Download Historically Speaking: Gettysburg and Vicksburg at 150

Gettysburg and Vicksburg at 150
By BG John S. Brown
U.S. Army retired
J
uly Fourth, in my view, marks the 150th anniversary of
the climax of the Civil War. On that day in 1863, GEN
Robert E. Lee retreated from Gettysburg, Pa., with his defeated Army of Northern Virginia after a gigantic three-day
battle with the Army of the Potomac, commanded by MG
George G. Meade. That same day, half a continent away, the
fortress city of Vicksburg, Miss., capitulated to MG Ulysses
S. Grant’s Army of the Tennessee. In my youth, I often
heard Pickett’s Charge at Gettysburg referred to as “the
high tide of the Confederacy,” and a glance at a map reveals
the strategic wisdom of a Mississippi River that “flowed
unvexed to the sea.”
Elsewhere in this issue of ARMY, my colleagues, Colonels
Cole Kingseed and Kevin Farrell, examine Gettysburg in
more detail and flag up tactical and operational issues that
have excited controversy since the battle ended. Here, I
hope to put Vicksburg and Gettysburg in a strategic context
and underscore the importance of July 4, 1863, as a pivotal
point in American history.
The February and April 2012 “Historically Speaking” articles examined the critical importance of the Ohio, Cumberland, Tennessee and Mississippi rivers to communications
west of the Appalachian Mountains and the revolutionary
advantages steamboats afforded in travelling the arteries
with or against the current. Union successes in Tennessee at
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Forts Henry and Donelson, and also at Shiloh, penetrated
deep into the Confederacy and compromised all but one of
the rail lines running across it. That final rail line ran
through Vicksburg and readily connected Louisiana, Texas
and Arkansas with the rest of the Confederacy. These western states became an increasingly important source of supplies for the Confederacy as the effects of the Union naval
blockade deepened. Conversely, arms and ammunition
shipped west did much to assist the western states in continuing the war.
President Abraham Lincoln and his generals recognized
the significance of the Mississippi River from the beginning
of the war. Union forces assisted by gunboats thrust south
from Cairo, Ill., in early 1862 to seize New Madrid, Mo.; Island No. 10, between Missouri and Tennessee; Fort Pillow,
Tenn.; and Memphis, Tenn. Memphis surrendered in June
1862, and Union gunboats steamed on to the mouth of the
Yazoo River. Meanwhile, Union naval forces commanded
by Commodore David G. Farragut went up the Mississippi
from the Gulf of Mexico and facilitated amphibious landings. New Orleans surrendered on April 27, 1862, and Baton
Rouge, La., soon followed. Vicksburg proved a harder nut to
crack. Fortified and perched on high bluffs with a maze of
swamps to its north, Vicksburg repelled a thrust from the
south in May 1862 and a thrust from the north in December.
Gettysburg (Pa.) National Military Park by Dennis Steele
At year’s end, the Confederacy still held open a 100-mile
window across the Mississippi River extending from Vicksburg in the north to Port Hudson, La., in the south.
G
rant resolved to change all of this. As his subordinate
MG William T. Sherman moved north of Vicksburg on
April 30, 1863, Grant amphibiously slipped the bulk of his
army past Vicksburg and landed well to the south of its defenses, at Bruinsburg, Miss. This simultaneously bypassed
the difficult terrain north of Vicksburg and turned Confederate defenses along the river. It also left Grant at the end of
a perilously exposed logistical tether running past the guns
along the bluffs at Vicksburg. Unfazed, Grant took an overdraft of ammunition with him and abandoned his line of
communications altogether. He sped north, interposing
himself between Confederate GEN Joseph E. Johnston’s
forces concentrated at Jackson and Confederate LTG John
C. Pemberton’s forces around Vicksburg. Meanwhile, three
regiments of Union cavalry commanded by COL Benjamin
H. Grierson launched a destructive raid deep into Mississippi. This drew off cavalry that could have improved the
reconnaissance of the separated and increasingly confused
Confederate forces.
Living off the land as necessary, Grant first massed
against Johnston and drove him out of Jackson. He then
turned sharply on Pemberton and soundly defeated him at
the Battle of Champion Hill in Mississippi. Pemberton retreated into the defenses of Vicksburg. Deploying Sherman
to screen against Johnston’s return, Grant followed Pemberton in hot pursuit. Premature assaults on May 19 and 22
failed, so Grant settled into a methodical siege. Trench lines
and saps worked their way ever closer to the Confederate
defenses. Mines penetrated underneath the fortifications,
seeking to bring them down before countermines interrupted them. Snipers and artillery fire exacted a daily toll.
