Sesquicentennial, Part XXX: Vicksburg

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July 1  --  July 2  --  July 3  --  July 4  --  July 5

"God gave us Lincoln and liberty, let us fight for both." -- General Ulysses S. Grant

Sieges aren't fun for anybody.

A siege combines the horrors of an extended campaign with the stultifying boredom of garrison duty. You're either on the firing line, shooting and getting shot at, or you're back in camp, doing a whole lot of nothing. It doesn't especially matter which side of the siege works you're sitting on. Except, that is, for the fact that the besieging force can resupply with food and ammunition. The besieged force, and the unfortunate civilians within the besieged city, have whatever food and stores they managed to lay in before the noose drew shut.

Eventually, it runs out.

That's how sieges have almost always ended. The dramatic version, where the attackers smash down the walls by force and take the castle, almost never happens. The counter-examples are exceptional, like when Alexander the Great seized the then-island city of Tyre. (Incidentally, Alexander's also the reason Tyre is no longer an island, but that's another story.) The usual result, especially in the medieval and early modern period, is that the opposing commanders would meet and fix a date. The date was related to how much food the defenders had. If that date passed without relief for the defenders, then the defending commander would surrender his garrison.

All this is important on this day, July 4, 1863, because General Ulysses S. Grant has been camped out outside of Vicksburg, Mississippi with his army since mid-May. General John Pemberton has been cut off from communications or supply since that date. In theory, a Confederate army could come to break the siege. It's a nice theory. Unfortunately, it depends on an army being available for siege-breaking that President Davis didn't already have busy elsewhere.

Grant didn't take inactivity well. He never did. All of the episodes of his reported drunkenness happened when he was cooped up with nothing better to do than taste-test whiskey. When his army was on the move, Grant had plenty to occupy him; but when it was encamped outside of Vicksburg, he had very few decisions that needed making. The main decision being, when to try another assault on the defensive works?

After a few bloody attempts in May, Grant gave those up as a bad idea. He simply surrounded Vicksburg with big guns, and let his artillerymen do all his talking from then on.

Eventually, Pemberton decided that his soldiers could endure no more. Starvation, and all the diseases associated with starvation, were becoming a real problem. He asked Grant for terms on July 3, 1863. At first, Grant began to issue his standard demand of unconditional surrender ... but then reconsidered, because he had no particular desire to have to feed some 30,000 hungry Confederate prisoners in Union prison camps. Instead, he worked out a parole arrangement, where the Confederate soldiers would go home until "exchanged" with similarly-paroled Union prisoners. This sort of thing was not uncommon up to this point in the war. The final terms were worked out on July 4, when Pemberton surrendered Vickburg to Grant.

Upon hearing of the surrender of Vicksburg, Lincoln exulted, "The Father of Waters again goes unvexed to the sea." With the surrender of Vicksburg, the Confederacy was not only cut in two, it was totally isolated from the outside world.

From now on, the Confederate Army's supply problems would only get worse.