• View from Battery DeGolyer

    Vicksburg

    National Military Park Mississippi

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    VNMP is hosting 3 outdoor concerts at the Clay Street Visitor Center, May 24, 25, & 26. The VC parking lot will close at 5:00pm those days and NO on-site parking will be allowed. Click 'More' for detailed parking information. More »

First Assault on the Vicksburg Defenses (May 19)

Graveyard Road Looking Toward Stockade Redan

Graveyard Road Looking Toward Stockade Redan

NPS Photo

Anxious for a quick victory, Grant made a hasty reconnaissance of the Vicksburg defenses and ordered an assault. Of his three corps, however, only one was in proper position to make the attack — Sherman's corps along the Graveyard Road, northeast of Vicksburg. Early on the morning of May 19, Union artillery opened fire and bombarded the Confederate works with solid shot and shell.

With lines neatly dressed and their battle flags blowing in the breeze above them, Sherman's troops surged across the rugged terrain at 2:00 p.m., through abatis (obstructions of felled trees) laid out by the Confederates, toward Stockade Redan. Although the men of the 1st Battalion, 13th United States Infantry, planted their colors on the exterior slope of Stockade Redan (a powerful Confederate fort which guarded the road), the attack was repulsed with Federal losses numbering 1,000 men.
 
Stockade Redan
Stockade Redan
NPS Photo
 
Back to Vicksburg Campaign and Siege

Did You Know?

Did You Know?

The Union siege lines and Confederate defensive lines were marked during the first decade of the 20th century by many of the veterans who fought at Vicksburg, thus making Vicksburg National Military Park one of the most accurately marked military parks in the world.