"Early Struggles for Vicksburg: The Mississippi Central" Topic

… Campaign and Chickasaw Bayou, October 25-December 31, 1862

" In Early Struggles for Vicksburg, Tim Smith covers the first phase of the Vicksburg campaign (October 1862-July 1863), involving perhaps the most wide-ranging and complex series of efforts seen in the entire campaign. The operations that took place from late October to the end of December 1862 covered six states, consisted of four intertwined minicampaigns, and saw the involvement of everything from cavalry raids to naval operations in addition to pitched land battles in Ulysses S. Grant's first attempts to reach Vicksburg.

This fall-winter campaign that marked the first of the major efforts to reach Vicksburg was the epitome of the by-the-book concepts of military theory of the day. But the first major Union attempts to capture Vicksburg late in 1862 were also disjointed, unorganized, and spread out across a wide spectrum. The Confederates were thus able to parry each threat, although Grant, in his newly assumed position as commander of the Department of the Tennessee, learned from his mistakes and revised his methods in later operations, leading eventually to the fall of Vicksburg. It was war done the way academics would want it done, but Grant figured out quickly that the books did not always have the answers, and he adapted his approach thereafter…"

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Armand

I have Smith's The Siege of Vicksburg which is a hefty tome with very detailed coverage of not only the actions in the siege lines but also all the maneuvering that went on between Johnson's "relief" force and the outer band of Union forces along the Big Black River and in the area to the northeast between the Yazoo and Big Black Rivers.

I would presume this early struggles book would be just as detailed.

Jim

Thanks!.

Armand

For all the brilliance of his final, and successful, campaign against Vicksburg, he had tried every other option and failed. He only had the one option left (except repeating a previously failed option).

(smile)

Armand