Closing the Door at Champion Hill

The verdant scenery of newly preserved land at Champion Hill battlefield.

Image courtesy of American Battlefield Trust

Recipient: Mississippi Department of Archives and History

Amount: $ 219,075.00
Acres: 5.34

As winter gave way to spring in 1863, Union troops advanced toward the east of Vicksburg, aiming to cut off the city from reinforcements, and isolate the last major Confederate bastion on the Mississippi River. After Major General Ulysses S. Grant’s Union forces seized Jackson, Mississippi, they engaged Confederates under Lieutenant General John C. Pemberton at Champion Hill on May 16, 1863.

In the seesaw battle that ensued, Union and Confederate infantry repeatedly attacked and counterattacked along the crest of Champion Hill, until poor communication between the Confederate Generals gained Grant the time needed to send Union reinforcements forward and break the Confederate line in an all-out assault. Unable to hold the hill, Pemberton lost the battle, and the last major supply road out of Vicksburg. Two days later, he withdrew his army into Vicksburg’s defenses, and waited for the inevitable siege.

With the financial support of a Battlefield Land Acquisition Grant, the Mississippi Department of Archives and History (MDAH), will work with its non-profit partner, the American Battlefield Trust, to permanently protect 5.43 acres of the Champion Hill Battlefield - part of a larger strategy by MDAH to preserve portions of all of the battlefields from the Vicksburg Campaign.

Battlefield Land Acquisition Grants from the NPS American Battlefield Protection Program empower preservation partners nationwide to acquire and preserve threatened Revolutionary War, War of 1812 and Civil War battlefields. In addition, the program administers three other grants: Preservation Planning Grants, which are open to all sites of armed conflict on American soil, the newly authorized Battlefield Restoration and Battlefield Interpretation Grant programs. This financial assistance generates community-driven stewardship of historic resources at the state, tribal and local levels.