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Vicksburg: Grant's Campaign That Broke the Confederacy
The astonishing story of the longest and most decisive military campaign of the Civil War in Vicksburg, Mississippi, which opened the Mississippi River, split the Confederacy, freed tens of thousands of slaves, and made Ulysses S. Grant the most important general of the war.
Vicksburg, Mississippi, was the last stronghold of the Confederacy on the Mississippi River. It prevented the Union from using the river for shipping between the Union-controlled Midwest and New Orleans and the Gulf of Mexico. The Union navy tried to take Vicksburg, which sat on a high bluff overlooking the river, but couldn’t do it. General Grant moved his army south and joined forces with Admiral Porter, but even together they could not come up with a successful plan. At one point Grant even tried to build a canal so that the river could be diverted away from Vicksburg.
In Vicksburg, Donald L. Miller tells the full story of this year-long campaign to win the city. He brings to life all the drama, characters, and significance of Vicksburg, a historic moment that rivals any war story in history. Grant’s efforts repeatedly failed until he found a way to lay siege and force the city to capitulate. In the course of the campaign, tens of thousands of slaves fled to the Union lines, where more than twenty thousand became soldiers, while others seized the plantations they had been forced to work on, destroying the economy of a large part of Mississippi and creating a social revolution.
Ultimately, Vicksburg was the battle that solidified Grant’s reputation as the Union’s most capable general. Today no general would ever be permitted to fail as often as Grant did, but in the end he succeeded in what he himself called the most important battle of the war, the one that all but sealed the fate of the Confederacy.
Vicksburg, Mississippi, was the last stronghold of the Confederacy on the Mississippi River. It prevented the Union from using the river for shipping between the Union-controlled Midwest and New Orleans and the Gulf of Mexico. The Union navy tried to take Vicksburg, which sat on a high bluff overlooking the river, but couldn’t do it. General Grant moved his army south and joined forces with Admiral Porter, but even together they could not come up with a successful plan. At one point Grant even tried to build a canal so that the river could be diverted away from Vicksburg.
In Vicksburg, Donald L. Miller tells the full story of this year-long campaign to win the city. He brings to life all the drama, characters, and significance of Vicksburg, a historic moment that rivals any war story in history. Grant’s efforts repeatedly failed until he found a way to lay siege and force the city to capitulate. In the course of the campaign, tens of thousands of slaves fled to the Union lines, where more than twenty thousand became soldiers, while others seized the plantations they had been forced to work on, destroying the economy of a large part of Mississippi and creating a social revolution.
Ultimately, Vicksburg was the battle that solidified Grant’s reputation as the Union’s most capable general. Today no general would ever be permitted to fail as often as Grant did, but in the end he succeeded in what he himself called the most important battle of the war, the one that all but sealed the fate of the Confederacy.
688 pages, Hardcover
First published October 29, 2019
524 people are currently reading
2919 people want to read
About the author
Donald L. Miller
18 books199 followersDr. Miller is the John Henry MacCracken Professor of History at Lafayette College and an expert on World War II, among other topics in American history. Three of his eight books are on WWII: D-Days in the Pacific (2005), the story of the American re-conquest of the Pacific from Imperial Japan; Masters of the Air: America’s Bomber Boys Who Fought the Air War Against Nazi Germany (2006); and The Story of World War II (2001), all published by Simon & Schuster.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 155 reviews
April 10, 2020
I have read two other books by Miller and both were good reads and excellent history. I am happy to report that this book was no less an enjoyable read and an excellent history. While the title is Vicksburg that is somewhat misleading since this book covers Grant's entire Mississippi campaign from September, 1861 until near the end of 1863. It covers the battles for Forts Henry and Donelson and Shiloh as well as numerous other "minor" actions along the way. It is also a fairly good biography of Grant during this period and even deals substantively with Grant's rumored drinking problem and that this problem may have been more than just a rumor. What is really eye opening is the detail Miller employs in this history. As the author suggests near the end of the book the Vicksburg Campaign was of a complexity that had never been experienced in warfare before and wouldn't be repeated until the WWII campaigns in the Pacific. Grant's ability to deal with all the multiple issues dealing with the campaign was what sets him apart from all other generals of this war. Miller's description of the terrain Grant encountered would have been reason enough for anybody else to call it impossible and walk away. Nevertheless, Grant managed the strategic and tactical details, the supply, transport, communications, intelligence, terrain, engineering, medical, and on top of all of that he was tasked with social engineering by Lincoln as a result of the Emancipation Proclamation and all the freed slaves. It is a terrible unfairness of history that Vicksburg gets no where near the attention and acclaim that is given Gettysburg which was won the day before Vicksburg fell. Gettysburg accomplished almost nothing when compared to Vicksburg yet Gettysburg got all the historic attention and ink. Reading this history will give you a much greater appreciation of Grant's achievement and his ability. He was truly our first modern military leader and this campaign was our first national experience in modern warfare.
