Storming Vicksburg

This book offers a detailed study of a pivotal phase in the Vicksburg campaign, after Ulysses S. Grant moved his Army of the Tennessee to the east side of the Mississippi River, defeated John C. Pemberton at Champion’s Hill, and cut off Vicksburg on its landside. What followed from May 18 to 23, 1863, was an attempt to storm the defences of Vicksburg and capture the important river town. The Union attacks on May 19 and 22 failed with considerable loss of life and Grant decided on May 23 to conduct siege approaches instead. Rather than treat this week-long period as merely an interlude between the overland march and the siege, this book takes the attacks of May 19 and 22 seriously as elements in the Federal struggle to control Vicksburg. Based on exhaustive research, especially in archival holdings, it explains why and how the assaults failed, how they could have succeeded, and what would have resulted had Grant broken through the Confederate lines. A combination of difficult terrain, poor coordination of supporting troops, a breakdown of command and control in some key units, and a partial breakdown of combat spirit in other units, doomed the Union assaults. A thorough military study of the operations, this book offers new insights into the care of wounded, the burial of the dead, the handling of prisoners, the preservation of the battlefield, and the commemoration and memory of the bloodiest assaults the Union Army of the Tennessee ever launched in the Civil War.