Sherman was preparing to flank him from the north he had no choice but to withdraw or be outflanked. Attempts to stop the Union advance at Champion Hill and Big Black River Bridge were unsuccessful. It also cut off communication with Confederate forces in the Trans-Mississippi Department for the remainder of the war.Īfter crossing the Mississippi River south of Vicksburg at Bruinsburg and driving northeast, Grant won battles at Port Gibson and Raymond and captured Jackson, the Mississippi state capital on May 14, 1863, forcing Pemberton to withdraw westward. Meade the previous day, the turning point of the war. The Confederate surrender following the siege at Vicksburg is sometimes considered, when combined with Gen. Banks on July 9) yielded command of the Mississippi River to the Union forces, who would hold it for the rest of the conflict.

This action (combined with the surrender of Port Hudson to Maj. With no reinforcement, supplies nearly gone, and after holding out for more than forty days, the garrison finally surrendered on July 4. When two major assaults (May 19 and May 22, 1863) against the Confederate fortifications were repulsed with heavy casualties, Grant decided to besiege the city beginning on May 25. Pemberton into the defensive lines surrounding the fortress city of Vicksburg, Mississippi. Grant and his Army of the Tennessee crossed the Mississippi River and drove the Confederate Army of Vicksburg led by Lt. The Siege of Vicksburg (May 18 – July 4, 1863) was the final major military action in the Vicksburg Campaign of the American Civil War.

Vicksburg by Michael B. Ballard