janeandbobandmore: THE BATTLE OF VICKSBURG, MISSISSIPPI: GRANT SPLITS THE CONFEDERACY IN TWO

VICKSBURG 5/21/2016
General Pemberton surrendered to General Grant on July 4, 1863, the same day that General Meade defeated Lee at Gettysburg. Although Gettysburg is remembered as the high tide of the Confederacy, the victory at Vicksburg was even more significant as it cut the Confederacy in two, opened the deep south to invading northern armies, and gave the Union full control of the entire Mississippi River as “it now flowed unvexed to the sea.” (A. Lincoln)

Early in the Civil War, Lincoln determined that Vicksburg was “the key” to military success because the city controlled the Mississippi River. The war can never be brought to a close “until that key in our pocket.” General Ulysses Grant was charged to achieve this crucial objective. Whereas Grant was frequently accused of indifference to the loss of life in leading his armies, the Vicksburg campaign illustrates how excellent a general Grant was —a master of logistics, maneuver, deception, and ultimately siege warfare. Though men died and were wounded, he accomplished his goal with minimum loss of life on both sides.

Ultimate irony is evident in the 1,800 acres of the Vicksburg Military Park. By the time Grant and his armies enveloped Vicksburg in an ever tightening noose, the northern victory was essentially assured. Along the sharp cliffs and ravines surrounding Vicksburg, one sees the remnants of the handiwork of the military engineers -- roads, trenches, tunnels, cannon emplacements and earthen forts of differing shapes – variously called redoubts, redans, and lunettes. However, by the time these were built, the battle was essentially over.

The real question was how did the two opposing armies get to these places to carry out their final moves. And in those details we see the brilliance of Grant as a military strategist. The outcome was in large part determined by Grant’s collaboration with the Union inland navy. Working with Rear Admiral David Porter, Grant made a daring decision to steam ironclad, armed barges down the river in the dark of night directly under the Confederate guns of the city. No visible battlefield as with Pickett’s charge or Little Round Top at Gettysburg, only disappearing wakes made in the muddy waters of the great river as the boats went from the north to south, bypassing the city’s cannon. No monuments are in the water, no special heroes except for the sailors who did their jobs with this nighttime passage under enemy bombardment.

In the days after these gunboats safely passed Vicksburg, Grant used them to transport 50,000 men across the Mississippi to the eastern shore so that he could approach Vicksburg from the east, its rear. Following a few relatively limited military engagements with Confederate troops in the region surrounding Vicksburg, Grant approached and then surrounded the city.

Once Grant was east of the river, Vicksburg was his--- rather than risking a major battle with great losses, he used an age-old military strategy and laid siege to the city. After forty-seven days of being encircled without new supplies, the Confederate army surrendered. The battlefield park tells that very last part of the story; but the essential story of the small ironclad boats is told only in the current of the river. And the story of Grant’s maneuvers throughout Mississippi itself as he created the conditions to carry out the siege is told in the hundred of miles of surrounding countryside.

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On geology….. Vicksburg is situated on 300 foot high bluffs on the eastern shore of the Mississippi. From this vantage point it overlooks and controls the river. These bluffs were unusually impenetrable because the loess soil of this area falls layer upon layer building up cliffs that are steeper and have a higher angle of repose than hilly lands in the east. In other words, the land holds firm at a steeper pitch, while elsewhere the top layer would slide down and present a more gradual angle. These steep bluffs were formidable obstacles to advancing armies and gave a major assist to the defenders.

On the ironclad boats at the battle for Vicksburg…… James Eads, engineer and owner of a ship building yard in nearby Illinois, was given a contract by the war department to construct seven ironclads. The boats were to be completed within 100 days or a penalty of $200 a day was levied. Amazingly, Eads delivered them all within this very short time frame. He named the ships for towns on the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers.

If feasible, a boat would tow a coal barge at its side to meet the enormous fuel requirements for its steam powered engines. Temperatures below deck could reach 120 degrees. Men slept where they could hang their rope hammocks.

The Confederacy had only a few ships for naval battle on the rivers and most were destroyed well before the battle for Vicksburg. However, they did design an anti-ship mine, then called a torpedo, by loading explosives into a glass bottle with a fuse held on shore. They hit and successfully sunk the Cairo (one of Eads’ boats) with two mines but no loss of life.

For over 100 years, the Cairo sat untouched at the bottom of the Mississippi until 1964 when a park manager decided to search for the sunken hull. He successfully located it by traveling in a wooden boat and using a compass to detect the presence of iron beneath the surface. Then the troubles really began – how to lift the silt-covered hull from the riverbed? After many failed attempts, the ship was raised in three sections, brought to a shipyard in Pascagoula, MS, and prepared for display at the Vicksburg battlefield. The original steam engines were reassembled. The timbers from the hull were salvaged in their weathered condition. Artifacts raised with the ship were well preserved and prepared for displayed in the adjacent museum.

This completes the tale of the naval and land forces taking Vicksburg for the North. Vicksburg became a free city for escaping slaves. The northern victory marked a critical turning point in the Civil War as the Union cut the confederacy in two, opened the south to the Union armies and, controlled the essential inland waterway of the great Mississippi River. After Vicksburg, Grant was ordered east by Lincoln to be the commanding general for all the Union forces.

For an overview of the battle for Vicksburg…….. http://www.weeklystandard.com/grant-at-vicksburg/article/738044