Vicksburg campaign

Vicksburg Campaign
Part of the American Civil War
Lithograph of the Mississippi River Squadron running the Confederate blockade at Vicksburg on April 16, 1863
Date December 29, 1862 – January 11, 1863 (operations against Vicksburg; 1 week and 6 days) and March 29 – July 4, 1863 (Grant's operations against Vicksburg; 3 months and 5 days) Location In and around Vicksburg, Mississippi 32°21′N 90°53′W / 32.35°N 90.88°W / 32.35; -90.88 Result Decisive Union victory
Belligerents
United States (Union)	Confederate States
Commanders and leaders
Ulysses S. Grant William T. Sherman	John C. Pemberton  Joseph E. Johnston
Units involved
Army of the Tennessee	Army of Mississippi
Strength
~28,800–73,095[1]	~43,600–65,800 (aggregate of Pemberton and Johnston)[1]
Casualties and losses
10,142 total (1,581 killed  7,554 wounded  1,007 missing)[2]	38,586 total (1,413 killed  3,878 wounded  3,800 missing  29,495 surrendered)[2][3]

The Vicksburg campaign was a series of maneuvers and battles in the Western Theater of the American Civil War directed against Vicksburg, Mississippi, a fortress city that dominated the last Confederate-controlled section of the Mississippi River. The Union Army of the Tennessee under Major General Ulysses S. Grant gained control of the river by capturing this stronghold and defeating Lieutenant General John C. Pemberton's forces stationed there.

The campaign consisted of many important naval operations, troop maneuvers, failed initiatives, and eleven distinct battles from December 26, 1862, to July 4, 1863. Military historians divide the campaign into two formal phases: operations against Vicksburg (December 1862 – January 1863) and Grant's operations against Vicksburg (March – July 1863).

Grant initially planned a two-pronged approach in which half of his army, under Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman, would advance to the Yazoo River and attempt to reach Vicksburg from the northeast, while Grant took the remainder of the army down the Mississippi Central Railroad. Both of these initiatives failed. Grant conducted a number of "experiments" or expeditions—Grant's bayou operations—that attempted to enable waterborne access to the Mississippi south of Vicksburg's artillery batteries. All five of these initiatives failed as well. Finally, Union gunboats and troop transport boats ran the batteries at Vicksburg and met up with Grant's men who had marched overland in Louisiana. On April 29 and April 30, 1863, Grant's army crossed the Mississippi and landed at Bruinsburg, Mississippi. An elaborate series of demonstrations and diversions fooled the Confederates and the landings occurred without opposition. Over the next 17 days, Grant maneuvered his army inland and won five battles, captured the state capital of Jackson, Mississippi, and assaulted and laid siege to Vicksburg.

After Pemberton's army surrendered on July 4 (one day after the Confederate defeat at Gettysburg), and when Port Hudson surrendered to Maj. Gen. Nathaniel P. Banks on July 9, Texas and Arkansas were effectively cut off from the Confederacy, and the Mississippi River was once again open for northern commerce to reach the Gulf of Mexico, and as a supply line for the Union Army. Grant's Vicksburg campaign is studied as a masterpiece of military operations and a major turning point of the war.