army had to come from Memphis, 

down the Mississippi by riverboat to Milliken’s Bend, then by 

wagon overland to a point below Vicksburg (bypassing the stilldangerous Vicksburg river batteries), by riverboat again to Grand 

Gulf, and finally by wagon to Grant’s army. Once he moved away 

from Grand Gulf, Grant would have to rely on local requisition 

and heavily escorted wagon trains to provision his force, for he 

lacked the troops to occupy a regular line of communications. 

As he told Sherman, “I do not calculate upon the possibility of 

supplying the army with full rations from Grand Gulf. I know it 

will be impossible without constructing additional roads. What I 

do expect is to get up what rations of hard bread, coffee and salt we 

can, and make the country furnish the balance.”

Most importantly, Grant used the pause to weigh his options 

and determine his future course of action. The campaign could 

have gone in any one of several different directions at this point. 

Grant’s first plan—and the one that his superiors in Washington 

expected him to execute—was to detach a portion of his army 

to march south where it would combine forces with Maj. Gen. 

Nathaniel P. Banks in the reduction of Port Hudson. Then 

Banks would send forces north to support Grant in an assault on 

Vicksburg. Grant abandoned this plan when he determined that 

such a scheme would require the Army of the Tennessee to mark 

time for a month or more. Never one to yield the initiative to the 

enemy, Grant determined to take action on his own.

There remained two other viable options. First, Grant could 

move his army across the Big Black River on the bridge captured by 

McPherson and drive directly for Vicksburg. This option had the 

advantage of simplicity, and of keeping the Union army close to 

the Mississippi where it could readily be resupplied. However, the 

terrain along this direct route to Vicksburg resembled the rough, 

jumbled ground on which the battle of Port Gibson had taken 

place, affording innumerable opportunities for defenders to harass 

and delay the Union advance. Moreover, Pemberton had stationed 

two divisions on this route, about midway between Grand Gulf 
42 

and Vicksburg, so any advance along this direct road would entail 

a frontal assault on an enemy in prepared positions.

A second option, and the one Grant chose, was to drive 

northeast toward Edwards using the Big Black River to protect his 

left flank. Capturing Edwards would cut the Southern Railroad 

running between Vicksburg and Jackson, thus isolating Vicksburg 

for a Union assault.

On 10 May, with Sherman’s corps just arrived by way of 

Grand Gulf, Grant launched his army on a quick lunge into the 

heart of Mississippi. McClernand’s XIII Corps, with four divisions, 

constituted the main effort. With the Big Black River on his left, 

McClernand advanced toward Edwards. McPherson’s XVII Corps, 

two divisions strong, swung out to the right, heading for Raymond 

and acting as flank guard. Sherman’s XV Corps with its two divisions followed McClernand and then moved into the center of 

the Union advance as the interval between XIII Corps and XVII 

Corps widened. A soldier in McPherson’s corps recorded in his 

diary the panorama of the march: “I shall never forget the scene of 

today, while looking back upon a mile of solid columns, marching 

with their old tattered flags streaming in the summer breeze, and 

hearkening to the firm tramp of their broad brogans keeping step 

to the pealing fife and drum.” This was a veteran army that knew 

how to march and how to fight.

Grant had timed the advance so that all three corps would 

reach Fourteen Mile Creek on 12 May. Fourteen Mile Creek, a 

tributary of the Big Black, flows from east to west and lies south of 

Edwards and Raymond. By that time the army was operating on a 

front of nearly twenty miles, each corps within supporting distance 

of the others yet far enough apart to facilitate rapid marching and 

foraging. McClernand on the left reached the creek and pushed 

reconnaissance elements toward Edwards. Those patrols found 

the Confederates present in strength. Pemberton had discerned 

Grant’s intentions, and brought forward three of his five divisions 

to the vicinity of Edwards and the railroad bridge over the Big 

Black. On the following day Pemberton finally moved his headquarters out of Vicksburg and joined his troops in the field. At 

long last Pemberton, the department commander and administrator, had made the transition to field commander.

Sherman, in the center, also reached the creek and secured 

a bridgehead. On the right flank, however, McPherson stumbled 

into an unanticipated battle at Raymond. The Confederate 
43

responsible for McPherson’s unpleasant surprise was Brig. Gen. 

John Gregg, whose brigade of 3,000 men had only recently been 

moved up from Port Hudson to augment the forces confronting 

Grant. Gregg’s orders from Pemberton were to shield the state 

capital at Jackson and to fall on Grant’s flank and rear when 

the Union army closed in to attack Edwards. When informed 

by state militia troops that a Union column was approaching 

Raymond from the southwest, Gregg concluded that only 

a small screening force could be operating so far from the 

enemy main body at Edwards. (In actuality, McPherson’s corps 

outnumbered Gregg’s brigade nearly four to one.) Accordingly, 

he laid plans to ambush the oncoming Union force in the thick 

woods along Fourteen Mile Creek, and then destroy it with 

a series of attacks culminating with an envelopment of the 

enemy’s right flank. 

When the lead regiments of Maj. Gen. John A. Logan’s division 

approached Fourteen Mile Creek on the morning of 12 May, they 

were staggered by volleys of fire coming out of the creek bottom 

and then shoved back by Gregg’s attacking Confederates. Logan 

rallied his troops and fed more regiments piecemeal into the fight 

as they came up the dusty road. In the confused fighting, neither 

Logan nor Gregg exercised much control over the action once 

their troops were committed. “For two hours the contest raged 

furiously,” one of Logan’s soldiers later recalled. “The creek was 

running red with precious blood spilt for our country.” Eventually, 

Logan stabilized his line and the Union regiments began to push 

the Confederates back. Brig. Gen. Marcellus Crocker, commanding 

McPherson’s second division, committed most of his division to 

the fray as the Union troops drove the Confederates back toward 

Raymond. At 1600, Gregg succeeded in disengaging his brigade 

and withdrew unchallenged to Jackson.

