The City of Vicksburg occupies a steep bluff overlooking the Mississippi River. In 1863 the city was well fortified by state-of-the-art fortifications and heavy cannon. Sometimes known as fortress Vicksburg, the city stood across the Mississippi from the terminus of a railroad line that brought Texas beef and other supplies as well as military equipment smuggled into Texas from Mexico. Mexican ports were not affected by the American blockade. Another railroad line left Vicksburg and stretched through Jackson, Mississippi, and back to the Eastern theater. The Vicksburg fortifications kept the Mississippi essentially closed to Union traffic north and south of the city.
The Vicksburg garrison numbered about 35,000 men under the command of Confederate General John C. Pemberton, a Pennsylvanian who was married to a woman from Virginia. To the north of the city stood Chickasaw bluffs, a steep, wooded approach that could be accessed only by going through the messy Chickasaw Bayou. To the south were more steep cliffs, also well protected. Approaching the city from the river side would have been well nigh impossible.
Starting in the fall of 1862, Grant began trying various strategies to capture Vicksburg.
From his base in Memphis Grant set out to approach Vicksburg by an inland route through a supply base which he established at Holly Springs in northern Mississippi. But cavalry raids by Nathan Bedford Forrest and Earl Van Dorn repeatedly disrupted Grant's supply lines, and he was forced to withdraw. Grant then tried sending gunboats and transports through the
Swamps and bayous on both sides of the Mississippi, but often found the waterways thick with overhanging branches and channeled through swampy ground. Progress was slow, and Confederate sharpshooters could easily harass attempts to cut a path through the natural barriers. In early 1863 Grant even had General Sherman's men try to reroute the Mississippi River though "Grant's canal," a ditch across a neck of land in a bend in the Mississippi opposite Vicksburg. None of those approaches worked, and Grant knew he had to find a way to get at the fortress city from the eastern land side.
The result of Grant's planning was what Civil War historians have accurately called the most brilliant campaign of the Civil War. Grant had Flag Officer Foote float his gunboats and transports down the Mississippi without power during a dark night; most of them made it.
Then Grant marched his entire army South along the west bank of the Mississippi past Vicksburg, crossed the river at Bruinsburg, and set out for Jackson, about 40 miles to the east. Grant commandeered all the wagons he could find and took his supplies with him, cutting off communication with the river (and with Washington) as he headed northeast.
In the meantime Grant had directed Colonel Benjamin Grierson to take a cavalry force from Holly Springs through the area around Jackson and down to Baton Rouge. Grierson led three regiments of cavalry, about 1,700 troops, 600 miles in a little over two weeks. They tore up railroad tracks, cut telegraph wires, destroyed bridges, warehouses and railroad equipment and generally raised hell, occasionally making feints to distract Confederate pursuers. (A few of the more adventurous of Grierson's men also "liberated" a quantity of Southern whiskey while en route; some of them had to be tied onto their saddles.)
Grant fought his way to Jackson, rolling over outnumbered defenders, as Pemberton could not send the entire Vicksburg garrison in pursuit of Grant. Securing his rear at Jackson, Grant then turned toward Vicksburg's defenders, who had come out to meet him. After winning a battle at Champion's Hill, he drove the Confederates relentlessly back into the city.
His attempts to storm the garrison, however, failed, and Grant settled into a siege which lasted 45 days. When Pemberton found his men, as well as the inhabitants of the city, desperately short of supplies and under constant bombardment from Grant's artillery, he had no choice but to surrender. Pemberton turned over the city and its garrison on July 4, 1863, one day after Lee's troops were turned back in Pickett's charge at Gettysburg.
President Lincoln, who had grown up in the Mississippi Valley and understood the significance of the capture of Vicksburg, sent a telegram of congratulations to Grant. He is said to have remarked, "Once again the father of waters flows unvexed to the sea." The double blow of Gettysburg and Vicksburg crippled the South and set the stage for the final phase of the war.
The New York City Draft Riots. Despite the victories at Vicksburg and Gettysburg President Lincoln could not rest easy throughout the summer and fall of 1863. The combination of the Emancipation Proclamation and the draft system, which placed the burden of the continued fighting mostly on working-class men, led to discontent, especially among the Irish working-class people in New York City. Fearing that liberated slaves might threaten their economic well-being, and disgruntled over the implications of the draft, workers fomented a riot in New York City to show their discontent with the war and emancipation.
