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The Campaign, Siege, and Defense of Vicksburg: March 29–July 4, 1863 The purpose of the following pages is briefly to present, in the form of a connected narrative, the events of the campaign and siege that resulted in the capture of Vicksburg. In order, however, to promote the best understanding of those events, some reference to previous circumstances and conditions—and especially to those occurring or existing at and immediately before the beginning of that campaign—seems both pertinent and necessary. From the inception of the war between the states, for reasons many and obvious, possession and control of the Mississippi River was by both contestants regarded as of the greatest possible importance. President Abraham Lincoln, in 1861, declared that great river to be “the backbone of the rebellion—the key to the whole situation.”1 The Confederate General Braxton Bragg wrote, March 18, 1862, “Unless something is done speedily I fear we shall lose the Mississippi—of more importance to us than all the country together.”2 And President Jefferson Davis, after the fall of Memphis and New Orleans, referred to “the vital issue of holding the Mississippi at Vicksburg.”3 So it was that in the Western theater of war, campaigns were planned by the Federals , and each successive defensive line was selected and occupied by the Confederates, as in full acceptance of those statements. Thus Columbus, New Madrid, Island No. 10, Fort Pillow and, June 6, 1862, Memphis, successively fell into the hands of Union forces moving from the northward, while New Orleans and the river below had just shared the same fate by coastwise attack. Under these circumstances the attention of the leaders upon both sides turned to the intervening portion of the Mississippi River, most of which was still firmly held by the Confederates, and Vicksburg and Port Hudson at 4 Record of the Organizations Engaged in the Campaign, Siege, and Defense of Vicksburg once became the centers of interest. This, not only because its location and topography made the former the natural point of resistance against maritime invasion from the north, and that of the latter from the south, but also because, between the two places, the Red River discharged into the greater stream the vastly needed material resources of the trans-Mississippi territory. At Vicksburg the Confederates had already commenced fortifying. The first reference thereto found of record appears to have come from an officer signing himself “Edward Fontaine, Lieutenant Colonel and Chief of Ordnance Mississippi Army,” who under date of December 1, 1861, wrote to Governor Thomas O. Moore, of Louisiana, on the subject . Among other things, Lieutenant Colonel Fontaine said in this letter: “I shall go to Vicksburg to-morrow to lay out fortifications”— adding, somewhat prophetically, “I will fortify Vicksburg and prevent its capture, but can not prevent, the enemy from burning and passing it.”4 Governor Moore sent this letter to General Mansfield Lovell, commanding at New Orleans, who replied that he approved the plan, but could furnish “no competent engineer officer, no guns, no powder.”5 In April, 1862, a few heavy guns were sent to Vicksburg from Mobile or Pensacola; and, late in the same month, the construction of defensive works was actually begun by Captain D. B. Harris, under orders from General P. G. T. Beauregard, who himself furnished the original plans.6 Directly after the fall of New Orleans, General Martin L. Smith was ordered to Vicksburg, where he arrived May 12, 1862, with two regiments of his brigade to which others were soon added.7 Having been an officer of the Engineer Corps in the regular army, General Smith was directed to assume command and complete the fortifications of the place as rapidly as possible. That these efforts were not premature nor unnecessary will be gathered from the fact that Commodore David G. Farragut’s fleet, from below, appeared before Vicksburg May 18, 1862, engaging the batteries then in position and bombarding the city.8 Apropos to this, and as further indicating the attitude of the Washington authorities, note the following from Secretary Gideon Welles’ letter to Farragut, dated May 22, 1862: “The Department learns with much pleasure that you have gone up the Mississippi. The opening of that river is the first object to be attained since the fall of New Orleans.”9 While the fighting incident upon Farragut’s first expedition to Vicksburg was desultory in character and resulted in small damage to [3.17.28.48] Project MUSE (2024-04...

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