From her strategic location on the bluffs overlooking the Mississippi River, Vicksburg became a fortress. For 47 days in 1863 Vicksburg and her people were entangled in a siege that changed the course of America’s history.
In October 1862, Vicksburg became the focus of military operations for Maj. General Ulysses S. Grant who was ordered to clear the Mississippi of Confederate resistance, and Lt. General John C, Pemberton, who with about 50,000 scattered Confederate troops, was expected to keep the river open.
Campaign for Vicksburg
Vicksburg was protected by heavy gun batteries along the riverfront, swamps and bayous to the north and south and by a ring of forts mounting 172 guns that guarded all land approaches. Grant failed in a direct attack on Dec. 29, when he sent Sherman toward Vicksburg by way of Chickasaw Bayou, where he was defeated. Grant next tried a series of amphibious operations aimed at forcing the city’s surrender. Despite Grant’s large riverboat flotilla and supporting warships, all failed, including an effort to bypass the Vicksburg batteries by digging a canal. By spring, Grant decided to march his army of 45, 000 men down the Louisiana side of the Mississippi, cross the river below Vicksburg, and attack the city from the south or east.
Grant tried to cross the river at Grand Gulf, south of Vicksburg, but his gunboats failed due to strong Confederate defensive works and determined resistance. Rather than a direct assault on the powerful fortifications in his way at Grand Gulf, Grant chose to bypass the formidable works. Instead he marched his army further south and used riverboats to cross to the East side of the river nine miles below Grand Gulf, effectively outflanking the formidable position.
Grant marched further south and then eastward where he defeated elements of Pemberton’s forces and captured Jackson, the state capital on May 14. He then turned west towards Vicksburg. On May 16, at Champion Hill, Grant defeated Pemberton’s army in a bloody action. The next day, Federal troops drove Confederate troops back into the Vicksburg fortifications. After several attacks, Grant, reluctant to expend more of his men’s lives, surrounded the city and began siege operations. Confederate soldiers and civilians were surrounded by a powerful army, unable to obtain arms, ammunition, food or medicine, but refused surrender.
Besieged City
Enduring the hardships of sweltering heat, mosquitoes, exhaustion, hunger from reduced rations, sickness, depression and a longing for home, soldiers and civilians survived the best that they knew how. Some kept diaries that helped to relieve the tension of battle. Others held tight to their religious beliefs as evidenced by the Bible carried by a Confederate at Vicksburg during the Siege.
Newsprint became so scarce during the siege that J. M. Swords, the newspaper’s publisher, began printing Vicksburg’s newspaper, The Daily Citizen using wallpaper. The news of the day was relayed to citizens and soldiers in the besieged city. Upon Vicksburg’s surrender on July 4, 1863, the publisher fled, and the Union forces marched into the city. Finding the type of the Citizen still standing, Union soldiers added the now famous note of July 4 in the lower right-hand corner and printed a final edition.
JULY 4th, 1863
Two days bring about great changes,
The banner of the Union floats over
Vicksburg. Gen. Grant has “caught the
rabbit;” he has dined in Vicksburg, and
he did bring his dinner with him. The
“Citizen” lives to see it. For the last
time it appears on “Wall Paper.” No
more will it eulogize the luxury of mule meat
and Fricasseed kitten-urge Southern warriors
to such diet nevermore. This is the last
wall-paper edition, and is, excepting this note,
from types as we found them. It will be valuable
hereafter as a curiosity.
Surrender
Artillery batteries hammered Confederate fortifications from land and gunboats blasted the city from the river. By the end of June, Pemberton knew he would need to “capitulate upon the best attainable terms.” The surrender of Vicksburg and Port Hudson, together with the defeat of General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia at Gettysburg, July 1-3, signaled a turning point in the Civil War. Although fighting continued for another 21 months, Federal control of the Mississippi River helped to ensure the survival of the Union.
Occupied City
After its surrender Vicksburg served as an important base for Federal military operations throughout the region and was an exchange point for prisoners-of-war. A force of 5,000 U.S. Colored Troops patrolled the streets and manned the city’s defenses. During this time, Vicksburg’s white citizens endured the suspension of civil liberties and were required to take loyalty oaths or face arrest or banishment from the city; while the Freedmen’s Bureau, an active Federal government agency, worked to feed, clothe, and educate the former slaves. The return of commerce along the Mississippi River enabled Vicksburg and its citizens, black and white, to rise from the ashes of war and rebuild the city with a new social order. Although Mississippi was readmitted to the Union in 1870, Federal troops continued to occupy portions of the state until 1877.
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