All language subtitles for Why Vicksburg Was More Important Than Gettysburg [English] [DownloadYoutubeSubtitles.com]

Strat map, Cincinnati has a dot
Bardstown has a dot

Prior to the war, the humble hamlet of Vicksburg
was just a cotton trading port on the Mississippi

River, notable primarily for its proximity to
Jefferson Davis’ plantation . War turned it

into a strategic fortress. Taking
Vicksburg was vital to the Union,

as it would not only reopen the river to
northern commercial traffic but also close a

major Confederate supply route. Actually doing so
would prove a more monumental task than expected,

but Ulysses Simpson Grant was, eventually, up
to the challenge. Welcome back to our series

on the American Civil War. Join us today as
the Union makes a decisive stab at the single

most vital riverway on the American continent in
an attempt to cleave the Confederacy in twain.

The Real Gibraltar of the West
When the war began, the Confederacy

swiftly fortified the Mississippi River.
The fortifications at Island Number 10,

Fort Pillow, and New Orleans were believed to be
strong enough to repel any Federal inclusion into

the river system, so little thought was given to
the river’s interior, especially once Columbus

was occupied. However, Vicksburg’s position
on 200 ft. tall bluffs overlooking a sharp

and narrow horseshoe-shaped meander made it an
easily defendable chokepoint, so batteries were

constructed as an emergency fallback position.
Farragut Fails

That emergency came unexpectedly quickly.
Following the capture of New Orleans , Rear

Admiral David Farragut continued up the
Mississippi, forcing every settlement along

the river to submit to the Union before reaching
Vicksburg May 18th. When the batteries refused

to surrender, Farragut retreated as he didn’t
actually have the forces to fight. On June 26th,

he returned with his full flotilla and additional
marines to find Vicksburg was also reinforced.

Farragut ineffectually bombarded Vicksburg
before running past the guns to link up

with the Western Gunboat Flotilla on the
28th following its capture of Memphis.

After the CSS Arkansas ran his blockade
and several more failed bombardments,

Farragut concluded that he lacked the resources
to take Vicksburg. His attempt to bypass it

with a canal across the De Soto Peninsula seemed
promising, but the Mississippi’s waters refused

to enter the canal. By July 24th, subtropical
diseases were taking a heavy toll on his sailors

and with water levels falling, Farragut gave up
and returned to New Orleans. Vicksburg was the

army’s problem, now.
Halleck Hesitates

Western theater commander Henry Halleck had
dearly hoped Farragut would succeed, saving him

a logistical nightmare.The only landward approach
from Corinth which avoided the morass of streams,

bayous, and swamps called the Yazoo Delta
required moving directly south along exposed

railines from Holly Springs towards Jackson ,
then west to Vicksburg. Approaching from the

south required navigating the unmaintained roads
and frequently flooding streams of backcountry

Louisiana before crossing the Mississippi,
then moving north across more streams.

As Farragut was giving up, Halleck was made
general-in-chief and called to Washington,

leaving Grant to finish securing the supply routes
to Corinth. He was finished by November, at which

time Halleck formally gave Grant full control
of all soldiers and resources in the Mississippi

theatre. Grant had full discretion regarding
how to use them, though Halleck and President

Lincoln preferred operations against Vicksburg
over all others. Grant was happy to oblige,

but the task proved far harder than expected.
The Confederates Regroup and Reorganize

Opposing Grant was General Joseph Johnston,
who had finally recovered from his Seven Pines’

wounds and was now in command of the Department
of the West, encompassing all Confederate forces

between the Mississippi River and the Appalachian
Mountains. However, what that actually meant was

ambiguous. Johnston only had direct control of
a few regiments, and Davis never explicitly gave

him command of the other units. Johnston
outranked all the previously independent

department commanders in his new department.
Still, Davis never explicitly contradicted a

previous decree that department commanders were
equal regardless of rank, nor explicitly told the

other generals they answered directly to Johnston.
Worse, Johnston didn’t have sufficient resources

to defend everything, and he didn't know
where all the resources he did have were.