Rampaging through black neighborhoods they set fires and beat or terrorized African-Americans. Eleven men were murdered by lynch mobs, and the riots were only quelled when federal troops were sent from Pennsylvania to the city. Although the naval bombardment depicted in the recent film Gangs of New York did not occur, federal troops used artillery against the rioters, who numbered in the thousands.
The Copperheads. Lincoln's problems did not end with the suppression of the New York race riot. Political opposition to Lincoln's wartime policies was headed by a group of disgruntled Democrats, called Copperheads by their Republican opponents. Although members of the movement did not have a unified agenda, they were opposed to the war, and many of them thought it was being fought to free the slaves and destroy the South. Some of the same motives that propelled the New York rioters were present among the Copperheads, who were politically very active. Lincoln did not hesitate to deal forcefully with dissenters whom he felt were hurting the Union cause. He suspended habeas corpus and had thousands of dissenters jailed under martial law. He placed saving the Union above scrupulous adherence to constitutionally guaranteed liberties, an act for which he has been criticized.
The most famous copperhead was Clement L. Vallandigham, an Ohio politician who made speeches openly critical of Lincoln and his policies. Accused of disloyalty in time of war, Vallandigham was court-martialed, convicted and eventually given free passage through Confederate lines to Canada, whence he ran for governor of Ohio. He was defeated in a prowar landslide, but his Democratic supporters managed to get a Copperhead platform accepted during the 1864 presidential election. General George B. McClellan, the Democratic nominee for president, did not accept the Copperhead agenda and was pro-war, though
Lincoln feared the ultimate result if McClelian were elected, as the Copperhead movement was a serious threat to the Union cause.
Chickamauga. In September 1863 the battleground shifted to southeast Tennessee and northwestern Georgia. General Longstreet, whose Corps had been detached from Lee's army, joined forces with General Bragg and attacked Union forces south of Chattanooga along Chickamauga Creek. The Union Army was spared a disastrous defeat by the bravery of General George H. Thomas and his brigade, who stood their ground long enough to allow the Union Army to make an orderly retreat into Chattanooga. For his performance Thomas became known as the "Rock of Chickamauga," and his brave soldiers the Chickamauga brigade.92
Since the Federal troops in Chattanooga suffered from supply shortages and poor morale, General Grant was directed to proceed to Chattanooga to take charge. Grant arrived inauspiciously, purchased a horse from a local stable, and rode out to the Union headquarters. Calling the commanders together, he asked each to outline for him the disposition and condition of his troops. He sat listening quietly and when he had heard enough, he began writing out orders for each commander on a notepad. Distributing the written instructions, he told his officers that they had their orders and sent them on their way. Within two days supply lines had been opened and troop morale began to return.
Chattanooga. In November 1863 the last major battle of that decisive year was fought at Chattanooga. Grant's corps commanders, Generals Hooker, Sherman and Thomas, engaged Bragg's troops while Longstreet was carrying out a siege of Knoxville. Once again a corps commander, General Hooker took his men to the heights of Lookout Mountain which overlooks the city of Chattanooga and the Tennessee Valley. In an action that became known as the "battle above the clouds," Hooker drove the Confederates off the mountain. He then raised the national flag at the summit, encouraging the troops below.93
Although Grant had ordered that there be no frontal assaults against well-defended Confederate positions, troops under Sherman and Thomas approaching Confederate defenses along Missionary Ridge took it upon themselves to assault the Confederate lines, feeling that they were vulnerable in the position they held at the base of the ridge. The assault was successful, and the battle resulted in Chattanooga, the "gateway to the South," being fully in Union hands. One of the two major Confederate armies still in operation had been routed.
Summary of 1863. The three great Union victories at Gettysburg, Vicksburg, and Chattanooga shifted the tide dramatically in favor of the Union, but the South was not yet defeated nor ready to surrender; soldiers on both sides prepared for another year of warfare. President Lincoln weathered political storms but was concerned about his reelection if the war did not become settled by the fall. Most important, Lincoln now knew he had a general who could fight, and he would soon appoint Grant to overall command of the Union armies. While Confederate General Lee still commanded great respect, dissension was rising among other top Confederate commanders.
World History
