How long was vicksburg battle

In the largest amphibious operation ever conducted by an American force prior to World War II, Grant and Porter transferred 24, men and 60 guns from the west bank to the east.

They landed unopposed at Bruinsburg, Mississippi, and began marching toward Port Gibson and Grand Gulf, towns north along the river. Four divisions clashed with a Confederate brigade along Bayou Pierre near Port Gibson on May 1, costing each side between and men, but the two river towns were captured without further significant fighting.

Two Confederate forces were in the area: a small one of approximately 5, men at Jackson and 26, men of the Vicksburg garrison. Vicksburg was under the command of Lt. John C.

Pemberton, a West Point-trained engineer and native Pennsylvanian with a Southern wife, who had chosen to fight for the Confederacy. Hours of confused fighting ended when the Southerners, under Brig. John Gregg, retreated. The following evening, Confederate general Joseph E. Johnston arrived in Jackson. Lee taking over the defense of Richmond and initiating the Seven Days Battle. Johnston was now commanding the Department of the West and had been ordered to Mississippi to counter the growing threat.

He looked at the inadequate defenses and ordered the troops, now about 6, in number, to evacuate. Pemberton left 9, men to garrison Vicksburg and marched with 17, to find that supply line.

Overwhelming numbers carried the day, and Pemberton withdrew. One of his divisions, that of Maj. Federal troops of Brig. The 20,—25, he had marched out of Vicksburg with had been reduced by approximately 5, Including the garrison he left behind to protect the town, his effective force was not much over 30, men. Pemberton, the engineer, had developed a series of strong works around Vicksburg, and the Federals were repulsed by the defenders of Stockade Redan, suffering 1, casualties.

Three days later, coordinated assaults were made: Sherman along the Graveyard Road, Maj. These losses and the strong Confederate defensive works convinced Grant to take the town by siege, cutting it off from all supply. He initiated a plan that is still studied today as a classic example of how to conduct siege warfare. One group tunneled underneath the Third Louisiana Redan, named for its defenders, and on June 25 detonated barrels of black powder that blasted a hole in the works.

Union soldiers surged into the breach only to be met by a counterattack. Desperate hand-to-hand fighting ensued for hours before the attackers were driven out.

A second mine was exploded on July 1 but was not followed up by an attack. That same day, Joe Johnston finally sent a relief force from re-occupied Jackson toward Vicksburg, but it was too little, too late, and did not play a role in the fighting. Food and other supplies from outside had been cut off for a month and a half. Horses, dogs, cats, reportedly even rats became part of the diet for soldiers and civilians alike. On July 3, Pemberton rode out to discuss surrender terms with Grant.

The next morning, July 4, Confederate soldiers began marching out and stacking their guns. The city of Vicksburg would not celebrate the Fourth of July as a holiday thereafter until well into the 20th century. Some 29, surrendered. With the fall of the Confederate Gibraltar, the last remaining Southern stronghold on the Mississippi, Port Hudson, also capitulated.

Rosecrans forced the Confederate Army of Tennessee to withdraw from the Middle Tennessee area to Chattanooga, just north of the Georgia state line. The winds of war had shifted in favor of the North. The Confederacy had been irretrievably divided east and west. Pemberton found the Confederate government was no longer willing to entrust him with high command and, remarkably, he resigned his commission and attempted to re-enlist as a private.

Southern president Jefferson Davis commissioned him a lieutenant coronel of artillery instead. Joseph Johnston briefly attempted to hold Jackson, but the Federals reoccupied it. Destruction there was so complete that it became known as "Chimneyville—virtually all that was left. Johnston would lead the Army of Tennessee during most of the Atlanta Campaign and again following the Southern debacle at Franklin and Nashville in the winter of Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia.

He came to regret his decision to parole the Vicksburg garrison, however. Most of its men re-enlisted without being exchanged for Union prisoners, as was the custom, putting thousands more rifles back into the Southern ranks.

As a result, Grant would virtually halt prisoner exchanges when he was promoted to command all armies, a decision that perhaps shortened the war but also condemned thousands of prisoners north and south to prolonged incarceration and death in the unsanitary conditions of overcrowded prisoner of war camps. Today, the Vicksburg National Military Park stretches over 1, acres of fields, woods, and ravines.

It includes the Vicksburg National Cemetery, the final resting place of 17, Union soldiers, the largest number of any national cemetery. Faust II, Library of Congress. Alarmed residents of Vicksburg, Mississippi, watched in despair on the night of May 17, , as thousands of ragged, downcast Southern soldiers poured into their city from all directions.

The man the Rebels were running from, Union Maj. Grant, had ended months of Northern frustration and failure by landing an overwhelming force in western Mississippi on the night of April 30, then moving inland across the state.

In 17 days of brilliant campaigning, the misleadingly phlegmatic Grant had inflicted five crushing defeats on separate bands of Confederate warriors who had always felt that enemy soldiers could never threaten them so deep on their own home soil. All this Grant had accomplished while cut off from his base of operations and supply, and in direct violation of his stated orders to advance south into Louisiana for a combined operation against Port Hudson.

By May 16, when he met and decisively defeated Lt. Vicksburg had been the object of intense Union attention since the start of the war. Abraham Lincoln knew its importance.

A Union charge was not long in coming. Grant, confident that one sharp push could overwhelm the demoralized Confederates in their defenses and avoid a long, uncomfortable siege, ordered an assault all along his front to begin at mid-afternoon on May Major General William T. Meanwhile, Maj. Pemberton had left 10, men in the city when he ventured out, and these unbloodied troops stiffened the resolve of those returning from battle. They were also behind strong fortifications.

And, as Grant soon would find out, he could not even rely on the normal competence of his corps commanders in the upcoming fight. The May 19 action was hampered from the start. Only one brigade, commanded by Colonel Giles Smith, managed to gain much headway. Troopers from the 1st Battalion, 13th U. Volunteer regiments from Indiana and Illinois joined them, but they could not enter the works because of intense Confederate fire.

Other Union troops did not get as far. Jump to: navigation , search. Photographic copy of a lithograph by Alfred E. Mathews depicting the siege of Vicksburg.

See Also Ulysses S. Ballard, Michael B. Vicksburg: The Campaign that Opened the Mississippi. Dee, Christine, ed. Athens: Ohio University Press, Guide to the Vicksburg Campaign. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, Grant, Ulysses S. New York, NY: Forge, The Papers of Ulysses S. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, n. McFeely, William S.

Grant: A Biography. New York, NY: Norton, Ohio at Vicksburg. Columbus, OH: n. Pemberton, John Clifford. Pemberton was given the duty of defending it.

He described it for his wife in his June 12, , letter. Cheney's unit never had to move closer to Vicksburg. Grant, supported by Major General William T. Sherman, worked his siege strategy using troops on land and gunboats. He used frontal assaults, artillery bombardments, and even dug under the Confederate earthworks to place explosives.