By Timothy B. Smith
The Vicksburg Campaign, argues Timothy B. Smith, is the
showcase of Ulysses S. Grant’s military genius. From October 1862 to July 1863,
for nearly nine months, Grant tried repeatedly to capture the Confederate river
city. He maneuvered and adapted numerous times, reacting to events and enemy
movements with great skill and finesse as the lengthy campaign played out on a
huge chessboard, dwarfing operations in the east. Grant’s final, daring move
allowed him to land an army in Mississippi and fight his way to the gates of
Vicksburg. He captured the Confederate garrison and city on July 4, 1863,
opening the Mississippi River for the Union.
Showing how and why Grant became such a successful general, Smith presents a
fast-paced reexamination of the commander and the campaign. His fresh analysis
of Grant’s decision-making process during the Vicksburg maneuvers,
battles, and siege details the course of campaigning on military, political,
administrative, and personal levels. The narrative is organized around Grant’s
eight key decisions: to begin operations against Vicksburg, to place himself in
personal charge of the campaign, to begin active operations around the city, to
sweep toward Vicksburg from the south, to march east of Vicksburg and cut the
railroad before attacking, to assault Vicksburg twice in an attempt to end the
campaign quickly, to lay siege after the assaults had failed, and to parole the
surrendered Confederate garrison rather than send the Southern soldiers to
prison camps.
The successful military campaign also required Grant to master political
efforts, including handling Lincoln’s impatience and dealing with the troublesome
political general John A. McClernand. Further, he had to juggle administrative
work with military decision making. Grant was more than a military genius,
however; he was also a husband and a father, and Smith shows how Grant’s family
was a part of everything he did.
Grant’s nontraditional choices went against the accepted theories of war,
supply, and operations as well as against the chief thinkers of the day, such
as Henry Halleck, Grant’s superior. Yet Grant pulled off the victory in
compelling fashion. In the first in-depth examination in decades, Smith shows
how Grant’s decisions created and won the Civil War’s most brilliant, complex,
decisive, and lengthy campaign.
About the Author
Timothy B. Smith teaches history at the University of
Tennessee at Martin. He has published fifteen books on the Civil War, including
Grant Invades Tennessee: The 1862 Battles for Forts Henry and Donelson
and Shiloh: Conquer or Perish.
ISBN 978-0809336661, Southern Illinois University Press, ©
2018, Hardcover, 272 pages, Maps, Photographs, End Notes, Bibliograhpic Essay
& Index. $34.50. To purchase this book click HERE.
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