Tour Stop #13 - Railroad Redoubt

A lone Texas soldier stares over the Railroad Redoubt and across the battlefield.

NPS

Quick Facts

Location:

Vicksburg, Mississippi

Amenities

3 listed

Accessible Sites, Parking - Auto, Parking - Bus/RV

This powerful Confederate earthwork barred access to Vicksburg by way of the Southern Railroad of Mississippi. In furious action on the morning of May 22, Federal infantry gained a tenuous foothold inside the redoubt but failed to achieve a breakthrough. In the afternoon, a detachment of Waul’s Texas Legion dislodged the Union troops from the fort and sealed this breech in the Confederate lines.

• Tour Stop #13 - The Railroad Redoubt

  
  

  This track discusses the only successful Union breach of the Confederate's fortifications on May 22, 1863.

  Date created:

  12/31/2021

  Audio Transcript

  This fort was built by the Confederates to guard the approach to Vicksburg via the Southern Railroad of Mississippi.

  Of all of Grant’s assaults on the Confederate defenses on May 22nd, the attack on this fort came closest to succeeding.

  After a four-hour artillery bombardment, the Federals gunners had blown a hole through the point of the fort.

  And when the signal for the infantry attack sounded, the 22nd Iowa attacked the destroyed section, and a handful of Federals, led by Sgt. Joseph E. Griffith, entered the fort.

  There, the fate of Vicksburg hung in the balance.

  If Griffith’s men had held on until reinforcements arrived, then they could break through the Confederate line and defeat Pemberton’s army for the last time and capture Vicksburg.

  But that day the Confederates were quicker.

  After members of an Alabama regiment refused to retake the fort, a squad of Texans rushed into the rear of the fort, and after a short fight, retook it, and saved Vicksburg.

  Brave as the Texans where, they could not drive off the Union troops massed in the ditch outside the fort’s walls.

  One Confederate wrote that he peeped over the top of the wall and saw an sea of blue soldiers below, milling around” but they could not get in.

  Using hand grenades as well as muskets, the Confederates harassed the yanks for the rest of the day, and at one point, even General Stephen D. Lee could be seen tossing artillery rounds over the top.