Grant could not have been pleased with McPherson’s first 

battle as a corps commander. Not only had McPherson allowed 

his corps to be ambushed and bloodied by a single brigade, but 

the enemy brigade had escaped to fight another day. However, 

the unhappy affair at Raymond did provide Grant with an important insight—the presence of a Confederate brigade at Raymond 

indicated that there were almost certainly more forces assembling 

nearby in Jackson.

That evening, Grant recast his entire plan for the campaign. 

It was imperative that he insert his army between the Confederate 
44 

forces at Edwards and those at Jackson before they had a chance to 

combine. Then Grant could defeat them piecemeal. Jackson would 

be the first objective. Thus the battle of Raymond, which neither 

Grant nor Pemberton intended, reshaped the entire campaign.

On 13 May, Grant directed McPherson’s corps to march 

north from Raymond, cut the Southern Railroad, and turn east 

toward Jackson ready to assault the city the next day. Sherman’s 

corps passed behind McPherson and approached the city from 

the south. McClernand feigned an attack on Edwards, then deftly 

broke contact with the Confederates, marched swiftly to the east, 

and established a westward-facing defensive screen west of Jackson 

to protect the rear of the forces attacking the city.

Confederate forces were indeed converging on Jackson, 

just as Grant had surmised. These included forces from within 

Pemberton’s department, such as Gregg’s brigade drawn from Port 

Hudson, and troops from other departments sent in response to 

Pemberton’s appeal for reinforcement. By nightfall on 13 May, 

6,000 Confederate troops were in Jackson with more due to arrive 

by rail. Among the troops who reached Jackson on 13 May was 

one very important person, 

General Johnston, commander 

of the Department of the West 

and Pemberton’s immediate 

superior. Johnston traveled 

to Jackson from Tennessee 

under orders from Confederate 

President Davis to take direct 

command of military operations in Mississippi. Johnston 

stepped from his train, quickly 

surveyed the situation, and 

telegraphed Davis, “I am too 

late.” He then directed that 

all Confederate forces and 

moveable military supplies be 

evacuated from the threatened 

city. To Pemberton he sent a 

message ordering his subordinate to march east and link up 

with him, a directive that he 

repeated in subsequent days. 

General Johnston

(Library of Congress)
45

Meanwhile, Johnston himself retreated with the Jackson garrison 

toward the northeast, away from Pemberton. 

In retrospect, it is by no means clear that Johnston was in fact 

“too late.” Six thousand Confederate troops was certainly a small 

force to confront the 23,000 men that Sherman and McPherson 

could bring to bear. Had Johnston found some way to hold the 

railroads at Jackson for three days, his force might have doubled 

by the influx of reinforcements from other departments. As it was, 

Johnston took himself and his little army out of the campaign, 

which was exactly what Grant would have wished. Although 

Johnston remained in Mississippi, eventually returning to Jackson 

and acquiring even more troops, he played no further active role 

in the struggle for Vicksburg.

On the morning of 14 May, McPherson and Sherman each 

sent forward one division in a converging attack on Jackson. 

Advancing from the west, Crocker’s division of McPherson’s 

corps moved forward through a driving rainstorm and encountered a stout rear guard action, which continued until the last of 

Johnston’s wagon trains cleared the city. Then the Confederate rear 

guard broke contact and also retreated, abandoning Jackson. To 

the south, Sherman’s men slogged through the rain and mud to 

find only a tiny force of state militia confronting them. Brushing 

aside this resistance, Sherman too entered the city. By that evening, 

the Stars and Stripes were flying from the top of the statehouse 

in Jackson. One of McPherson’s soldiers who was not engaged at 

Jackson commented, “If my own regiment has not had a chance 

today to cover itself with glory, it has with mud.” Although glory 

may have been lacking that day, the capture of Jackson had exactly 

the effect that Grant intended—the Confederate forces there had 

withdrawn, and the reinforcements coming in by rail had reversed 

course. The Confederate convergence on Jackson had become a 

divergence.

Grant immediately turned his attention against Pemberton. 

On the evening of 14 May, a double agent informed Grant that 

Johnston, retreating northeastward from Jackson, had ordered 

Pemberton to leave the Vicksburg area and march his army east 

to link up with Johnston. Grant moved immediately to catch 

Pemberton in the open before he could join forces with Johnston. 

There were three roads by which to travel from Jackson toward 

Edwards, Pemberton’s point of departure. McClernand, acting as 

the rear guard while McPherson and Sherman captured the city of 
46 

Jackson, already had forces covering each of these routes. A tidy 

general would have consolidated McClernand’s corps on one of 

these roads and assigned McPherson and Sherman to the other two. 

Such redeployments would have cost at least a day, and Grant had 

no intention of giving the Confederates a day to get their bearings. 

Accordingly, on the morning of 15 May, he launched McClernand 

westward on all three routes, with McPherson’s corps following on 

the northern road, the one Pemberton would be most likely to take 

as he marched toward a rendezvous with Johnston. One division of 

Sherman’s corps, which had escorted the last wagon train to reach 

Grant’s army from Grand Gulf, fell in on the southern route under 

McClernand’s command. The rest of Sherman’s force remained in 

Jackson for a day to complete the destruction of the railroads and 

make sure that Johnston kept his distance.

The Union forces moved like clockwork. By that evening, 

Grant had 32,000 men poised to converge by three routes on 

Champion Hill just east of Edwards. Three Union divisions 

occupied the northern road, two stood on the middle road and two 

more on the southern road. None of the Union troops marched 

more than fifteen miles that day, and all got a full night’s rest.

The situation on the Confederate side differed dramatically. 

Pemberton, disoriented by the rapid pace of events since the 

Bruinsburg landings, could not decide what to do. His own inclination was to occupy defensive positions in the vicinity of Edwards 

and make Grant attack him on ground of the Confederates’ 

choosing. This plan held considerable merit. It was within his 

capabilities as a field commander to fight from prepared positions. 

