Qualla: Vicksburg Campaign

Vicksburg Campaign: Introduction

Fri, 06 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. "Vicksburg is the key," Abraham Lincoln wrote. "The war can never be brought to a close until that key is in our pocket." Jefferson Davis, from the opposite side, saw it just as clearly: "Vicksburg is the nail head that holds the South's two halves together." Both men were right. Perched on high bluffs above a horseshoe bend in the Mississippi River, the fortress city commanded the last Confederate-controlled stretch of the waterway. For seven months, from December 1862 to July 1863, Ulysses S. Grant threw everything he had at Vicksburg -- failed canal schemes, doomed bayou expeditions, daring nighttime runs past thundering batteries -- until he found a way to crack the Gibraltar of the Confederacy wide open.

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Image: Public domain

Vicksburg Campaign: Seven Failures and a Stubborn General

Fri, 06 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Secretary of War and the War Department, Public domain. Grant's early attempts to reach Vicksburg read like a catalog of frustration. Sherman's assault at Chickasaw Bayou in late December 1862 was repulsed with heavy casualties. Grant's own overland advance collapsed when Confederate cavalry under Earl Van Dorn destroyed his supply de...

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Image: Secretary of War and the War Department | Public domain

Vicksburg Campaign: Running the Batteries

Fri, 06 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Magnus & Boell, Public domain. Grant's final plan was bold and irreversible. He would march the army down the west bank of the Mississippi, have Admiral Porter run gunboats and transports past Vicksburg's batteries under cover of darkness, then cross the river south of the city. Once past, the boats could neve...

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Image: Magnus & Boell | Public domain

Vicksburg Campaign: Seventeen Days That Changed the War

Fri, 06 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Drawing: Edmund Ferman, Public domain. On April 29 and 30, 1863, Grant's army crossed the Mississippi at Bruinsburg -- 17,000 soldiers in the largest American amphibious operation before Normandy. An elaborate series of diversions, including Sherman's feint at Snyder's Bluff and Colonel Benjamin Grierson's daring cava...

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Image: Drawing: Edmund Ferman | Public domain

Vicksburg Campaign: Starved into Surrender

Fri, 06 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Vicksburg Military National Park, Public domain. With Pemberton trapped, Grant laid siege. Two direct assaults on May 19 and 22 were repulsed with 3,200 Union casualties, and Grant settled in for a grinding blockade. For six weeks, soldiers and civilians inside Vicksburg endured constant bombardment and dwindling food. Confeder...

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Image: Vicksburg Military National Park | Public domain

Vicksburg Campaign: The Father of Waters Unveiled

Fri, 06 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Calstanhope, CC BY-SA 4.0. When Port Hudson surrendered five days later on July 9, the entire Mississippi River was in Union hands. The Confederacy was severed in two; Texas and Arkansas were cut off from the eastern states. Within a week, an unarmed ship traveled from St. Louis to Union-held New Orleans w...

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Image: Calstanhope | CC BY-SA 4.0