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    The Vicksburg Campaign, November 1862-July 1863 [Illustrated Edition]
    The Vicksburg Campaign, November 1862-July 1863 [Illustrated Edition]
    The Vicksburg Campaign, November 1862-July 1863 [Illustrated Edition]
    Ebook103 pages1 hour

    The Vicksburg Campaign, November 1862-July 1863 [Illustrated Edition]

    By Dr. Christopher Gabel

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    [Includes over 12 illustrations and 2 maps]

    The campaign for the control of Vicksburg was one of the most important contests in determining the outcome of the Civil War. As President Abraham Lincoln observed, “Vicksburg is the key. The war can never be brought to a close until that key is in our pocket.” The struggle for Vicksburg lasted more than a year, and when it was over, the outcome of the Civil War appeared more certain.

    The centerpiece of the Vicksburg campaign was the Mississippi River, just as the great river is the centerpiece of the North American continent. The Mississippi and its tributaries drain over a million square miles of territory in the United States and Canada. These waterways included twenty thousand miles of navigable water, extending from Montana to Pennsylvania and from Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico, making possible the large scale settlement of the west. Between 1810 and 1860, the number of whites residing west of the Appalachians swelled from one million to fifteen million, thanks in large part to the availability of navigable waterways. The black population, mostly slaves, grew from two hundred thousand to over two million, concentrated along the Mississippi. The rivers of the Mississippi basin provided an economic outlet for corn and hogs raised in Iowa and Ohio, as well as the sugar and cotton grown on the great plantations of Louisiana and Mississippi. By 1860, railroads were beginning to penetrate the region, but access to these western rivers remained vital to the economy of both the Midwest and the Deep South.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherGolden Springs Publishing
    Release dateNov 6, 2015
    ISBN9781782899365
    The Vicksburg Campaign, November 1862-July 1863 [Illustrated Edition]
    Author

    Dr. Christopher Gabel

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      Book preview

      The Vicksburg Campaign, November 1862-July 1863 [Illustrated Edition] - Dr. Christopher Gabel

      This edition is published by PICKLE PARTNERS PUBLISHING—www.picklepartnerspublishing.com

      To join our mailing list for new titles or for issues with our books – picklepublishing@gmail.com

      Or on Facebook

      Text originally published in 2000 under the same title.

      © Pickle Partners Publishing 2014, all rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means, electrical, mechanical or otherwise without the written permission of the copyright holder.

      Publisher’s Note

      Although in most cases we have retained the Author’s original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern reader’s benefit.

      We have also made every effort to include all maps and illustrations of the original edition the limitations of formatting do not allow of including larger maps, we will upload as many of these maps as possible.

      Cover: Detail from First at Vicksburg Assault of the 1st Battalion, 13th Infantry, 19 May 1863 (U.S. Army in Action Series)

      by

      Christopher R. Gabel

      TABLE OF CONTENTS

      Contents

      TABLE OF CONTENTS 5

      Introduction 6

      The Vicksburg Campaign — November 1862–July 1863 7

      Strategic Setting 7

      Operations 17

      Grant’s First Offensives 17

      The Bayou Expeditions 26

      Outflanking Vicksburg 30

      Campaign of Maneuver 37

      The Siege 47

      Analysis 53

      The Author 57

      REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER 58

      Further Readings 59

      Introduction

      Although over one hundred fifty years have passed since the start of the American Civil War, that titanic conflict continues to matter. The forces unleashed by that war were immensely destructive because of the significant issues involved: the existence of the Union, the end of slavery, and the very future of the nation. The war remains our most contentious, and our bloodiest, with over six hundred thousand killed in the course of the four year struggle.

      Most civil wars do not spring up overnight, and the American Civil War was no exception. The seeds of the conflict were sown in the earliest days of the republic's founding, primarily over the existence of slavery and the slave trade. Although no conflict can begin without the conscious decisions of those engaged in the debates at that moment, in the end, there was simply no way to paper over the division of the country into two camps: one that was dominated by slavery and the other that sought first to limit its spread and then to abolish it. Our nation was indeed half slave and half free, and that could not stand.

      Regardless of the factors tearing the nation asunder, the soldiers on each side of the struggle went to war for personal reasons: looking for adventure, being caught up in the passions and emotions of their peers, believing in the Union, favoring states' rights, or even justifying the simple schoolyard dynamic of being convinced that they were worth three of the soldiers on the other side. Nor can we overlook the factor that some went to war to prove their manhood. This has been, and continues to be, a key dynamic in understanding combat and the profession of arms. Soldiers join for many reasons but often stay in the fight because of their comrades and because they do not want to seem like cowards. Sometimes issues of national impact shrink to nothing in the intensely personal world of cannon shell and minié ball.

      Whatever the reasons, the struggle was long and costly and only culminated with the conquest of the rebellious Confederacy, the preservation of the Union, and the end of slavery. These campaign pamphlets on the American Civil War, prepared in commemoration of our national sacrifices, seek to remember that war and honor those in the United States Army who died to preserve the Union and free the slaves as well as to tell the story of those American soldiers who fought for the Confederacy despite the inherently flawed nature of their cause. The Civil War was our greatest struggle and continues to deserve our deep study and contemplation.

      RICHARD W. STEWART

      Chief Historian

      The Vicksburg Campaign — November 1862–July 1863

      Strategic Setting

      The campaign for the control of Vicksburg was one of the most important contests in determining the outcome of the Civil War. As President Abraham Lincoln observed, Vicksburg is the key. The war can never be brought to a close until that key is in our pocket. The struggle for Vicksburg lasted more than a year, and when it was over, the outcome of the Civil War appeared more certain.

      The centerpiece of the Vicksburg campaign was the Mississippi River, just as the great river is the centerpiece of the North American continent. The Mississippi and its tributaries drain over a million square miles of territory in the United States and Canada. These waterways included twenty thousand miles of navigable water, extending from Montana to Pennsylvania and from Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico, making possible the large scale settlement of the west. Between 1810 and 1860, the number of whites residing west of the Appalachians swelled from one million to fifteen million, thanks in large part to the availability of navigable waterways. The black population, mostly slaves, grew from two hundred thousand to over two million, concentrated along the Mississippi. The rivers of the Mississippi basin provided an economic outlet for corn and hogs raised in Iowa and Ohio, as well as the sugar and cotton grown on the great plantations of Louisiana and Mississippi. By 1860, railroads were beginning to penetrate the region, but access to these western rivers remained vital to the economy of both the Midwest and the Deep South.

      When the Civil War

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