Maneuvering in the open with a wily opponent such as Grant was 

an invitation to disaster. Moreover, Pemberton placed little trust 

in his army, which had never operated as a unit before. Much of 

it had spent the last several months in camp, not marching and 

fighting. Nor did Pemberton trust his chief subordinates, some of 

whom, most notably Loring, had begun to display open contempt 

for their cautious, northern-born commander. Finally, a defensive 

battle near Edwards accorded with the directive he had received 

from President Davis to hold Vicksburg.

However, Pemberton was now under orders from Johnston 

to execute an operation diametrically opposed to the one he 

preferred—abandon Vicksburg for the time being, join forces and 

crush Grant, then reoccupy Vicksburg at a later date. Pemberton 

called a council of war with his chief subordinates in an attempt to 
47

find his way out of this dilemma. Instead, the council of war came 

up with a third option—strike southeastward from Edwards with 

three divisions, totaling 25,000 men, to cut Grant’s line of supply 

while the Union army was busy at Jackson. This scheme reconciled 

neither with Johnston’s orders nor with the Confederate president’s directive; however, this was the one he adopted. Pemberton 

was later to assert that “the advance movement of the army from 

Edwards Depot on the afternoon of May 15 was made against my 

judgment, in opposition to my previously expressed intentions, and 

to the subversion of my matured plans.” The only merit inherent to 

this scheme was one of which Pemberton was unaware—had he in 

fact succeeded in executing the march to the southeast on 15 May, 

he might have eluded the trap that Grant had laid for him.

The Confederate army’s actual movements on 15 May also 

contrasted dramatically with those of the Union army on the same 

date. Whereas Grant’s army wheeled sharply, changing course by 

180 degrees and executing a smooth and rapid march, Pemberton’s 

three divisions stumbled and blundered. As the Confederates 

prepared to depart from Edwards that morning, they discovered 

that neither Pemberton nor his staff, nor any of his subordinates, 

had thought to issue supplies and rations to the troops. There 

ensued a delay of several hours while a train brought supplies 

out from Vicksburg. Once the march began, the lead elements 

discovered that Baker’s Creek, just outside of Edwards, was too 

deep to ford, owing to the rains of the day before. Nobody had 

bothered to reconnoiter the route of march. Pemberton ordered 

the army to move north to another road that carried the troops 

over Champion Hill. At nightfall, the lead division bedded down 

less than five miles in a straight line from the point of departure. 

The trailing division did not even leave Edwards until 1700 and 

finally dropped packs at 0300 on 16 May. Behind them, the supply 

wagons left Edwards at midnight and were still on the road when 

dawn broke the next morning.

The march left Pemberton’s army sprawled across the 

southern face of Champion Hill in the form of a giant letter “Z.” 

Inadvertently, Pemberton’s troops occupied two of the three roads 

in the path of Grant’s army. Loring’s division, in the lead, formed 

the base of the Z along the southernmost of the roads. Bowen’s 

division constituted the middle bar of the Z along a farm path 

linking the middle and southern roads. Stevenson’s division and 

the supply trains formed the top of the Z in the vicinity of the 
48 

middle road. The northern road was unoccupied and, indeed, 

unpatrolled. Pemberton had placed his army squarely within 

the jaws of the trap formed by Grant’s three-pronged advance. 

Skirmishing in the night informed Pemberton that enemy forces 

were indeed nearby.

The next morning, 16 May, Pemberton received a message 

from Johnston disapproving Pemberton’s plan to raid Grant’s line 

of communication and again ordering him to march northeastward to join forces. The message also informed Pemberton for the 

first time that Jackson had fallen and that Johnston had retreated 

to the northeast. This news stunned Pemberton. The Union force 

near Champion Hill, which Pemberton had assumed to be a Union 

rear guard, might well be Grant’s main body. Even as he pondered 

this news, Union troops drove in his pickets, indicating that a 

battle was at hand. Pemberton’s first reaction was to order his army 

to reverse course and withdraw toward Edwards. The wagon train 

was turned around and headed back when Pemberton’s subordinates persuaded him that it was too late to leave. Reluctantly, 

Pemberton ordered his army to form for battle. 

On the Union side, Grant was surprised to find Pemberton 

so far east of Edwards. The trap he had set was not perfect. The 

jaws were too far apart to coordinate effectively, and the chain of 

command was confused by the presence of divisions from various 

corps sharing the same roads. Rough terrain and the absence of a 

lateral road further hindered coordination. Grant himself was on 

the northern road, where he placed McPherson in charge of the 

tactical battle despite the fact that the lead division, commanded 

by General Hovey, was from McClernand’s corps. As the battle 

unfolded, the brunt of the fighting fell on the forces of the northern 

road. Those on the middle road became fully engaged only late 

in the day, while the troops on the southern road either never 

received or disobeyed orders to attack the enemy, and engaged 

only in a six-hour artillery duel with Loring’s troops in their front.

The action opened when Hovey’s division on the northern road 

advanced to the crest of Champion Hill where it struck Stevenson’s 

division and crushed its right flank. To Hovey’s right, Logan’s 

division pushed through heavy woods, drove back Stevenson’s 

center and left, and cut the road by which the Confederates had 

marched to Champion Hill the day before. Pemberton, who 

attempted to command the battle from a farmhouse in the center 

of the Confederate position, was convinced that the Union main 
49

effort would come in the center and the south. He was oblivious 

to Stevenson’s calls for help until stragglers and wounded troops 

from the top of Champion Hill began to stream past his headquarters. Belatedly, he pulled Bowen’s division out of the quiet center of 

the line and sent it north to stabilize the situation.

Bowen launched a counterattack that struck Hovey’s disorganized forces as they streamed down the southern face of Champion 

Hill, and drove them back to the crest and beyond. Grant took a 

personal hand in rallying Hovey’s troops and bringing in reinforcements to stem Bowen’s onslaught. Among those reinforcements was 

a soldier who recorded the scene: “Almost whole companies of 

wounded, defeated men from [Hovey’s] division hurried by us. . . . 

