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Civil War History - Vicksburg
| The Significance of the Union Victory at Vicksburg (The National Park Service, 1954) "The great objective of the war in the West - the opening of the Mississippi River and the severing of the Confederacy - had been realized with the fall of Vicksburg."
"On July 9 [1863], the Confederate commander at Port Hudson, upon learning of the fall of Vicksburg, surrendered his garrison of 6,000 men. One week later the merchant steamboat Imperial tied up at the wharf at New Orleans, completing the 1,000-mile passage from St. Louis undisturbed by hostile guns. After two years of land and naval warfare, the Mississippi River was open, the grip of the South had been broken, and merchant and military traffic had now a safe avenue to the gulf of Mexico. In the words of Lincoln:
"The Father of Waters again goes unvexed to the sea". The Siege of Vicksburg (Famous Events, 1913)A summary of General Grant's victory at Vicksburg , Mississippi, during the summer of 1863. It is made clear to the reader how vital the city was to the Rebel's defensive strategy in that Vicksburg was the last stronghold remaining which served to protect the Mississippi valley; President Jefferson Davis and his confederates knew well that if the city fell, Texas, Louisiana and Arkansas would be isolated. Unique Memories of the Vicksburg Siege (Literary Digest, 1912)It must have been "Take Your Son to Work Day" that compelled General Ulysses S. Grant to bring his oldest son, Frederick Dent Grant (1850 – 1912), to the 1863 siege of Vicksburg - or at least that was our conclusion after we read this interesting interview with the man.
Published shortly after his death, Fred Grant (who also grew to become an Army General) recalled those days he spent with the Federal Army as a thirteen year-old boy, witnessing much of war's cruelty which he quite often took in his stride. He had a unique, privileged position during the battle and was able to roam where ever he pleased: "Young as I was, my camp life was of such nature, I saw much of the hardships, the self-denials, the sufferings and labors of both privates and officers, that my proudest moments are when I am recalling my associating with the old warriors of the Eastern and Western armies, the veteran comrades of my father." | | |
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