Tour Stop #6 - Thayer's Approach

A view looking down the hill at Thayer's Approach from the Confederate lines.

NPS

Quick Facts

Location:

Vicksburg, Mississippi

Union troops of Gen. John Thayer’s brigade dug an approach trench up the 200-foot high ridge close to the tree line on your right. Just before the end of the siege, the approach reached a Confederate redoubt atop the ridge. Thayer’s infantrymen used the tunnel underneath the road to avoid enemy fire directed against the ridge adjoining the tour route.

*THIS TOUR STOP IS CURRENTLY PART OF A ROAD CLOSURE AND CAN BE SEEN FROM THE TOP OF THE HILL ON CONFEDERATE AVENUE.

• Tour Stop #6 - Thayer's Approach

  
  

  This track discusses the location where men of Union General John M. Thayer's brigade dug an approach trench up the hill and under the Confederate's position. *With North Union Avenue temporarily closed, visitors are now looking downhill from the Confederate perspective.

  Date created:

  12/31/2021

  Audio Transcript

  The assaults of May 22nd were heroic, but futile attempts. Here, the Union soldiers attempted to drive the 26th Louisiana Infantry from its positions at the crest of the hill before you.

  Having failed to carry this section of Confederate line by storm, General John M. Thayer’s soldiers then began digging a six-foot deep approach trench towards the Rebel positions.

  Union troops digging the approach were concealed by a roof made of bundles of cane called fascines. In addition to providing cover from the hot Mississippi sun, the laboring troops were well-protected from rebel musket fire.

  At one point, to slow their enemy down, the Confederates built a stockade in front of their earthwork, but it had little effect, and the boys in blue dug under it.

  When Thayer’s men neared the Confederate line they began tunneling under the fort and had almost completed their work when the surrender came on July 4th, which was fortunate for the men inside, for if they had held out much longer, the Union soldiers would have filled it with gunpowder and blew it up.

  The tunnel under the road was dug by Union troops camped in the rear to avoid crossing the ridge where they would be exposed to Confederate sharpshooters while moving to and from their positions in the lines.