They held up their bleeding and mangled hands to show us they 

had not been cowards.” In some of the most intense fighting that 

Grant’s soldiers ever saw, Crocker’s division moved up, absorbed the 

Confederate blow, and brought Bowen’s tired men to a halt. “There 

was no charging further by our line,” recalled one of Crocker’s men. 

“We halted, stood still . . . and killed each other as fast as we could.” 

After a prolonged and bitterly contested firefight, Crocker finally 

pushed Bowen back up and over the crest of Champion Hill. Bowen’s 

withdrawal became more urgent when Osterhaus’ division, pushing 

through rough terrain on the middle road, reached and drove in the 

thinly held Confederate center.

With Stevenson’s division disintegrating and Bowen’s men 

fought out, Pemberton tried to stem the converging Union forces 

with Loring’s division, but it was too late. Pemberton ordered his 

entire command to break contact and withdraw by the southern 

road, where the swollen creek that had halted his march the day 

before had subsided to fordable levels. Stevenson’s division fell 

apart and retreated in disorder. Bowen’s division withdrew intact 

while Loring’s relatively unbloodied division conducted a rear 

guard action. The Union pursuit continued into the evening. 

Loring, holding his rear guard position on the southern road, could 

see Union troops outflanking him to the north. Rather than fight 

his way through to rejoin Pemberton, he pulled his division out to 

the south and then made his way east to join Johnston’s command 

near Jackson. The rest of the Confederate army poured back 

through the night, past Edwards and across the Big Black River 

with Bowen holding a bridgehead on the east bank. An officer in 

Pemberton’s army described the retreat: “It was slow progress until 

we arrived at the Big Black—as it was covered with Artillery, the 
50 

trains of the Army—straggling and wounded men—and every 

conceivable conveyance with women and children fleeing their 

homes and abandoning them to the Yankees.”

The battle of Champion Hill had cost Pemberton heavily. 

Confederate casualties totaled 381 killed, 1,018 wounded, and 

2,441 missing. To this total one might add Loring’s entire division 

of 7,800 men, which would play no further role in the campaign 

for Vicksburg. In addition, Pemberton lost twenty-seven irreplaceable artillery pieces, not counting those that Loring took with 

him. Union casualties came to 410 killed, 1,844 wounded, and 187 

missing. Of this total, Hovey’s division, which led the attack on the 

northern road and absorbed the full brunt of Bowen’s counterattack, suffered 211 killed, 872 wounded, and 119 missing.

The victory at Champion Hill dramatically improved Grant’s 

chances of taking Vicksburg. Prior to the battle, the troops in 

Pemberton’s department actually outnumbered the Union forces 

under Grant. With Johnston driven off in the battle of Jackson, 

and Pemberton mauled at Champion Hill, there was little likelihood that Grant would have to contend with a field force equal to 

or superior to his own. He could proceed to assault Vicksburg in 

relative safety.

On the other hand, if Pemberton had managed to salvage 

something resembling a victory at Champion Hill, Grant would 

have been in a truly precarious situation. Deep in enemy territory, surrounded by hostile forces and ammunition and supplies 

depleted with no ready prospect of replenishment, Grant’s force 

would have faced the prospect of total destruction. The entire 

Union campaign since the landing at Bruinsburg had been a calculated risk; at Champion Hill the risk paid off.

Grant kept up the pressure on 17 May. McClernand’s corps 

pushed westward along the Southern Railroad toward the Big 

Black River. Upon reaching the river, he found Bowen’s division, 

reinforced by an additional brigade, manning earthworks in a 

bridgehead east of the railroad bridge. Bowen’s orders were to hold 

the bridge until Loring’s division crossed to safety. Neither he nor 

Pemberton was aware that Loring was even then marching in the 

opposite direction as fast as he could go. From the Confederate 

perspective, the battle that followed was a meaningless sacrifice.

McClernand formed two divisions for an assault on Bowen’s 

position—General Osterhaus on the left, and General Carr on the 

right. One of Carr’s brigade commanders, Brig. Gen. Michael K. 
51

Lawler, preempted any battle plans that McClernand may have 

formulated. Lawler found a trough of low ground, an ancient 

channel of the Big Black, which enabled him to work his brigade to 

within assaulting distance of the Confederate earthworks. There he 

formed his four regiments into an assault column, two regiments 

wide and two deep, and launched them against the Confederates in 

an impetuous charge. The defenders in the path of Lawler’s assault 

broke and ran. Within minutes the Confederates in the bridgehead had abandoned their positions and were streaming across the 

railroad bridge, which was then set ablaze to prevent its capture. 

Some troops unable to reach the bridge attempted to swim the Big 

Black and many drowned. At the conclusion of the brief battle, 

Union forces counted nearly 1,800 Confederate prisoners, along 

with 18 captured cannon, for the loss of 39 Union troops killed, 

237 wounded, and 3 missing. Pemberton ordered the remnants of 

his army back to the fortifications of Vicksburg.

As he rode westward with his demoralized and broken force, 

Pemberton may well have reflected on the rapidity with which 

disaster had overtaken him. For three months he had watched 

as Grant flailed about in the floodplain on various unsuccessful 

bayou expeditions. Suddenly, on 30 April, Grant was ashore on 

the west bank in force. Seventeen days and five battles later, Grant 

Pontoon bridge Sherman’s troops used to cross the Big Black River (Library of Congress)
52 

was chasing him into the fortifications of Vicksburg. During the 

retreat from the Big Black, Pemberton remarked to one of his 

staff officers, “Just thirty years ago I began my military career 

by receiving my appointment to a cadetship at the U.S. Military 

Academy; and today—the same date—that career is ended in 

disaster and disgrace.”

One civilian who witnessed the arrival of Pemberton’s army 

in Vicksburg that afternoon wrote, “I shall never forget that woeful 

sight of a beaten, demoralized army that came rushing back—

humanity in the last throes of endurance. Wan, hollow-eyed, 

ragged, footsore, bloody—the men limped along, unarmed but 

followed by siege-guns, ambulances, gun-carriages, and wagons 

in aimless confusion.” Another eyewitness observed, “Many of the 

troops declared their willingness to desert rather than serve under 

[Pemberton] again.”