The department had around 100,000 soldiers total,
with the 50,000-strong Army of Tennessee defending

Tullahoma, the 30,000-strong Army of Mississippi
garrisoning Vicksburg, and the remainder in

isolated garrisons or independent cavalry commands
too spread out to support each other. Worse,

Davis still habitually disregarded the chain of
command by issuing orders directly to Johnston’s

sub-commanders and moving troops around,
seemingly arbitrarily and without telling

Johnston. Consequently, Johnston frequently didn’t
know where his units were or what they were doing.

Confederate Priorities
Davis ordered Johnston to prioritize defending

Vicksburg , calling it the nailhead holding the
Confederacy together. By June 1862, it was the

only link between the Trans-Mississippi Department
and the rest of the Confederacy . To expand and

protect the critical Red River supply route and
take some pressure off Vicksburg, a cotton-trading

jetty named Port Hudson was converted into another
fortress at PGT Beauregard’s recommendation. At

the same time, Vicksburg was further reinforced
and fortified. Incorporating learnings from the

past year, the riverside batteries were lengthened
to provide a longer gauntlet of fire for ships to

cross and many guns mounted on swivels to make
aiming easier. The landward defences became a

murderous series of redoubts, trenches, and
lunettes with overlapping fields of fire.

Johnston was impressed, but had his reservations.
No matter how strong the fortifications were,

the Union had the resources to besiege them,
and Grant had the stubbornness to see any siege

through. Given his lack of men and material for
a relief effort, Johnston’s best hope was to keep

Grant out of Mississippi. If that failed, Johnston
wanted to pull out of the defences and fight

Grant in open country, where at least he could
retreat if defeated. A fortress could be retaken,

but a trapped army was destroyed forever.
The First Attempt

Grant decided not to overcomplicate his November
1862 campaign against Vicksburg. He had about

70,000 soldiers ready, and fresh recruits were
arriving in Memphis every day, while Johnston

couldn’t have more than 50,000 soldiers to resist
him. Therefore, Grant would divide and conquer his

enemy by the direct route. He’d take 40,000 men in
two corps to Holly Springs, then straight down the

Mississippi Central Railroad, expecting to fight
Johnston in the open between Oxford and Grenada.

His most trusted subordinate, William T. Sherman,
would load 35,000 men in four divisions onto Rear

Admiral David Porter’s river fleet near Memphis,
sail to the Yazoo River, disembark as close to

Vicksburg as possible, then advance on the city to
pin its garrison. Trapped between the two forces,

the Confederates would either yield Vicksburg
and be trapped by a pincer in open country,

or retreat into the defences and fall to a siege.
The two movements began in late November. However,

Grant’s plan was too obvious to succeed. Grant
expected Nathan Forest to raid his supply lines

in Tennessee and planned accordingly, but he
wasn’t prepared for Earl van Dorn. Following

Second Corinth, van Dorn was removed from the
Mississippi Department command and given a cavalry

division instead. Davis ordered him to join the
Army of Tennessee, but Johnston had him delay

the move until it could be done as a strategic
raid. Grant’s advance provided that opportunity,

and on December 20th, van Dorn completely
destroyed Grant’s base at Holly Springs,

including the rail lines and every bridge he could
find before continuing onto Tullahoma. With his

lines of supply and communication cut,
Grant retreated. His men were forced to

live off the land as they marched, which
Grant noted was much easier than expected.

Meanwhile, Sherman had been successfully debarked
at Johnston’s Plantation and attempted to advance

on Vicksburg through Chickasaw Bayou. Opposing
him were 14,000 men from the Army of Mississippi,

now led by Lt. General John Pemberton. However,
it was the terrain that actually defeated Sherman,

as his men struggled through thick forests and
chest-deep bayou before they could even reach

the defences, which were protected by a high
bluff and felled trees. Unaware that Grant had

turned back and the operation was cancelled,
Sherman attacked twice, reasoning that he’d

have to lose men to take Vicksburg. One place was
as good as any other, but they made no progress

and retreated on December 30th. In the aftermath,
Johnston inspected Pemberton’s defences and warned

him that if the Federals ever took Hayne’s Bluff,
Vicksburg was indefensible and he was to evacuate

immediately. This was when a lingering problem
in Grant’s department made itself known. John

McClernand was a prominent Illinois War Democrat
who’d served under Grant since Cairo and whose

battlefield competence was balanced by his being
a ladder-climbing backstabber at headquarters. He

constantly denigrated colleagues and superiors to
the press, the War Department, and Lincoln in his

quest to raise his own star and get an independent
command, much to Halleck and Grant’s disgust.

