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Vicksburg
Strategic Setting
Background
• Strategic Situation
• Importance of
Vicksburg and the
Mississippi River
– Lincoln’s Assessment
– Scott’s Anaconda
Plan
• Confederate supply
lines
• Two halves of the
Confederacy
Strategic Situation
Importance of Mississippi River and
Vicksburg
• At the time of the Civil
War, the Mississippi
River was the single
most important
economic feature of
the continent
• Confederate forces
closed the river to
navigation, which
threatened to strangle
northern commercial
interests
Lincoln’s Assessment
• “See what a lot of land these
fellows hold, of which
Vicksburg is the key! The war
can never be brought to a
close until that key is in our
pocket.... We can take all the
northern ports of the
Confederacy, and they can
defy us from Vicksburg…. I
am acquainted with that
region and know what I am
talking about, and as
valuable as New Orleans will
be to us, Vicksburg will be
more so.”
Scott’s Anaconda Plan
• Blockade the Southern ports and stop all imports and
exports.
– The blockade would stop the sale of agriculture goods drying up
the money supply and the blockade would stop the receiving of
war martial from foreign nations.
• Recapture the Mississippi River.
– By recapturing the Mississippi River the South would be cut in
half making communications difficult between the two sections.
• After the wearing down of the peoples’ resolve to make
and sustain a war march to and capture the Confederate
capital.
• Although initially rejected, Scott’s plan became the de
facto Federal strategy in execution
Trans Mississippi Confederacy as a
Supply Source
• Texas led the nation in cattle, with an estimated three
and a half million head
– Virginia and Georgia, the next largest Confederate cattleproducing states, counted slightly more than one million each.
• Texas ranked behind only Tennessee in the number of
horses and mules, fourth in the number of sheep, and
seventh in the production of swine.
• Texas was a significant source of livestock for armies in
the west, but that could only remain the case so long as
those animals could cross the river safely.
• Federal success at Vicksburg would deny the eastern
Confederacy access to these and other supplies
Key Railroad from Monroe, LA through
Vicksburg to Jackson and points east
Splitting the South in Two
• Louisiana, Texas, and Arkansas (as well as the Indian
Territory) accounted for almost half of the Confederacy’s
total land mass
• Federal control of the Mississippi River would isolate the
western and eastern halves of the Confederacy
• So Grant’s mission is to seize Vicksburg in order to
control the Mississippi River and separate the
Confederacy in two
Terrain
• Vicksburg was part of a line of bluffs
that extended from Columbus, KY to
Baton Rouge, LA
– Formed an escarpment
that greatly favored the
defense both on land
and on water
Vicksburg Bluff Line
Fortifications on the
Mississippi KY
MO
Columbus
New Madrid
Is. No. 10
TN
Ft. Pillow
Memphis
N
AR
MS
LA
AL
Vicksburg
Grand Gulf
Port Hudson
New Orleans
0
Miles
200
Ft. St. Philip
Ft. Jackson
River-Bluff Interface: Grand
Gulf
Terrain
• What is going to make things
difficult for Grant is the terrain
• Northeast of Vicksburg was
the Delta
– Flat, periodically flooded area
coursed by streams of various
navigability
• Steele’s Bayou, Tallahatchie
River, Yazoo River, etc
– Steep banked creeks, uncleared
swamplands
• West of Vicksburg was
Louisiana
– Even flatter and swampier
• Would require much
corduroying of roads
Vicksburg and the Mississippi
• As Union forces moved south toward
Vicksburg in late 1862, the winter and the
wet season began.
– This ended all possibilities of moving forces by land.
– Grant is forced to find an alternative route to reach
Vicksburg.
– Makes several failed attempts from December 1862
through April 1863
Next
• Basic Military Doctrine