Starvation and disease beset the isolated Confederates, who
nevertheless kept up a gallant defense. Johnston tried to
mount a relief but never mustered sufficient strength to
achieve one. Pushed to the breaking point, Pemberton surrendered on July 4. To his credit, Grant rushed rations to the
famished civilians and prisoners of war in the starving city.
While Grant was campaigning in central Mississippi,
Union forces pushed up the Mississippi River from the
south and invested Port Hudson, La., the southern terminus of Confederate holdings on the river. After the news of
Vicksburg reached them, the defenders of Port Hudson accepted the inevitable and surrendered on July 9. In eastern
Tennessee, a Union thrust reached Chattanooga, which
threatened to split the Confederacy along yet another axis
through Atlanta and Savannah, Ga. A strangulation first enJuly 2013 ■ ARMY
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Library of Congress
Library of Congress
Above: A panoramic view of the Civil War battlefield at Vicksburg,
Miss., shows the Illinois Memorial (left) and the Shirley House.
Right: Union soldiers built shelters around the Shirley House to
protect themselves against artillery fire.
visioned by GEN Winfield Scott was taking effect, shredding the Confederacy and threatening to crush its constituent parts like an anaconda.
F
acing disintegration in the West, the Confederacy’s
only real hope for victory was a knockout blow in the
East. With so many vital strategic objectives so close to the
common border in the East, perhaps a Napoleonic battle of
annihilation could induce a war-weary Union to make
peace. The Army of Northern Virginia, commanded by Lee,
seemed the ideal instrument to strike such a blow. ARMY’s
July 2012 “Historically Speaking” examined Lee’s defeat of
MG George B. McClellan in the Virginia Peninsula Campaign.
The September 2012 “Historically Speaking” discussed
Lee’s defeat of MG John Pope at the Second Battle of Bull
Run (Second Manassas, Va.) and his moral victory over McClellan at Antietam (Sharpsburg, Md.). In December 2012,
“Historically Speaking” described the devastation Lee inflicted upon MG Ambrose E. Burnside’s Army at Fredericksburg, Va. In May, Lee’s striking victory over MG Joseph
Hooker at Chancellorsville, Va., was discussed. When MG
George G. Meade took over on June 28, 1863, he became the
fifth commanding general of the Army of the Potomac.
BG John S. Brown, USA Ret., was chief of military history at
the U.S. Army Center of Military History from December 1998
to October 2005. He commanded the 2nd Battalion, 66th Armor,
in Iraq and Kuwait during the Gulf War and returned to Kuwait
as commander of the 2nd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, in
1995. Author of Kevlar Legions: The Transformation of the
U.S. Army, 1989–2005, he has a doctorate in history from Indiana University.
36 ARMY ■ July 2013
All four of his predecessors had been defeated despite
their general superiority in numbers, and three of them had
been defeated by Lee.
Having built up a strike force of 76,000 following Chancellorsville, Lee resolved to take the war into Maryland and
Pennsylvania. He would seek the knockout victory the Confederacy so desperately needed and also replenish his supplies from the Union’s ample stocks—civilian and military.
While Grant was tightening his siege lines around Vicksburg, Lee slipped the bulk of his army up the Shenandoah
Valley. The Union forces sensed the move and confirmed it
during a chaotic cavalry battle around Brandy Station, Va.,
on June 9—the largest single cavalry collision in the war.
The Confederates stole a march on the Union forces guarding the lower Shenandoah Valley, badly mauling them before crossing the Potomac and progressing along an axis
running through Hagerstown, Md., and Carlisle, Pa.
Minimally opposed and with the 115,000-man Army of
the Potomac far behind them, the Confederates spread out
to exploit the countryside. Commandeering wagons in addition to those they brought with them, they forced purchases with Confederate dollars or formal “requisitions.”
