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Introduction
- Southern Illinois University Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
1 Introduction It lasted only seven and a half weeks, but the maneuver segment of the Vicksburg Campaign reversed the verdict of the previous six months’ operations on the Mississippi, all but sealed the doom of the Gibraltar of the Confederacy and its defending army, secured the reputation of Ulysses S. Grant as one of history’s greatest generals, and paved the way to eventual Confederate defeat. From a situation of deadlock in which Confederate general John C. Pemberton believed that he had won and that Grant was about to retreat, Grant loosed a fluid campaign of rapid maneuver and lightning strikes that stunned his opponent and left Confederate forces in Mississippi demoralized and cornered. The campaign astonished Grant’s own lieutenants as much as it did his foes. Only Grant and the rank-and-file of his Army of the Tennessee seemed to have expected nothing but victory from the outset. Union forces had first appeared in the neighborhood of Vicksburg in May 1862. U.S. Navy warships under Flag Officer David Farragut reached the town, having come up the Mississippi from the Gulf of Mexico after capturing New Orleans. Farragut cruised up and down the river in the vicinity of Vicksburg for several weeks and made contact with a flotilla of Union gunboats that had fought their way past every Confederate stronghold on the Mississippi above Vicksburg. The concentration of naval power was impressive, but the gunboats and sloops-of-war could not take the town themselves and did not have enough troops with them to storm it. As the summer wore on, the depth of the river decreased, and Farragut had to take his deep-water ships back downstream. Late that autumn, Grant made his own first attempt on Vicksburg. Beginning in late November, he marched his army southward from bases in West Tennessee into Mississippi along the line of the Mississippi Central Railroad. Grant hoped his advance would goad his opposite number, Lieutenant General John C. Pemberton, into giving battle. Once Grant had defeated Pemberton in the field, the whole state of Mississippi might lie open to him. Pemberton, however, declined battle, retreating steadily southward, deeper Introduction 2 into the state. Not wanting to extend his own supply line too far, Grant modified his plan. While he would continue a slow advance in northern Mississippi , holding Pemberton’s attention, his most trusted subordinate, William T. Sherman, would take his division back to Memphis, combine it with other Union forces assembling there, and head down the Mississippi in steamboats with an expedition of some thirty thousand men. He would land east of the Mississippi just above Vicksburg, with its bristling bluff-top batteries, and would move directly against the Confederate stronghold. Caught between two powerful Union forces, Pemberton would be in a hopeless plight. If he maintained his front against Grant, Sherman would take Vicksburg in his rear and then presumably move inland to Jackson to cut his line of supply. If on the other hand, he turned to confront Sherman, Grant would pounce on his army’s rear and flanks, turning its withdrawal into a panic rout. Events did not take that course. Pemberton dispatched his cavalry under Major General Earl Van Dorn to strike at Grant’s supply line in northern Mississippi. In the finest performance of his otherwise disappointing war, Van Dorn on December 20, 1862, captured and destroyed the Union depot at Holly Springs, Mississippi, severing Grant’s supply line. Compounding the situation, Brigadier General Nathan Bedford Forrest tore up the connecting Mobile & Ohio Railroad at Jackson, Tennessee, the day before. By living off the land, Grant was able to extricate his army from the interior of the state without starvation, but his campaign along the Mississippi Central was unequivocally over. Pemberton was free to turn south against Sherman with as much of his army as might be needed to defend Vicksburg. As it turned out, the few thousand Confederates whom Pemberton had previously left to defend the town needed no further assistance. The terrain around Vicksburg provided more than enough advantage to enable the defenders to defy many times their numbers of attackers. On December 26, Sherman’s army landed a few miles above Vicksburg. A direct approach to the city led across seemingly impassible swamps to the foot of forbidding bluffs. Quick scrutiny of the ground revealed what every subsequent examination , quick or lengthy, would confirm. An attacking army could approach Vicksburg with any prospect of success only from the northeast or...