The Siege

Once within the Vicksburg fortifications, Pemberton’s 

men proved to be surprisingly resilient. Two fresh divisions 

commanded by Generals Forney and Martin Smith provided a 

foundation on which to rebuild the army. Stockpiles of weapons 

and supplies were on hand to replace those lost on campaign. 

Moreover, the fortifications themselves inspired confidence—nine 

major strongpoints and 102 artillery pieces covering all likely 

avenues of approach. Smith’s division manned the northern face 

of the works on the Confederate left. Forney’s troops occupied the 

center and Stevenson’s battered division held the positions on the 

right where a Union attack was least likely to fall. Bowen’s division 

constituted the reserve. The Confederates did not have long to wait 

for the next fight.

Grant’s army, including Sherman’s corps which had come 

up from Jackson, crossed the Big Black River and closed in on 

the Vicksburg fortifications on 18 May. The first priority was to 

occupy the heights at Snyder’s Bluff, in order to reopen a river 

borne line of supply. Grant and Sherman rode together in person 

to stand on the high ground that Sherman had tried and failed 

to capture the previous December. He had finally reached the 

bluffs overlooking Chickasaw Bayou, although it required a fivemonth detour by way of Bruinsburg and Jackson to get there. As 

Grant later remembered the moment, Sherman “turned to me, 

saying that up to this minute he had felt no positive assurance of 
53

success. This, however, he said was the end of one of the greatest 

campaigns in history. . . . Vicksburg was not yet captured, and 

there was no telling what might happen before it was taken; but 

whether captured or not, this was a complete and successful 

campaign.” With Snyder’s Bluff in Union hands, and his supply 

situation assured, Grant turned his attention to taking Vicksburg.

Hoping for a repeat of the Confederate collapse at the Big Black 

River, Grant ordered a hasty assault for 19 May as soon as Sherman’s 

corps was in position (Map 5). The problem with any assault on 

Vicksburg was that there were few feasible avenues of approach, 

and each of these was protected by well-sited Confederate defensive works. Sherman’s attack on 19 May focused on the fortification known as Stockade Redan, located at the apex of the east-west 

and north-south branches of the Confederate line. General Blair’s 

division constituted the main effort. After a five-hour artillery 

preparation, Blair’s men launched their assault only to be raked and 

thrown back by enfilading fire. An officer in Blair’s division wrote: 

“The leaden hail from the enemy was absolutely blinding. The very 

chips and sticks scattered over the ground were jumping under the 

hot shower of rebel bullets.” Only one element, the 1st Battalion, 13th 

U.S. Infantry, reached the redan and planted its colors on the enemy 

works, though the Union troops were unable to enter the position. 

In recognition of this deed, the 13th Infantry was officially accorded 

the honor “First at Vicksburg.” Sherman’s corps lost 134 killed, 571 

wounded, and 8 missing in the assault of 19 May. McPherson and 

McClernand, whose corps were still largely moving up into position, 

suffered a combined total of 23 killed and 206 wounded.

Wishing above all else to avoid a prolonged siege, Grant 

attempted a second attack on 22 May. This was a coordinated 

assault involving all three corps. In the north, Sherman’s men 

assaulted the Stockade Redan again. In the center, McPherson’s 

corps stormed the Great Redoubt, located on the highest point 

of the fortified line. McClernand’s main objective was Railroad 

Redoubt in the south. Despite prolonged preparatory fires and a 

carefully synchronized attack, none of these assaults succeeded. 

McClernand’s corps managed to break into the Confederate positions, only to be swiftly evicted. In a message to Grant, McClernand 

exaggerated the extent and significance of his gains, causing the 

other two corps to prolong their failed attacks unnecessarily. At 

the end of the day, Grant’s army had lost another 502 killed, 2,550 

wounded, and 147 missing. Confederate losses are not known, but 
( S T E E L E )

S H E R M A

N

M

c

P

H

E

R S O

N

M

c

C

L

E

R

N

A

N

D

( O R D )

Stockade Redan

Green’s Redan

South Fort

Fort Hill

Great Redoubt

2d Texas

Lunette

Railroad

Redoubt

Salient Work

Square Fort

P

E

M

B

E

R

T

O

N3d Louisiana

Redoubt

M i s s i s s i p

p i R i v e r

Two Mile Bridge

Southern Mississippi RR

Jackson Road

War renton Road

Yazoo Ci t y Road

VICKSBURG

DeSoto

Union Assault, 19 May

Union Assault, 22 May

Union Entrenchments

Confederate Entrenchments

18 May–4 July 1863

SIEGE OF VICKSBURG

0 1

Mile

Map 5
55

are believed to have totaled about 500. “Thus ended another day 

of bloody fight in vain,” recorded one Union soldier, “except for an 

increase of the knowledge which has been steadily growing lately, 

that a regular siege will be required to take Vicksburg.” 

In the aftermath of the 22 May assault, the dark side of Grant’s 

tremendous persistence and unshakeable resolve emerged. The 

failed assault left the ground between the lines littered with dead 

and wounded Union soldiers. In those days, it was customary for 

the general to whom the casualties belonged to ask his adversary 

for a temporary truce so that the dead and wounded could be 

removed. This Grant refused to do. To ask for an armistice would 

be an admission of failure, something that Grant was unwilling 

to accept even to alleviate the suffering of his own troops. So the 

wounded lying between the lines suffered for three days and many 

of them died in the hot Mississippi sun, while the corpses bloated 

and stank. Finally, on 25 May, Pemberton proposed a truce so that 

the battlefield could be cleared of its human debris.

