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Title: Union Troops March Into Mississippi, July 4, 1863

Description: Union troops march into conquered Vicksburg, Mississippi, July 4, 1863, following eleven major battles and a prolonged siege, where pugnacious Union Major General Ulysses S. Grant (Hiram Ulysses Grant; April 27, 1822-July 23, 1885) hammered the stubborn fortified city, called the "Gibraltar of the Confederacy," located on a high bluff on a horseshoe-shaped bend in the river, into submission in a bloody, unrelenting seven-month campaign, sending his 80,000 troops in slaughterhouse attacks against less than 30,000 Confederate troops commanded by Confederate Lieutenant General John C. Pemberton (John Clifford Pemberton; August 10, 1814-July 13, 1881); Union warships, including many ironclads, commanded by Admiral David Farragut (David G. Farragut; David Glasgow Farragut; July 5, 1801-August 14, 1870) and Admiral David Dixon Porter (June 8, 1813-February 13, 1891) bombarded the city from the river over a period of seven months without effectively destroying its defenses where the defenders were able to shell these ships with devastating effectiveness from guns positioned on commanding bluffs ("like shooting fish in a rain barrel," said one defender), but lack of food, ammunition and with no military relief available forced the city's surrender on July 4, 1863, which opened the Gateway to the South and the lower Mississippi, where other Confederate river forts were then overwhelmed with more than 10,000 Union troops killed and wounded and more than 9,000 Confederate killed and wounded throughout the Campaign and Siege of Vicksburg;

Category: American Civil War

Keywords: American Civil War, capitulations, crowds, surrenders, Union troops, Siege of Vicksburg (May 18-July 4, 1863), Vicksburg Campaign (December 26, 1862-July 4, 1863), War Against the South: War Between the States, War for the South, War for the Southern Confederacy, War for the Union, War of the Rebellion.