In October, he’d taken a leave of absence to
propose his own strategy to Secretary of War

Edwin Stanton and Lincoln. Claiming that the
problem with the army was a conservative cabal

of West Point incompetents, McClernard proposed
that he would raise a new army in Illinois,

then take riverboats directly to Vicksburg.
His fellow political general Nathaniel Banks

would bring the Army of the Gulf northward, and
the two forces would take the Mississippi River.

Lincoln was under pressure from midwestern War
Democrats to reopen the Mississippi for commercial

traffic and approved McClernand to raise troops.
Stanton, who shared McClernard’s disdain for West

Pointers, went further and authorized a new army,
which led to Stanton and Halleck having strong

words about undermining field commanders.
A concerned Grant asked for and received

confirmation from Halleck that he was in control
of all operations in his department. He then went

back to work, no longer concerned. Halleck was far
more worried and quietly undermined McClernand by

forwarding most of the units he raised to Grant.
Halleck then delayed McClernand’s arrival in

Memphis until after Sherman began the Chickasaw
Bayou operation. Angered, McClernard complained

to a chastened Stanton, who informed him that
instead, he’d command the Army of the Tennessee’s

13th Corps. McClernand caught up with Sherman
after Chickasaw Bayou declared himself in command

as the senior officer and said that the force was
his promised Army of the Mississippi. However,

he didn’t make any further moves until Sherman
suggested capturing the Confederate garrison at

Arkansas Post to secure their supply line. This
was accomplished by January 11th, but Sherman and

Porter reported that McClernand had no idea how to
command an army. Consequently, Halleck telegraphed

McClernand that he couldn’t just declare himself
an army commander, and Grant arrived to reabsorb

the force on January 17th, reducing McClernand to
corps command. Secretly, Grant began looking for

an excuse to dismiss the irritating intriguer.
Grant’s Winter Experiments

Dealing with McClernand forced Grant to switch
bases from Corinth to Memphis while leaving the

problem of getting to Vicksburg unchanged. Lincoln
liked the idea of a joint push up and down the

Mississippi, and asked Grant to work with Banks.
Dutifully, Grant did contact Banks, but the latter

was busy securing southern Louisiana’s bayous
amid fierce resistance, and he wasn’t sure when

he could realistically attack Port Hudson. Thus,
Grant continued to work against Vicksburg alone.

The direct route was too vulnerable to cavalry
raiding to try again, which meant that he’d have

to find a way along the Mississippi River. Falling
back on his West Point engineering training,

Grant attempted five “experiments” to bypass
Vicksburg. Grant would claim in his memoirs

that their only real purpose was to keep his men
busy during the winter, but most historians and

contemporary sources agree that Grant hoped
they would work, even if he expected failure.

The quickest way to bypass Vicksburg’s guns
remained Farragut’s abandoned canal, so in

late January, Sherman’s 15th Corps got digging.
Without the summer mosquitoes tormenting them,

Sherman’s men fared better than Farragut’s, but
they were still unsuccessful. The six-foot deep,

six-foot wide dry ditch was insufficient for
either naval traffic or for the river to actually

enter, so Grant ordered it deepened and expanded
to seven feet deep and 60 feet wide. However, the

river broke the dam at the canal’s mouth, quickly
flooding it and then silting it in. Steam-dredgers

were called in, but the additional activity
attracted Confederate cannon fire, and the canal

was abandoned. Meanwhile, McPherson’s 17th Corps
built another canal from the Mississippi to Lake

Providence , then through connecting bayous to the
Red River, enabling Grant to transport his army

to Port Hudson instead. By March 18th, McPherson
reported that the canal was sufficiently complete

for riverboats, but fluctuating water levels
along the route led Grant to abandon the project.