June 29, 2024
Most battle books bore me.
Vicksburg does not. Perhaps it is because of the length of the siege? Perhaps it is because it was a combined naval/army operation? Or perhaps it is because it was arguably the most important battle of the Civil War?
I do not think that Miller overstates the battle's importance when he gave the book the subtitle, "Grant's Campaign that Broke the Confederacy."
Vicksburg was the last Confederate strong hold on the Mississippi. It's position---jutting out into the river---made it a crucial fort. As long as the Confederates held the city, the Union could not safely navigate the river. Vicksburg gave a safe crossing point between the Western part of the Confederacy and the Eastern part. Without that crossing point, Texas was isolated from the rest of the South. Without controlling Vicksburg, Sherman would not be able to safely March to the Sea. Without a Union victory at Vicksburg, Grant may never have taken command of the Union Army!
Without Grant (and Sherman) the Union may not have defeated the South! One of the prevailing themes in the first third of the book---wherein Miller recounts early Civil War Battles---was the inability of Generals to press their advantage. Continuously throughout the war, Union or Confederate troops would achieve a major victory over their opponent. But the general, fearing his own troops were exhausted, would hold back. This gave the defeated army a chance to regroup and rest. Grant and Sherman pushed on. This willingness to push both his troops and the Confederacy is what earned them scorn as Generals, but resulted in the ultimate Union victory.
The Battle is also of interest because of how easily it would have been to change the narrative. In May/June of 1863, Jefferson Davis wanted Robert E Lee to go to the rescue of the city. Lee's first loyalty was to Virginia (not the Confederacy) and he refused to leave Virginia unprotected. Instead, he came up with the idea of invading the North. He believed that if he attacked, then Grant would have to abandon his siege to stop him. Lee was defeated at Gettysburg on the same day Vicksburg fell. And unlike Vicksburg, General Meade failed to press his advantage and force Lee's surrender.
Had he marched to Vicksburg he might have avoided the twin defeats of July 4, 1863. Saving Vicksburg may have saved the Confederacy. Instead, the defeat at Vicksburg on the same day that Lee was defeated at Gettysburg bolstered the spirit and inspired the North.
Vicksburg does not. Perhaps it is because of the length of the siege? Perhaps it is because it was a combined naval/army operation? Or perhaps it is because it was arguably the most important battle of the Civil War?
I do not think that Miller overstates the battle's importance when he gave the book the subtitle, "Grant's Campaign that Broke the Confederacy."
Vicksburg was the last Confederate strong hold on the Mississippi. It's position---jutting out into the river---made it a crucial fort. As long as the Confederates held the city, the Union could not safely navigate the river. Vicksburg gave a safe crossing point between the Western part of the Confederacy and the Eastern part. Without that crossing point, Texas was isolated from the rest of the South. Without controlling Vicksburg, Sherman would not be able to safely March to the Sea. Without a Union victory at Vicksburg, Grant may never have taken command of the Union Army!
Without Grant (and Sherman) the Union may not have defeated the South! One of the prevailing themes in the first third of the book---wherein Miller recounts early Civil War Battles---was the inability of Generals to press their advantage. Continuously throughout the war, Union or Confederate troops would achieve a major victory over their opponent. But the general, fearing his own troops were exhausted, would hold back. This gave the defeated army a chance to regroup and rest. Grant and Sherman pushed on. This willingness to push both his troops and the Confederacy is what earned them scorn as Generals, but resulted in the ultimate Union victory.
The Battle is also of interest because of how easily it would have been to change the narrative. In May/June of 1863, Jefferson Davis wanted Robert E Lee to go to the rescue of the city. Lee's first loyalty was to Virginia (not the Confederacy) and he refused to leave Virginia unprotected. Instead, he came up with the idea of invading the North. He believed that if he attacked, then Grant would have to abandon his siege to stop him. Lee was defeated at Gettysburg on the same day Vicksburg fell. And unlike Vicksburg, General Meade failed to press his advantage and force Lee's surrender.
Had he marched to Vicksburg he might have avoided the twin defeats of July 4, 1863. Saving Vicksburg may have saved the Confederacy. Instead, the defeat at Vicksburg on the same day that Lee was defeated at Gettysburg bolstered the spirit and inspired the North.
May 30, 2022
Truly excellent. One of the best Civil War histories I've ever read. Amazingly thorough in details and analysis without ever bogging down. Exciting and fascinating with vivid descriptions of the battles and every aspect of the lives of the soldiers, sailors, citizens, and slaves. Not hagiography of Grant by any means, but superbly fair and considerate of context. Although battles like Gettysburg seem to garner more attention, the Vicksburg campaign, strategically speaking, was the true turning point in the war that marked the eventual death of the Confederacy. This book is a masterpiece that explains why and how. Civil War buffs will love this volume, and I bet quite a few general readers will, too. Highest recommendation.
January 21, 2020
A comprehensive, engaging and well-researched history of the campaign.