The assault of 22 May led to another troubling incident. On 

30 May, McClernand issued a congratulatory order to the troops 

of the XIII Corps in which he not only lauded his own troops but 

cast aspersions on the rest of Grant’s army. This order found its 

way into the Northern newspapers, without first being cleared 

through Grant’s headquarters as required by regulations. Grant 

seized on this infraction to relieve the hard-fighting but increasingly troublesome political general. Maj. Gen. Edward O. C. Ord 

replaced McClernand as corps commander on 18 June.

On the same day as Grant’s second assault on the fortifications of Vicksburg, General Banks laid siege to Port Hudson with 

a Union army of four divisions totaling 30,000 men. On 27 May, 

Banks launched his first assault against the Confederate positions, manned by 7,500 Confederates commanded by General 

Gardner. Banks’ assault opened with a naval bombardment from 

vessels located both upstream and downstream from the fort. 

The infantry assaults that followed were directed against the 

weakly fortified northern side of Gardner’s perimeter. The Union 

attacks went in piecemeal and none succeeded. Among the more 

noteworthy actions was the stout, though unsuccessful, assault 

made by the 1st and 3d Louisiana Native Guards, composed of 

African American troops. Banks resumed his attacks later in the 

day along the southern portion of the perimeter, but the delay 

between assaults allowed Gardner to shift forces and successfully 
56 

repulse all attacks. Another poorly planned attack on 14 June met 

with similar results. Banks then dug in and attempted to starve 

out the Confederates.

Like Banks, Grant settled in for regular siege operations 

after the direct assaults failed. For six weeks Union soldiers did 

more digging than fighting. First they dug a line of fighting positions, paralleling the Confederate works, to protect themselves 

from enemy fire and to block any Confederate attempts to attack 

outward from their fortifications. “We were now as strong for 

defense against the garrison of Vicksburg as they were against us,” 

Grant noted. Then, under the direction of engineer officers, troops 

dug zigzag trenches, known as “saps,” toward the enemy fortifications. These they used to move artillery closer and closer to 

the Confederate parapets, and to prepare advanced staging areas 

for an eventual assault. They also dug mines under the principal 

Confederate fortifications. The most noteworthy of these was in 

McPherson’s sector, where soldiers from Logan’s division dug a 

forty-five foot tunnel underneath the 3d Louisiana Redoubt and 

packed it with 2,200 pounds of gunpowder. On 25 June, they detonated the powder, blowing the fortification to bits. One of Logan’s 

brigades immediately charged into the crater, only to find that 

the defending Confederates of Forney’s division had previously 

Union dugouts in front of the Shirley house during the siege of Vicksburg 

(Library of Congress)
57

vacated the redan and built another fortification immediately to 

its rear.

Another important component of siege warfare was artillery 

fire. During the six weeks of siege, Union artillery kept up a steady 

fire against both the fortifications and the town of Vicksburg itself. 

Admiral Porter’s mortar boats joined in the bombardment, lofting 

their huge 200-pound shells into the city. There was little rest for 

either defenders or citizens as shells rained down day and night. 

The Confederate artillery could not retaliate in kind—Pemberton 

directed his gunners to conserve their ammunition for the inevitable Union assaults to come.

Major reinforcements flowed in to Grant’s army, allowing 

him to seal completely the land approaches to Vicksburg and to 

establish a separate rear guard force of 36,000 troops to fend off 

any Confederate attempts to break the siege from the outside. He 

placed this force under the command of General Sherman, who 

turned over the XV Corps to his senior division commander 

General Steele. Three divisions came in from Grant’s own XVI 

Corps in Tennessee, as well as one division from the Department 

of the Missouri and the IX Corps (two divisions) from the 

Department of the Ohio. These additions raised Grant’s strength 

from 56,000 to about 90,000 troops.

As it turned out, Grant need not have bothered with the rear 

guard covering force. Any outside relief for Pemberton would have 

to come from General Joseph Johnston, and Johnston showed 

no inclination to attack Grant. Reinforcements raised Johnston’s 

strength to over 30,000 men, yet he limited his activity to sending 

messages—telling Richmond that he was too weak to attack, and 

urging Pemberton to break out of Grant’s siege lines on his own.

Both Johnston and the Confederate government in 

Richmond urged Lt. Gen. Edmund Kirby Smith, commander of 

the Department of the Trans-Mississippi, to do what he could 

to help Pemberton. Accordingly, between 7 and 10 June forces 

under Maj. Gen. Richard Taylor staged a series of disjointed 

attacks against the Union bases at Milliken’s Bend, Young’s Point, 

and Lake Providence in Louisiana. A few months earlier, these 

bases had been vital links in Grant’s line of supply, but with the 

opening of the landing at Snyder’s Bluff they had lost much of their 

significance. By June, they were used primarily as training bases 

for recently raised regiments of black troops. The most significant 

of these attacks came at Milliken’s Bend, where a brigade of Maj. 
58 

Gen. John G. Walker’s Texas division surprised a Union garrison 

consisting of one Iowa regiment and a large number of black 

troops undergoing training. The Texans drove through the Union 

defenses and were stopped only by fire from the ironclad Choctaw.

The Union troops at Milliken’s Bend suffered a total of 652 casualties, including a number of black soldiers confiscated as runaway 

slaves. Had General Kirby Smith assailed the Louisiana bases a 

few months earlier, he could have made a significant impact on 

the Vicksburg campaign. By June it was too late. However, the 

engagements at Port Hudson and Milliken’s Bend had a wider 

significance. Charles A. Dana, a noted journalist, reported to the 

Secretary of War: “The sentiment in regards to the employment of 

negro troops has been revolutionized by the bravery of the blacks 

in the recent battle of Milliken’s Bend. Prominent officers, who 

used in private to sneer at the idea, are now heartily in favor of it.”

As the siege of Vicksburg wore on, conditions within the 

Confederate lines deteriorated. “When the siege commenced, it 

had been announced that there were provisions enough stored 

away to subsist the army for six months,” noted one Confederate. 