It is likely that this project really was just
a make-work effort, as Grant didn’t want to get

close enough to Banks for the latter to claim
command of the expedition through his seniority.

In February, Porter attempted to bypass Hayne’s
Bluff to the east via a disused riverboat route

called the Yazoo Pass. If successful, it
would open a route to Yazoo City and the

flat ground east of Vicksburg. To reach the Pass,
on February 3rd, a levee was blown near Helena to

raise the water level and allow 10 gunboats and 13
transports into Moon Lake. Progress was achingly

slow due to inconsistent water levels, thick
swamp grasses, and tangled masses of trees. Worse,

the trees were full of flood-stranded wildlife,
which began raining onto the passing gunboats. The

soldiers and sailors found themselves shooing
away everything from raccoons and snakes to

cougars and bears. Meanwhile, Pemberton fortified
the riverbend just north of Greenwood. When the

expedition reached Fort Pemberton on March 11th,
they found formidable defences above ground,

too marshy for an infantry attack. After several
days of ineffectual bombardment, the expedition

turned around and rejoined Grant on April 14th.
Once word of Fort Pemberton’s existence reached

Porter, a second naval expedition was launched
through Steele’s Bayou to outflank the position.

The initial movement through the Bayou was
successful, but upon reaching Deer Creek,

it rapidly bogged down. The Creek
was far narrower and overgrown,

slowing the squadron to a crawl. Confederates
began felling trees to further block the ships

from in front and behind, trapping them. Sherman
dispatched troops to rescue Porter on March 22nd,

safely returning to Millikin’s Bend by March 27th.
That day, Grant decided to try one final canal,

this time connecting Duckport Landing to New
Carthage via Walnut Bayou. Once again, the digging

went well and on April 13th, the protective
levee was opened to fill the canal. However,

Mississippi silt began to clog the route, and the
region’s water levels began falling, leaving less

than six inches of water inside the canal.
The Vicksburg Campaign

This was the final straw for Grant. Cleverness
had failed to get him around Vicksburg. It was

time for brute force. Having had ample time
to survey Vicksburg’s riverward defenses,

he’d concluded that the high bluff was actually a
weakness as the guns couldn’t depress far enough

to hit the nearest third of the river . Therefore,
transports could steam right under the guns and

survive. After convincing Porter to make the
run, Grant planned a multipronged deception to

disguise his intentions until the crossing was
complete. McClernand’s troops quietly built a

military road from the supply base at Milliken’s
Bend to Hard Times Landing, where Grant intended

to cross. Meanwhile, Sherman would leave one
division to feint against Snyder’s Bluff to

pin Pemberton while the rest of his corps made
demonstrations to the north to divert attention

from McClernand and McPherson’s crossing, then
follow behind . Finally, a cavalry raid through

central Mississippi would draw resources and
Johnston’s attention away from the river.

The night of April 16th, Porter sent seven
gunboats shielding three transports floating

downriver towards Vicksburg. With
engines muffled and no lights allowed,

Porter hoped to simply float past the guns
unnoticed on a moonless night. However,

Confederate sentries spotted them anyway and
raised the alarm, interrupting a grand ball

being held in town. As Grant predicted, the guns
mostly overshot and the squadron took minimal

damage beside many holes in smokestacks. By the
time the Confederates realized the problem and

began elevating their guns, Porter was through
and Grant had his transports. Six days later,

six supply ships attempted the
run, with five making it through.

Grierson’s Raid
With Porter clear,

the second phase began. Colonel Benjamin Grierson
was a music teacher who hated horses, but two

years of war had turned him into a hardened
cavalryman ready to teach the Confederates a thing

or two about strategic cavalry usage. Launching
from La Grange the morning of April 17th,

Grierson led his 1700 troopers 600 miles through
central Mississippi to Baton Rouge, arriving May

2nd. Travelling in multiple columns led by scouts
dressed as Confederates, Grierson’s Raid destroyed

thousands of arms caches, dozens hundreds of
warehouses, wrecked over 50 miles of railroad,

liberated hundreds of slaves, and inflicted over
100 casualties for only 19 losses. Johnston and

Pemberton diverted all available cavalry
and an infantry division to ineffectively

chase Grierson and protect supply lines,
completely taking their attention off Grant.

