Vicksburg National Military Park
In the early days of July 1863, the Union and Confederate armies were engaged in two major battles simultaneously. General Lee had invaded southcentral Pennsylvania and was engaging the Union army at the small crossroads town of Gettysburg. A thousand miles to the southwest, General Grant held the Confederate army trapped at Vicksburg, Mississippi under an extended siege. Of the two major Union victories on July 4, 1863, the less celebrated surrender of the city of Vicksburg was probably more strategically important to ending the war. The Vicksburg National Military Park was established in 1899 to preserve the history of the pivotal Vicksburg Campaign and honor the memory of the brave men, from both sides, that fought and died there. The park features a visitor center, 16-mile auto tour of the battlefield, national cemetery, and the USS Cairo Museum.
When hostilities began in April 1861 between the Union and the Confederacy, the city of Vicksburg, Mississippi was already a key hub of commerce. Not only was it an important port on the Mississippi River, but it also had railroad lines and roads that brought goods deep into the South. President Abraham Lincoln knew the strategic importance of the Mississippi River and often referred to the taking of Vicksburg as the key to a Union victory in the war. On their side, the Confederacy knew that Vicksburg was their lifeline to the western Confederate states for such things as beef, pork, rice, and lead. Extensive fortifications were made at Vicksburg at the outbreak of the war with artillery batteries targeting the Mississippi River from the high bluffs and earthen forts protecting the key roads into the city. With its towering bluffs 300 feet over the river and numerous ravines to the east of the city, Vicksburg was a natural fortress and was referred to as the “Gibraltar of the West”.
President Lincoln’s orders to the War Department were to open the Mississippi River and in April 1862 U.S. Navy oceangoing warships proceeded up the river under the command of Admiral David Farragut. They quickly captured New Orleans and Baton Rouge before the flotilla proceeded 400 miles up the river arriving just below Vicksburg on May 18, 1862. A second flotilla of ironclad gunboats proceeded down the Mississippi River from Illinois and after capturing Memphis and destroying the Confederate fleet on the river, they joined Farragut’s force at Vicksburg. The entire length of the Mississippi River was under Union control except for the hairpin bend at Vicksburg.
On June 18, 1862, the Navy gunboats made their first attempt to take Vicksburg from the river. The Confederate artillery batteries were well prepared and blasted away at the Union ships as they passed by and shelled the city with their own guns. This first engagement and subsequent battles failed to take Vicksburg from the water and as summer arrived, Farragut realized that the taking of Vicksburg would require ground troops. As the river level dropped, the deep draft warships of Farragut’s flotilla were forced to retreat to New Orleans. After the retreat, the Union began digging a canal in an effort to bypass the hairpin bend in the river at Vicksburg. After hundreds of freed slaves who had been hired to dig the canal died of disease, the effort was abandoned.
With the naval failures, the task of clearing the Mississippi River of Confederate resistance fell upon a rising star in the Union Army. After a major victory at Fort Donelson and rallying to victory at Shilo in April 1862, Maj. General Ulysses S. Grant was given command of the Army of Tennessee. That same month, Pennsylvania-born Lt. General John C. Pemberton was appointed commander of the Confederate Army in Mississippi with the defense of Vicksburg his top priority. Both Grant and Pemberton were West Point graduates and had actually served together in the Mexican War.
During the winter of 1862-1863, Grant’s army made numerous attempts to attack Vicksburg by moving south out of Tennessee. Disruption of supply lines, extremely wet weather, and fierce Confederate resistance repealed these winter campaigns. As spring arrived, Grant had devised a new plan: his army would march down the Louisiana side of the Mississippi River, destroy railroads heading east into Vicksburg, and then perform a river crossing south of the city. This was a risky plan for Grant was depending on a naval flotilla being able to run the gauntlet of Vicksburg’s artillery batteries and deliver the much-needed supplies as well as boats for his army’s crossing. Despite objections by his commanders like Lt. General William T. Sherman, Grant marched a 45,000-strong army south to Hard Times Landing on the west side of the river and waited for the navy.
On April 16, 1863, a Union flotilla consisting of eight gunboats and three transports weighed anchor and began to drift towards Vicksburg. Lights on the flotilla were extinguished, bales of cotton and hay were used to muffle engine sound, and the transports tucked in behind the gunboats for protection. Just before midnight, Confederate pickets spotted the flotilla approaching Vicksburg and sounded the alarm. Tar barrels along the banks of the river were lite aflame to illuminate the ships on the water and all hell broke loose. The Confederate batteries opened fire with every gun in the city, many from atop the bluffs, and the Union gunboats returned fire. Despite every ship being struck, some multiple times, only one transport ship was sunk and the flotilla slipped passed Vicksburg: they had run the gauntlet.
After the flotilla made some repairs, they rendezvous with Grant’s army on April 30 and assisted with the largest amphibious operation in history up until the landings at Normandy. The Union Army was now established east of the Mississippi River deep in enemy territory. After a quick defeat of Pemberton’s forces at Port Gibson, Grant turned his army northeast towards the state capitol at Jackson. With Sherman implementing his trademarked “scorched earth” tactics, the Union army had victories at Raymond and then Jackson before Grant turned his army west towards Vicksburg. General Lee had instructed Pemberton to defend Vicksburg at all cost, but Pemberton felt that the Union army was vulnerable without supply lines so he led a force of 23,000 Confederates soldiers out of the city’s defenses to engage Grant’s army of 32,000 men.