In reality, such was not the case. Food rations were cut and cut 

again to conserve stockpiles. Many of the army’s draft animals 

were set loose in no-man’s-land because the Confederates lacked 

the fodder to keep them alive, while others were consigned to the 

stewpot. Malnutrition and disease decimated the Confederate 

ranks. Morale declined as the hoped-for relief from outside 

never materialized. For the citizens of Vicksburg the siege was 

an equally trying experience. Many moved into “caves” dug into 

Vicksburg’s hillsides to escape the shelling. Even though only 

a handful of civilians were actually killed or wounded in the 

bombardment, the psychological toll was considerable. “It was 

an awful and strange sight,” wrote one Vicksburg diarist. “As I sat 

at my window, I saw the mortars from the west passing entirely 

over the house and the Parrott shells from the east passing by, 

crossing each other, and this terrible fire raging in the center.” 

“People do nothing but eat what they can get, sleep when they 

can, and dodge the shells,” wrote another civilian. Sometimes, 

even the Confederate soldiers were moved by the plight of the 

civilians, despite their own tribulations. One sergeant observed 

that “delicate women and little children, with pale, careworn and 

hunger-pinched features, peered at the passer-by with wistful 

eyes from the caves in the hillsides.”
59

Ironically, the high ground on which the Confederate works 

were located proved to be less habitable, in the long run, than were 

the Union positions. According to one Union officer, “we had the 

advantage of the rebel garrison in many ways because we were 

sheltered from the blistering heat of the sun by the forest shade, 

and had plenty to eat and the cool springs in the ravines furnished 

us an abundance of pure water, while the enemy was wholly 

unsheltered in their defensive works, reduced to almost starvation 

rations and a scarcity of good water.”

On 28 June, Pemberton received a mysterious letter signed 

“Many Soldiers” stating that the army had reached the limits of 

endurance. “If you can’t feed us, you had better surrender us.” 

Pemberton knew that a general Union assault was coming, and he 

feared that his army was incapable of mounting a defense. (Indeed, 

Grant had an attack planned for 6 July, in preparation for which 

mines had been dug under all of the major Confederate fortifications.) Following a council of war with his key subordinates, 

Pemberton bowed to the inevitable. On 3 July, he sent a message to 

Grant requesting negotiations for surrender. The two commanders 

met between the lines that afternoon, and by the end of the day 

both sides had agreed to terms. On 4 July, the Confederate troops 

marched out of their positions and stacked arms. “It was one of 

the saddest sights I ever beheld, and I can honestly say I pitied 

those brave men from the bottom of my heart,” wrote a Union 

officer. Then each Confederate signed a document of parole, 

stating that he would not bear arms until “exchanged” for a Union 

soldier. Union troops marched into the city as Porter’s gunboats 

tied up at Vicksburg’s waterfront. Five days later, upon learning 

of Pemberton’s capitulation, Gardner surrendered Port Hudson to 

Banks, and the Mississippi was in Union hands from its source to 

its mouth. “The Father of Waters,” wrote President Lincoln, “again 

goes unvexed to the sea.”

Analysis 

“Yesterday we rode on the pinnacle of success—today absolute 

ruin seems to be our portion. The Confederacy totters to its destruction.” This was the reaction of Col. Josiah Gorgas, the Confederate 

army’s Chief of Ordnance, upon hearing of Vicksburg’s surrender, 

following hard on the heels of the Confederate defeat at Gettysburg. 

Confederate morale would recover at least partially, but the fall of 
60 

Vicksburg and Port Hudson inflicted irreparable damage on the 

Confederate States of America, not just militarily, but also politically 

and economically. In military terms, the surrender of Vicksburg took 

an entire Confederate field army out of the war. Though some of the 

30,000 soldiers who signed parole papers at Vicksburg would eventually return to the war, many others deserted. The Confederacy also 

lost 60,000 small arms and 260 cannon in the Vicksburg campaign 

and subsequent surrender. In strategic terms, the loss of Vicksburg 

meant that military operations east and west of the Mississippi 

would from this point on take place in isolation from each other. 

Politically, the damage was equally severe, though not so 

immediate. The legitimacy of the Confederate nation was seriously 

compromised. Split in two by the loss of the Mississippi River, the 

Confederate States of America no longer resembled a viable nationstate. After Vicksburg, the states west of the Mississippi increasingly went their own way politically just as they did militarily, as 

the influence of the government in Richmond waned. Moreover, 

the Confederacy could no longer hope for a status quo peace settlement from the Union, unless it was willing to exist permanently as 

a bifurcated nation. And to the population of the South, as to the 

world at large, the Confederate government in Richmond seemed 

less and less able to provide for the common defense or promote 

the general welfare of its citizens. After Vicksburg it appeared that 

Union armies could go where they wished and do what they pleased 

anywhere in the Confederacy. The fortifications of Vicksburg were 

as strong as man could devise and the great bastion had been 

protected by a powerful Confederate army, yet the Union forces 

under Grant had shattered the army and captured the fortress in 

a one-sided campaign lasting just over two months. If Vicksburg 

could fall so readily, what place in the Confederacy was safe?

Economically, the loss of the western waterways, which culminated in the surrender of Vicksburg and Port Hudson, seriously 

crippled the Confederacy’s internal transportation system. The 

presence of Union gunboats on the Mississippi and its tributaries 

constituted nothing less than an internal blockade, choking off 

commerce of any scale. As the railroads deteriorated and money 

lost value, the Confederacy ceased to have any national or even 

regional economy at all. By the end of the war, commerce and trade 

had reverted to subsistence farming and local barter through much 

of the Confederacy, thanks in large part to Union control of the 

western rivers.
61

The successful conclusion of the Vicksburg campaign had a 

correspondingly positive impact on Union fortunes. Grant’s victory 

effectively shut down an arena of conflict that had absorbed significant Union resources since the spring of 1862. Grant’s veteran 

Army of the Tennessee was now free to enter other theaters of the 

conflict. With the Mississippi secure, the Union’s western armies 

could combine their forces in Tennessee and, in 1864–1865, 

Georgia and the Carolinas. Given the simplified strategic picture 

made possible by the conclusion of the Vicksburg campaign, the 

Union was able increasingly to focus its military strength against 

the Confederate center of power on the East Coast. Moreover, 

Vicksburg catapulted Grant to the top tier of Union generals. 

