Ulysses S. Grant – the brilliance of the Vicksburg Campaign

A guest blog-post by Andrew Lucien of The Civil War Center (thecivilwarcenter.com).

Ulysses S. Grant has long been accused of being a drunk butcher who could not have defeated Robert E. Lee had it not been for the numerical and industrial superiority of the North. However, is this really true? Was Grant a general who was unable to win unless the stars aligned? Certainly not. In this article, we will examine Grant’s Vicksburg campaign, looking primarily at his experiments and expeditions around Vicksburg to show the masterful genius that Ulysses S. Grant truly was.

The Vicksburg Problem

Vicksburg was a headache for any Union general or politicians who attempted to figure out a way to capture the fort. The fort sat high on a bluff overlooking the Mississippi River. The river was key for trade for both the North and the South. The issue was, when the Civil War began, the Confederacy controlled the majority of the Mississippi.

Slowly, Grant and his peers began to capture forts along the river and began to take back control of the central river for the North. However, Vicksburg was still a puzzling issue. Grant set out to find a way to take down this bastion.

Grant’s Plan

Instead of attempting to go straight at Vicksburg from land, Grant set out to find a better way. Due to the advance of technology, frontal assaults had become incredibly deadly during the Civil War. So, Grant decided to have his men attempt to build a canal. The idea for this canal came from one that Thomas Williams had begun in 1862. However, the idea was abandoned and the remains of the canal, really just a ditch, remained.

Seeing this, Grant decided to have his men continue with the work of digging this canal in hopes that it would alter the flow of the Mississippi River. The hope was that this canal would allow Grant’s gunboats to bypass Vicksburg and be able to reach the eastern side of the river. This was a plan heavily pushed by Washington and seemed worth a shot. However, due to heavy rains and the rise of disease, the canal was abandoned.

Next, Grant turned his attention to the Lake Providence Expeditions. Looking for a way to reach Vicksburg, Grant had his men breach several levees in the area, hoping that this would flood the land enough to allow the Union gunboats to bypass Vicksburg and reinforce Nathaniel Banks.

The plan appeared to be working until his force ran into a cypress swamp. This swamp ended the Lake Providence expeditions. However, the flooding did help protect Grant’s supply column as he moved on Vicksburg.

After the Lake Providence expeditions, Grant shifted his focus to the Yazoo Pass. The Yazoo Pass had been used in the past and would allow Grant to bypass the guns at Vicksburg. This experiment was nearly successful. Union troops breached the levee and Union gunboats began to travel through the pass. This expedition was, however, halted when the boats ran into Fort Pemberton.

Finally, Grant attempted to go around Vicksburg through the Steele’s Bayou expeditions. This expedition consisted of passing the gunboats through a series of bayous and rivers to bypass the guns of Vicksburg. This expedition, like the others, was nearly successful until they ran into stiff Confederate opposition and were forced to abandon the expedition.

Grant Finds Another Way

While none of these expeditions were successful, Grant refused to give up. Instead, he formulated a new plan. This new plan consisted of having the Union gunboats run past Vicksburg. While this was going on, he also had his force march down the Mississippi on the west side of the river. This protected his ground forces from the Confederate guns.

Once Grant successfully got his boats past Vicksburg, he then used these boats to ferry his men across to the east side of the river. Once he had his forces in place, he then marched them up and around Vicksburg, defeating along the way an enemy army that otherwise might have raced to reinforce Vicksburg’s defenders or might have later attacked Grant’s army. Next Grant surrounded the fort, cut their supplies off and laid siege to the city. This resulted in the fort surrendering on July 4, 1863.

What Does it Mean

Not only had Grant done the impossible, by capturing Vicksburg, he also did it with only 4,835 casualties while inflicting 32,697 casualties (29,495 surrendered to Grant). This showed two key facts: Grant was a brilliant general and he refused to quit.

Grant did not just attempt to go straight at Vicksburg and throw soldiers at the bastion to their demise. Instead, he masterfully orchestrated a brilliant move past and around the fort. By then laying siege to the city, he cut off their supplies and was able to keep casualty counts even lower.

Grant also demonstrated that he would not quit. While this was important in the Vicksburg campaign, it was even more important when Grant was moved the Eastern Theater of the war. His refusal to cross back over the Rappahannock and Potomac Rivers back into Washington, D.C. after the Battle of the Wilderness was something no other Union general in the east had done during the Civil War.

This was truly the turning point of the Civil War. If Grant had allowed Lee and his army to continue to roam about, the war would have been prolonged and more and more lives lost. By refusing to return to Washington, Grant refused to allow Lee to continue to fight and bled him until he could not bleed anymore.

Grant was far from a butcher. He was a masterful general who refused to quit.

Written by Andrew Lucien of https://thecivilwarcenter.com/.