By April 29th, Grant’s army was assembled for
crossing, and he wired Sherman to start the

distraction at Snyder’s Bluff. However, his
intended landing point at Grand Gulf was held

by a Confederate division from Pemberton’s
army. Porter tried to force the landing by

bombarding the defences, but failed to reduce
their positions. Rather than waste more time,

Grant ordered him to run the transports downriver
while the gunboats covered them with another

bombardment, which succeeded with no losses.
He’d cross at Disharoon’s plantation instead.

Battle of Port Gibson
Acting on advice from a local slave,

Porter began ferrying McClernand and McPherson’s
corps across to Bruinsburg on April 30th.

By May 1st, 24,000 Union soldiers were across
the Mississippi, the largest American amphibious

landing until World War 2. Fearing just
such a flanking maneuver, Pemberton had

sent reinforcements to defend Port Gibson, which
held the road inland from Bruinsburg. The 8,000

Confederates deployed along a series of ridges
and ravines straddling the road, which provided

excellent defensive ground but also prevented the
units from communicating directly with each other.

McClernand made contact with the Confederates
at 06:30, pushing back the brigade holding

Rodney Road until being checked by Confederate
reinforcements. Following an artillery barrage,

McClernand ordered another attack, only for it
to fail when the units didn’t attack together.

However, at 10:00, McClernand finally got all his
units to advance together, and the Confederate

frontline buckled and fell back. Grant sent
reinforcements, and the attack continued until

the Confederates withdrew at 15:00. With a Federal
beachhead established, the Confederates at Grand

Gulf withdrew to rejoin Pemberton. Meanwhile,
Grant established his communication lines and

brought the rest of his 40,000-man field army
across the Mississippi. Marching for Raymond,

he ordered his troops to travel light and to
forage for supplies, which the men did with gusto,

stripping all the local plantations of food.
Battles of Raymond and Jackson

Following Davis’ orders, Pemberton ordered John
Gregg’s brigade to establish a defensive line

at Raymond rather than Jackson. On May
12th, McPherson made contact with Gregg,

who aggressively attacked the unknown force.
McPherson’s vanguard was pushed back before

superior numbers nearly enveloped Gregg, who
just barely escaped. While barely a hiccup to

his march, Grant decided to swing east to drive
off Johnston before he could gather enough forces

to be a threat. Johnston had been with the Army
of Tennessee when Grant crossed the Mississippi.

Learning of the situation on May 9th, he’d
raced back to Jackson to find only 6,000 men

ready to defend the city, though Davis assured
him that reinforcements were coming. However,

Sherman and McPherson arrived first on May
14th. Rather than fight a hopeless battle,

Johnston ordered Gregg to delay the Federals while
he evacuated everything he could. The Union attack

began in a rainstorm at 10:00, and by 14:00,
Johnston was clear. Gregg successfully disengaged

and rejoined him on the Canton Road .
Battle of Champion Hill

There, Johnston was reinforced to 15,000 and
ordered Pemberton to advance from Edward’s

Station and engage Grant near Clinton,
where Johnston could join him. However,

Pemberton ignored the order and instead tried
to raid Grant’s supply line. However, Grant

was advancing too quickly. Pemberton switched
to obeying Johnston, but it was too late . At

07:00 on May 16th, Pemberton’s countermarch was
intercepted at Champion Hill. While his 23,000

men quickly formed a strong defensive position
along the ridges overlooking Jackson Creek,

it did not cover the Jackson Road on the left
flank around Champion Hill. McPherson’s corps was

using that road while McClernand moved toward the
Confederate right along Raymond Road . At 11:30,

McPherson engaged, and by 13:00, he’d broken
through while McClernand was stymied. Pemberton’s

position crumbled, and his men fled across
Baker Creek towards the Big Black River Bridge,

their only remaining escape route. One
division was cut off and would instead

sneak around Grant to join Johnston.
Battle of Big Black River Bridge

Pemberton retreated back to Vicksburg, leaving two
brigades to hold the Big Black River Bridge in the

hope that the missing division would arrive.
Instead, McClernand arrived early on May 17th,

and an artillery duel began. Scouting under the
cover of cannon smoke, a Union brigade discovered

that a river meander scar led right into the
heart of the Confederate line. The brigade

rushed into the scar, then charged into the
Confederate line, which crumbled from the shock.