President Lincoln wrote, “Grant is my man, and I am his for the 

rest of the war.” By the end of 1863, Grant commanded the entire 

western theater and in 1864 rose to the position of general in chief 

of the U.S. Army. Thus Grant himself presided over the massing of 

Union forces that ultimately crushed the core of the Confederacy.

The victory at Vicksburg brought other benefits to the Union 

as well. With the Mississippi River again open to Union trade, 

the farmers of the Midwest regained an important outlet for their 

commodities. This development in turn bolstered Lincoln’s political 

standing in the region. Most importantly, the nearly simultaneous 

Union victories at Vicksburg and Gettysburg gave the Northern 

populace a sense of progress toward victory at a time when enthusiasm for the long and bloody conflict was dissipating rapidly.

Even today the Vicksburg campaign remains valuable as a case 

study for the military profession. The campaign provides an example 

of effective joint Army-Navy cooperation the likes of which would 

not be seen again until the twentieth century. Somehow, Grant and 

Porter managed effectively to combine the efforts of their respective 

services in the absence of any joint commander or staff. Moreover, the 

campaign abounds with examples of leadership both good and bad, 

and at all levels from commanding general to company-grade officer, 

that continue to instruct and inspire. The contrasting command 

styles of Grant and Pemberton are the easiest to discern, but useful 

models of leadership in battle can also be found at the lower ranks. 

Vicksburg also serves as a case study in campaign design. The artful 

manner in which Grant identified objectives, weighed options, and 

structured effective courses of action continues to instruct officers 

today. Perhaps the greatest lesson to be gleaned from such a study 

is the way in which Grant adapted to developments, swiftly altering 
62 

his plans to accommodate the contingencies of war and exploit the 

weaknesses of his adversaries. For Grant there was no boundary 

between “plan” and “execute,” and he rarely allowed his plans to 

drive his actions when circumstances in the field called for other 

solutions.

Vicksburg never attained the prominence in American 

culture enjoyed by the great battles waged in the east. Pemberton’s 

surrender of Vicksburg, perhaps the most momentous event of the 

war to date, was overshadowed by the great battle at Gettysburg, 

which reached its climax just one day earlier. This is not to suggest 

that Vicksburg has been forgotten. In 1896, a congressman from 

Mississippi proposed legislation to create a national military park 

at Vicksburg. Two years later, the House Committee on Military 

Affairs submitted a report in support of the bill, asserting that 

the campaign of General Grant, which terminated in the capitulation of the “Gibraltar of the South,” from the landing of the 

first of his troops on the east bank of the Mississippi River at 

Bruinsburg on April 30, 1863, until the complete investment of 

the city twenty days later, was not only one of the most remarkable of the war, but has been justly assigned a place affording the 

greatest interest to the student of the military history of the past. 

In 1899, the United States government established a national 

military park at Vicksburg. For many states of the Deep South 

and the Midwest, this beautiful park, with its adjacent military 

cemetery containing the remains of 17,000 Civil War soldiers, 

became their chief site for commemorating the Civil War. In 1933, 

the War Department transferred the park and cemetery to the 

National Park Service. Every year over 600,000 visitors explore 

the beautiful grounds of the Vicksburg National Battlefield Park 

to learn about and pay tribute to the soldiers who fought there 150 

years ago.

Perhaps the final word on Vicksburg should come from 

President Lincoln, the long-suffering commander in chief. On 

13 July 1863, he wrote to congratulate Grant on the recently 

concluded campaign: 

I do not remember that you and I ever met personally. I write 

this now as a grateful acknowledgment for the almost inestimable service you have done the country. I wish to say a word 
63

further. When you first reached the vicinity of Vicksburg, I 

thought you should do, what you finally did—march the troops 

across the neck, run the batteries with the transports, and thus 

go below; and I never had any faith, except a general hope that 

you knew better than I, that the Yazoo Pass expedition, and the 

like, could succeed. When you got below, and took Port-Gibson, 

Grand Gulf, and vicinity, I thought you should go down the river 

and join Gen. Banks; and when you turned Northward East of 

the Big Black, I feared it was a mistake. I now wish to make the 

personal acknowledgment that you were right, and I was wrong. 

Yours very truly

Abraham Lincoln.
64 

The Author

Christopher R. Gabel holds a Ph.D. from Ohio State University. 

He has taught at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff 

College’s Combat Studies Institute and the Department of Military 

History since 1983. His publications include The U.S. Army GHQ 

Maneuvers of 1941 and the Staff Ride Handbook for the Vicksburg 

Campaign, December 1862–July 1863.
65

Further Readings

Ballard, Michael B. Vicksburg: The Campaign That Opened the 

Mississippi. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 

2004.

Bearss, Edwin C. The Campaign for Vicksburg. 3 vols. Dayton, 

Ohio: Morningside House, 1985–1986.

Fullenkamp, Leonard, Jay Luvaas, and Stephen Bowman. Guide 

to the Vicksburg Campaign. Lawrence: University Press of 

Kansas, 1998.

Gabel, Christopher R. Staff Ride Handbook for the Vicksburg 

Campaign. Fort Leavenworth, Kans.: Combat Studies Institute, 

U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, 2001.

Shea, William L., and Terrence J. Winschel. Vicksburg Is the Key: 

The Struggle for the Mississippi River. Lincoln: University of 

Nebraska Press, 2003.

Smith, Timothy B. Champion Hill: Decisive Battle for Vicksburg.

New York: Savas Beatie, 2004. 

Winschel, Terrence J. Triumph and Defeat: The Vicksburg 

Campaign. 2 vols. New York: Savas Beatie, 2004–2006.

For more information on the U.S. Army in the Civil War, please 

read other titles in the U.S. Army Campaigns of the Civil War 

series published by the U.S. Army Center of Military History.


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