The Civil War: The Third Year (1863)
Dr. Joseph Fitzharris
Oct. 8
The War on the Mississippi – the Vicksburg Campaign
In late 1862, Grant began the first Vicksburg Campaign. A failure, it was soon followed
by the second campaign. Thanks to Confederate command failures in the west, Grant
was able to trap and besiege Pemberton, who surrendered on July 4, 1863.
I. Strategic Goals in the West
A. Union Goals of
1. Cutting South in Half Down the River
2. Seizing Chattanooga (for week 6)
II. Cutting the South in Half – Taking Vicksburg
A. Rationale for this Goal
B. Halleck's Order to Nathaniel Banks
C. Grant's Decision
III. Commanders and Forces
A. Union
B. Confederate
IV. Issues of the Vicksburg Campaign
A. Geo-physical situation and effects
1. Lower Mississippi Valley
2. Western Mississippi
3. Vicksburg Region
B. Logistics
C. Command, Communications, Control and/or Coordination
1. Me v. Mission (McClernand, Grant)
2. Communications
3. Coordination – Joint Army-Navy Operations – not Control
V. Grant's First Vicksburg Campaign
VI. Grant's Second Vicksburg Campaign
A. Generalship: Grant v. Pemberton and Johnston
B. Campaign of Maneuver, Calculated Risk,and Decisive Victory
VII. Siege of Vicksburg
Bibliography
Christopher Gabel, et. alii., Staff Ride Handbook for the Vicksburg Campaign, December 1862 – July
1863 (USA CGSC CSI, 2001) URL: http://usacac.army.mil/cac2/cgsc/carl/download/csipubs/
StaffRideHB_Vicksburg.pdf
Leonard Fullenkamp, Jay Luvaas, & Stephen Bowman, The Guide to the Vicksburg Campaign (UP
Kansas, 1998)
Warren Grabau, Ninety-Eight Days: a Geographers View of the Vicksburg Campaign (U Tennessee,
2000)
Shelby Foote, The Beleaguered City: The Vicksburg Campaign, December 1862-July 1863 (Modern
Library, 1995)
Edwin Bearss, Receding Time: Vicksburg and Gettysburg – The Campaigns the Changed the Civil War
Course Web Site: http://personal2.stthomas.edu/jcfitzharris/CivilWar/
The Civil War: The Third Year (1863)
Dr. Joseph Fitzharris
(National Geographic, 2010)
Bearss, Hardluck Ironclas: The Sinking and Salvage of the Cairo (Louisiana SUP, 1980)
Earl J. Hess, The Civil War in the West: Victory and Defeat from the Appalachians to the Mississippi
(UNC, 2012)
Timothy Smith, Champion Hill: Decisive battle for Vicksburg (Savas Beatie, 2006)
William Shea, Vicksburg is the Key: The Struggle for the Mississippi River (Bison Books, 2005)
Terrence Winschel, Triumph and Defeat: The Vicksburg Campaign (Savas Beatie, 2004)
Thomas Connell and Archer Jones, The Politics of Command: Factions and Ideas in Confederate
Strategy (Louisiana SUP, 1998)
Archer Jones Civil War Command and Strategy: The Process of Victory and Defeat (Free Press, 1992)
Donald Stoker, The Grand Design: Strategy and the U.S. Civil War (Oxford, 2010)
Brian Holden Reid, America’s Civil War: The Operational Battlefield, 1861-1863 (Prometheus, 2008)
Maps of the Vicksburg Campaign:
Civil War Trust: http://www.civilwar.org/maps/vicksburg-campaign-map/vicksburgcampaignmap.html
History Animated map: http://www.historyanimated.com/VicksburgAnimation.html
The timeline I used is at http://www.loc.gov/item/99447170 or at http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_vault/
2013/09/16/civil_war_a_chart_representing_the_major_events_of_the_conflict.html
Course Web Site: http://personal2.stthomas.edu/jcfitzharris/CivilWar/