To Outcamp the Enemy - General Grant and the Siege of Vicksburg

Presented by Dr. Heidi Amelia-Anne Weber, full professor of military history at SUNY: Orange.

Part of the original Anaconda Plan incorporated dividing the Confederacy in two. Essential to that plan was the Union securing control of the Mississippi River. Although attempts were made to secure Vicksburg, the initial ones were failures. Control of Vicksburg was significant to both the Union and the Confederacy. It was, as Jefferson Davis proclaimed, “the nailhead that held the South’s two halves together.” Following the costly success of Shiloh, Major General Ulysses Grant began his movement into Mississippi and the assault at Vicksburg. Having failed in the preliminary attempts, the last option was a siege, one that would ultimately result in victory.