They demanded $100,000 in U.S. currency from York, Pa.,
but settled for the $28,000 that the city had on hand. As their
wagons filled up, their forces became less nimble. One Confederate cavalry brigade under BG John D. Imboden took
off on a western arc to ravage the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad
and gather livestock. More consequentially, MG J.E.B. Stuart
interpreted discretionary orders broadly enough to swing
his division on a wide arc to the east, which effectively put
him on the opposite side of the Union Army from Lee. To
make things worse, he captured an opulent 125-wagon
Union supply train and could not bring himself to part with
View of a rocky nest within Devil’s Den, a boulder-ridden hill used
by both Confederate and Union artillery and infantry during the
second day of the Battle of Gettysburg.
the south. Lee gambled on a breakthrough in the center, attacking in the wake of a massive artillery barrage. The attack
failed and the Union line held.
Dennis Steele
C
it for the sake of operational mobility. With his cavalry scattered and forces dispersed in hostile territory, Lee found
himself in the unusual situation of knowing less about his
opponents’ whereabouts than they did about his.
Once launched, the Union pursuit of Lee was reasonably
efficient, if neither breakneck nor daring. By June 28, Union
troops had accumulated in a great mass around Frederick,
Md., and by June 30 were similarly massing south of Gettysburg. Two brigades of Union cavalry under MG John
Buford Jr. pushed north through Gettysburg and clashed
briefly with a Confederate brigade marching south, ostensibly to secure a supply of shoes reported to be in the town.
Alarmed by belated news of the Union concentration, Lee
hurriedly ordered a concentration at Cashtown, Pa., about
six miles northwest of Gettysburg, starting the night of July
28–29. Buford recognized the strength of successive positions dominated by Seminary Ridge and flanking hills
north and west of Gettysburg, and by Cemetery Ridge and
flanking hills south and east of the town. He occupied the
former position and sent for help.
The battle that ensued was a colossal engagement, with
one division after another marching in to join the fray. On the
first day, July 1, the Confederates massed enough force to
outflank and overpower the Union right, forcing the Union
off Seminary Ridge. The Union rallied on Cemetery Ridge,
where a stream of reinforcements arriving through the night
broadened and thickened their line. On the second day, the
Confederates sought to turn the Union left but were barely
halted by the hasty and gallant defense of Little Round Top.
The Confederates penetrated the Union line elsewhere but
were ultimately repulsed. By the third day, the ever-stronger
Union line resembled a fishhook firmly anchored around
Culp’s Hill in the north and by the formidable Round Top in
onfederate losses in three days of savage fighting were
3,903 killed, 18,735 wounded and 5,425 missing. Union
losses were 3,155 killed, 14,529 wounded and 5,365 missing.
The Union could afford such a butcher’s bill, but the Confederacy could not. Lee had to win a decisive victory if the
Confederacy were to survive. Meade could win by not losing. By and large Lee punched, and by and large Meade
counterpunched. Lee’s dispersal and distractions before the
battle worked against concentrating overwhelming force at
a decisive place and time. Meade, hugely assisted by able
Corps commanders, survived the punches and held the
line. So awesome was Lee’s reputation that Meade declined
to attack him in the aftermath of his defeat. Lee’s beaten
army retreated back across the Potomac without much interference. He would fight again, but never again at the
summit of his strength.
Vicksburg’s fall and Lee’s retreat marked a decisive pivot
point. The Confederacy would continue to disintegrate in
the West, and Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia would continue to be ground down. In a few months’ time, Grant
would assume overall command in the West. A few months
after that, he would assume military command of the war
as a whole. Meade would continue on as the capable—albeit methodical—commander of the Army of the Potomac.
The Confederacy still had some fight and a few offensives
left in it, and Lee would continue to muster his tactical brilliance, but the writing was on the wall. The overwhelming
manpower and materiel advantages of the Union would inevitably be brought to bear upon the estranged countrymen
of the Confederacy.
✭
Recommended Reading
Carter III, Samuel, The Final Fortress: The Campaign for
Vicksburg 1862–1863 (New York: St. Martin’s Press,
1980)
Coddington, Edwin B., The Gettysburg Campaign: A
Study in Command (Norwalk, Conn.: Easton Press, 1989)
Esposito, Vincent J., The West Point Atlas of American
Wars, Volume I: 1689–1900 (New York: Frederick A.
Praeger, 1959)
McPherson, James, Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War
Era (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988)
Williams, T. Harry, Lincoln and His Generals (New
York: Gramercy Books, 2000)
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