The Battle of Champion Hill on May 16, 1863 was the bloodiest engagement of the Vicksburg Campaign. Pemberton’s force lost 4,000 men while the Union had 2,500 casualties. As the Confederates retreated west back towards Vicksburg along the Southern Railroad of Mississippi, the two armies clashed again at the Battle of the Big Black River Bridge on May 17. Overwhelmed and disorganized, Pemberton’s troops withdrew to the fortifications of Vicksburg where they had the advantage. General Grant’s army destroyed all the railroads leading into Vicksburg and were in hot pursuit of their Confederate foe.
On May 18, Union forces closed in on the Confederate defenses at Vicksburg which consisted of extensive earthworks and trench positions protecting the roads into the city. The terrain itself was a significant obstacle with steep gullies and ravines forcing Union forces to use the road system. Pemberton was confident that the Confederates could hold their defensive positions until reinforcements arrived from the east. The Union’s first attack on fortifications came on May 19 when Sherman led an assault on the Stockade Redan. Although they got close to the works, Union forces failed to breach the defenses losing 1,000 soldiers in the process before Sherman ordered a withdraw in what he called “a murderous endeavor”.
Grant was not deterred in the least and ordered a second more extensive assault for May 22 along a three-mile front from Stockade Redan to Fort Garrott. A simultaneous assault was launched by Union forces at 10am led by troops bearing wooden ladders in an attempt to scale the walls of the earthworks. Confederate defenders held their positions along Graveyard Road and inflicted 3,200 Union casualties with only light loses on their own side.
Following the May 22 failed assault on Vicksburg’s fortifications, Grant made the decision to switch tactics against a dug in enemy. He knew with the Mississippi River open to Union shipping that he had access to unlimited supplies, while his enemy was cut off from its supply lines. Grant ordered his commanders to make preparations for a siege of Vicksburg’s defenders and civilian population. Almost immediately, Union troops picked up shovels and beginning digging over 60,000 feet of zigzagging approach trenches to gain protected positions close to Confederate defenses. A total of thirteen major approaches were dug and gave cover to sharpshooters and miners who began tunneling under Confederate earthworks. On June 25, miners completed a tunnel under the 3rd Louisiana Redan and packed it with 2,200 pounds of powder. When the mine was detonated, a crater 40 feet in diameter and 12 feet deep was formed. Union troops poured into the breached fortification, but Confederate forces had been wise to the mining effort and successfully repealed the assault. In addition to the approach trenches, Union forces created 89 artillery positions with some 220 cannons targeting Vicksburg.
As the siege of Vicksburg dragged on, conditions within the city deteriorated. Union artillery on land and river barges fired upon the city night and day. Grant had ordered the damming and contamination of creeks and springs bringing drinking water into the city. The civilian population of Vicksburg, roughly 4,500 people, had resorted to living in caves dug into the hillsides to escape the relentless shelling. They only ventured out for fresh air when Union batteries ate their meals. The rations of Confederate soldiers consisted of only a cup of muddy river water, a few peas, and small portion of rice. There wasn’t a dog, cat, or donkey left in the city and rats became a delicacy. After enduring 47 days of a siege, Pemberton conceded that no reinforcements were coming and on July 3 he rode out under a white flag to discuss terms of surrender with Grant.
True to his nickname of “Unconditional”, Grant offered his terms of unconditional surrender to Pemberton which he immediately rejected. Grant’s subordinate officers convinced him that their army wasn’t prepared to take on tens of thousands of prisoners as they were preparing to march east to take the fight into the heart of the Confederacy. Grant modified his terms and offered parole to Confederate officers and soldiers. They had to sign a loyalty oath to the Union and turn in their weapons, but they could return to their homes with their personal property with one exception: no slaves could be claimed as personal property. Pemberton accepted Grant’s terms and on July 4, 1863, the Vicksburg garrison of 29,500 Confederate soldiers surrendered to Union forces ending the fourteen-month Vicksburg campaign. On the same day that President Lincoln learned of the Union victory at Gettysburg, he received a telegram announcing that the entire length of the Mississippi River was now in Union control.
The USS Cairo was one of seven ironclad gunboats built for the US Navy’s “brown water” fleet. These shallow-draft, steam powered warships were specifically designed for use on American rivers and featured iron plate armor. The Cairo measured 175 feet in length, had a six-foot draft, was armed with 13 cannons, and had a compliment of 175 officers and enlisted men. On December 12, 1862 in preparations of Sherman’s advance on Chickasaw Bayou, the USS Cairo slipped up the Yazoo River on a mine sweeping operation with other naval vessels. Suddenly, two explosions in quick succession tore gaping holes in the gunboat’s hull. Within minutes the ironclad laid on the bottom of the river with only the smoke stacks exposed. Fortunately, there was no loss of life and the Cairo laid on the bottom of the river until it was rediscovered in the 1950s. Following a salvage operation in the early 1960s, the USS Cairo and many of the artifacts found aboard were put on display at the Vicksburg National Military Park.
Soon after the park was established in 1899, the nation’s leading architects and sculptors were commissioned to honor the soldiers and sailors that fought throughout the Vicksburg Campaign. The park’s earliest state memorial was dedicated in 1903, and more than 95% of the monuments that followed were erected prior to 1917. Roughly half of the pieces in the park are in fact iron plaques marking trench lines, artillery batteries, and infantry positions to document battle events. Another large number of pieces are the regimental monuments and markers remember the fighting of individual units. However, the most artistic and photographed pieces in Vicksburg National Military Park are the 22 state memorials which were funded by the individual states to honor the sacrifices of the men from their states. The Illinois Monument is the largest and fashioned after the Pantheon in Rome. Another interesting monument is from Missouri where they honor their sons who fought for both the Union and Confederacy.
