Mackowski, Chris The Civil War. The Vicksburg Campaign, 1863. The Inland Battles, Siege and Surrender

A volume from the "Casemate Illustrated" series. At the end of March 1863, Major General Ulysses S. Grant found himself at a crossroads in his military career. His bold attempts in the late autumn of 1862 and the winter of 1862/63 had all failed to achieve his goal: to take his army to the heights north and east of Vicksburg and conquer the last great obstacle on the Mississippi. Grant failed due to the swampy bays of the difficult region and Confederate resistance at key points that thwarted his advances and prolonged his army's miserable situation in the ailing camps in the Louisiana low country. Confederate Lieutenant General John C. Pemberton had done a good job of using his railway lines and inland reconnaissance networks to place blocking forces or obstacles that delayed or derailed Grant's movements. Realising that his career was on the line, Grant opted for the riskiest operation he could have devised. In a joint military operation, Grant marched two of his army corps across the roads and along the Louisiana bayous, repairing them one by one, while Acting Rear Admiral David Dixon Porter led his gunboats with transports past the Confederate heavy artillery defending the Vicksburg river front. Grant hoped to assemble enough boats south of the city to cross the Mississippi, make a forced march into the state, and advance on Vicksburg from the east-west connection. In doing so, Grant would jeopardise his most important logistics and supply line, which his subordinate officers considered a fatal mistake. Grant would be taking the risk of a zero-sum game: He would take Vicksburg or destroy himself and his army in the process. This publication examines the movements of the Union and Confederate armies from March 1863 to July 1863, the joint operational co-operation between the US Army and the US Navy, the delayed and indecisive Confederate operations to stop the Union initiative, and the manner in which the individual soldiers conducted one of the greatest campaigns in American military history: control of the "Father of Waters" - the Mississippi River.