The routing rebels burned not only the bridge but
a riverboat serving as a ferry to unsuccessfully

delay the Federal advance. As Pemberton
withdrew from Hayne’s Bluff, Johnston knew

that Vicksburg was doomed and ordered him
to evacuate before being trapped. However,

Pemberton chose to ignore Johnston and follow
Davis’ order to hold Vicksburg at all costs.

The Siege of Vicksburg
By May 18th, Grant was outside Vicksburg.

Unwilling to let Pemberton’s men recover, he
ordered an immediate storming attack, which

failed on May 19th. On the 22nd, Grant ordered
another assault after heavy bombardment from both

his artillery and Porter’s gunboats. While this
more carefully planned attack took some outworks,

the defences ultimately held. Accepting failure,
Grant prepared to take Vicksburg by siege and

began calling in all his reinforcements, including
the troops he’d left north of the city to distract

Pemberton. Meanwhile, Banks finally disengaged
from operations along the Red River and besieged

Port Hudson on May 22nd. As Grant built his siege
lines, he initially couldn’t completely surround

Vicksburg, and Pemberton could have escaped
via unguarded roads to the south. Johnston

repeatedly ordered him to do so, but Pemberton
instead obeyed Davis’ orders to hold and wait

for the relief army Davis promised Johnston was
building . Johnston was assembling troops in

Jackson, but he couldn’t find enough artillery,
ammunition, or muskets for all 32,000 soldiers,

most of whom were raw conscripts. Worse, by
early June, Grant was reinforced to 77,000,

with Sherman guarding the Big Black River
crossings with 40,000 men. Grant also found

the excuse to fire McClernand after he defied
orders about talking to the press on June 18th.

The situation was hopeless, so Johnston called
for help from other departments. On June 7th,

the Trans-Mississippi Department sent a Texas
brigade to break Grant’s supply line at Milliken’s

Bend. The Louisiana Colored Brigade stationed
there repelled the attack with heavy losses,

ending the only serious attempt to break the
encirclement. Johnston finally moved to break

the siege on June 28th, but a series of probing
attacks on July 1st showed that Sherman’s position

was too strong for his poorly-trained troops, and
Johnston retreated to preserve the army. On June

25th and again on July 1st, Grant’s engineers
detonated mines under the Confederate lines to

prove the futility of further resistance. With
the city out of food, Pemberton finally agreed

to surrender on July 3rd. Initially, Grant
offered only unconditional surrender, but he

was convinced to offer parole instead to avoid
having to transport 30,000 prisoners northward.

Vicksburg formally surrendered on July 4th, and
Port Hudson followed on July 9th. The Confederacy

was split in two, and Davis was furious. He blamed
Johnston for not aggressively breaking the siege,

while Johnston shot back that Davis had made empty
and wildly unrealistic promises about the relief

army. In any case, coupled with the victory at
Gettysburg, Vicksburg turned the tide of the war,

and Grant was given supreme command
of the Western armies as a reward.

Join us next time, as we return to
Tennessee to watch the seminal clash

between the Army of the Cumberland and
the Army of Tennessee at Chickamauga,

so make sure you are subscribed and have pressed
the bell button to see them. Unfortunately,

even if you are a member or a patron, you
still have to have the bell button, otherwise,

YouTube will just not send you notifications.
Thank you very much for your kind support,

it is because of you that we are able to
produce so many videos and do our dream

job. Don’t forget to participate in the weekly
polls to vote for the next exclusive video.

This is the Kings and Generals channel,
and we will catch you on the next one.