The story goes that on a certain occasion some friends of General
Grant, anxious to make him talk about himself--something he would
hardly ever do--said: "General, at what time in your military career
did you perceive that you were the coming man--that you were to have
the responsibility and fame of the command-in-chief and end the war?"
For little while the General smoked on, and then said, "_After
Vicksburg!_"
Certain it is that the star of Grant, long obscured and struggling
through storm and darkness, never emerged into clear light, rising in
the ascendant, until after the capture of the stronghold of the
Confederates on the Mississippi. After that it rose, and rose to the
zenith.
The position of Vicksburg is hard to understand. The river at this
place makes a bend to the north and then turns south again, leaving a
delta, or peninsula, on the Louisiana side. Vicksburg occupies a kind
of shoulder on the Mississippi side. The site is commanding. The river
flows by the bluffs, as if to acknowledge its subjection to them. From
the beginning of the war the Confederate authorities recognized the
vast importance of holding this key to the great inland artery, and
the Federal Government saw the necessity of clutching it from the
enemy.
The mouth of the Mississippi was soon regained by the Government, so
that there was no serious obstruction as far north as where the
northern border of Louisiana crosses the river. From the north the
Federal fleets and land forces made their way along the Tennessee
border, and then the Arkansas border; but in the middle, between the
twenty-second and thirty-third parallels, the Confederates got a
strong grip on the Father of Waters, and would not relinquish their
hold. Jackson, the capital of the State, was in their power also, and
from Jackson eastward the great thoroughfare extended into Alabama,
and thence expanded in its connections into all the Confederacy. From
Jackson to Vicksburg reached the same line of communications, so that
here, at Vicksburg, the Confederate power, having its seat in Richmond
and its energy in the field, reached directly to the Mississippi
river, and laid upon that stream a band of iron which the Union must
break in order to pass.
Such was the situation at the beginning of 1863. General Grant, who
had been under a cloud since Shiloh, had gradually regained his
command, and to him fell the task of breaking the Confederate hold on
the great river. He has himself in his _Memoirs_ told the story of the
Vicksburg campaign. He managed, by herculean exertions, to get his
forces below Vicksburg, and then began his campaign from Grand Gulf
inland toward the line of communication between Jackson and Vicksburg.
It was some time before the Confederates took the alarm. When they did
become alarmed about Grant's movements, General J.E. Johnston, who
commanded at Jackson, and General J.C. Pemberton, who was in command
at Vicksburg; made the most unwearied efforts to keep open the line of
communications upon which the safety of Jackson and the success of
Pemberton depended.
But Grant pressed on in a northwesterly direction until he came upon
Pemberton in a position which he had chosen at Champion's Hill. Here,
without doubt, was fought one of the critical battles of the Union
war. If General Pemberton had been successful, that success would seem
to have portended the end of Grant's military career. But a different
fate was reserved for the combatants. Grant's army was strong, and had
become seasoned by hardship into the veteran condition. His under
officers--Logan, McPherson, Hovey, McClernand and A.J. Smith--were in
full spirit of battle. The engagement was severely contested. The
Union army, actually engaged, numbered 15,000, and Pemberton's forces
were about equal in number; but the latter were disastrously defeated.
The losses were excessive in proportion to the numbers engaged.
The Confederates now fell back to Big Black river. Their line of
communication with Jackson was cut. A second battle was fought at Big
Black River, and then, on the eighteenth of May, the victorious Union
army surrounded Vicksburg, and the siege was begun. The siege lasted
forty-seven days, and was marked by heroic resistance on the one side
and heroic pertinacity on the other, to the degree of making it one of
the memorable events in the military annals of the world. Gradually
the Union lines were narrowed around the doomed town. Ever nearer and
nearer the lines of riflepits were drawn. Day by day the resources of
the Confederates were reduced. But their defences were strong, and
their courage for a long time unabated.
General Pemberton hoped and expected that an attack on Grant's rear
would be made in such force as to loosen his grip, and to enable
the besieged to rise against the besiegers and break through. The
Confederates, however, had not sufficient forces for such an
enterprise. General Lee, in the East, had now undertaken the
campaign of Gettysburg, and the Confederacy was already strained
in every nerve. General Grant had the way open for supplies and
re-enforcements. The siege was pressed with the utmost vigor, and
Pemberton was left to his fate.
Meanwhile, however, two unsuccessful assaults were made on the
Confederate works. The first of these occurred on the day after the
investment was completed. It was unsuccessful. The Union army was
flung back from the impregnable defences in the rear of Vicksburg, and
great losses were inflicted on them. Grant, however, was undismayed,
and, still believing that the enemy's line might be broken by assault,
renewed the attempt in a gallant attack on the twenty-second of May. A
furious cannonade was kept up for several hours, and then the
divisions of Sherman, McPherson and McClernand were thrown forward
upon the earthworks of the enemy.
It was here that General McClernand reported to the commander that he
had gained the Confederate intrenchments. General Grant says: "I
occupied a position from which I thought I could see as well as he
what took place in his front; and I did not see the success he
reported. But his request for reinforcements being repeated, I could
not ignore it, and sent him Quinby's division. Sherman and McPherson
were both ordered to renew their assaults in favor of McClernand. This
last attack only served to increase our casualties, without giving any
benefit whatever." In these attacks large numbers of the Federal
soldiers had got into the low ground intervening, under the enemy's
fire, and had to remain in that position until darkness enabled them
to retire. The Union losses were very heavy, and General Grant, years
afterward, in composing his _Memoirs_, referred to this assault and to
that at Cold Harbor as the two conspicuous mistakes of his military
career.
Now it was that the regular siege of Vicksburg was undertaken. Toward
the latter part of June, the Confederates, both soldiers and citizens,
began to suffer. Houses became untenable. The people sought what
refuge they might find. Some actually burrowed in the earth. The
garrison was placed on short rations, and then a condition of
starvation ensued. Pemberton held out with a resolution worthy of a
better fate. But at length human endurance could go no further. On
the fourth of July the white flag was hoisted from the Confederate
works, announcing the end. Generals Grant and Pemberton, with three or
four attendants each, met between the lines, and the terms of
capitulation were quickly named and accepted. Vicksburg was
surrendered. General Pemberton and all his forces, 30,000 strong,
became prisoners of war.
This was the greatest force ever surrendered in America, though it was
only about one-sixth of that of Marshal Bazaine and his army at Metz
seven years afterward. Thousands of small arms, hundreds of cannon,
and all the remaining ammunition and stores of the Confederates were
the other fruits of this great Union victory, by which the prospect of
ultimate success to the Confederacy was either destroyed or long
postponed, and by which in particular the great central river of the
United States was permitted once more to flow unvexed from the
confluence of the Missouri to the Gulf.