Much of the book deals with Grant, and Miller provides a nuanced and balanced portrait of him and his growth, and a vivid narrative of the campaign. Miller ably covers the war’s impact on slavery, the campaign’s influence on slavery’s demise, the role played by subordinates like Sherman, the experience of soldiers, and the obstacles faced by the Union. He also emphasizes the importance of Union naval forces and Grant’s grasp of logistics.
The narrative is elegant and immersive, and Miller ably covers the people who contributed to the outcome, both well-known and obscure. He provides a good overview of the campaign without getting lost in too many details, and places it into context in a thoughtful way.
There aren't too many problems, although Miller annoyingly refers to Sherman as “Tecumseh” at times. He also calls the 1862 congressional elections a disaster for the Republicans, even though they retained most governorships and legislatures, gained some Senate seats, and retained a House majority (also, soldiers couldn’t vote at the time)
A well-written and detailed work.
Much of the book deals with Grant, and Miller provides a nuanced and balanced portrait of him and his growth, and a vivid narrative of the campaign. Miller ably covers the war’s impact on slavery, the campaign’s influence on slavery’s demise, the role played by subordinates like Sherman, the experience of soldiers, and the obstacles faced by the Union. He also emphasizes the importance of Union naval forces and Grant’s grasp of logistics.
The narrative is elegant and immersive, and Miller ably covers the people who contributed to the outcome, both well-known and obscure. He provides a good overview of the campaign without getting lost in too many details, and places it into context in a thoughtful way.
There aren't too many problems, although Miller annoyingly refers to Sherman as “Tecumseh” at times. He also calls the 1862 congressional elections a disaster for the Republicans, even though they retained most governorships and legislatures, gained some Senate seats, and retained a House majority (also, soldiers couldn’t vote at the time)
A well-written and detailed work.
June 29, 2024
“It is campaigns, not battles, that win wars,” Miller writes toward the end of this book on Gen. Ulysses Grant’s effort to capture the Confederate stronghold of Vicksburg in 1863. And it is Miller’s focus on the full campaign - its successes and failures, its risks and rewards, and its ultimate impact on the wider war - that makes his book stand out.
This is the rare Civil War book of those I’ve read so far, that doesn’t follow the general formula of building up to a major battle, describing in great detail how it was fought, then quickly wrapping it up with some final thoughts. In Miller’s telling, the battles and the siege that followed are obviously important, but not necessarily the centerpiece of the story, as he explores all the strategies, setbacks, the politics, the impact of the campaign on soldiers, civilians and newly-freed enslaved people, and the trajectory of Grant during this time from mistrusted general to just as much of a champion of the Emancipation Proclamation and savior of the Union as Lincoln himself.
“It is difficult to see Vicksburg falling in 1863, or the Union prevailing by April 1865, without Grant - or, for that matter, without the partnership between Grant and Sherman,” Miller writes. But it sure didn’t seem that way at the start. Grant was barely even in the picture when Adm. David Farragut made the first attempt to capture Vicksburg in May 1862, shortly after the costly Battle of Shiloh that led to Grant being relieved of field command and considering quitting the Army altogether.
As a new effort to move on Vicksburg began to take shape later that year, Grant (since reinstated) still had not proven himself, and Lincoln at this point had learned to be wary of his generals. Distrust of both Grant and his rival Gen. John McClernand led Lincoln and War Secretary Stanton to “clumsily set one general against the other,” allowing both to believe they were in charge of moving on Vicksburg. It may be easy to say so in retrospect, but Miller observes that this “was a monumental misstep by America's greatest war president and his highly-regarded Secretary of War.”
Even once Grant took the lead and began to carry out his plans, fighting battles and making adjustments along the way, he still didn’t have Lincoln’s full confidence, and made mistakes to the point that some wondered how he was even allowed to remain in command. But the difference between Grant and the merry-go-round of failed generals in the Eastern Theater, Miller observes, is that Grant learned from his mistakes, he got better, he took risks and he pulled it off.
Miller details the slow progress, the false starts and the unique geographical challenges this campaign presented - the marches through swamps, the insects and disease, the failed attempts to dig canals to use as shortcuts for Adm. David Porter’s navy - so it comes as a triumphant relief in the narrative when Porter makes a daring run down the Mississippi, past the Confederate batteries, clearing the way for Grant to cross the Mississippi further south in what Miller points out was “the largest amphibious landing in American history until D-Day.”
There are several events like this that Miller points out as being pivotal and decisive, and not mere precursors to the main event to come. The later Battle of Champion Hill, as Grant’s forces neared Vicksburg, was “the decisive battle of the Civil War,” Miller argues, “strategically more consequential than Gettysburg, Antietam, and other great hecatombs in the east.” In those other battles, the Confederate army was defeated but regrouped to fight another day, while all that Confederate forces at Champion Hill could do was retreat to Vicksburg, hunker down and endure the siege to come.
Throughout all of this, Miller spends a good amount of time examining Grant as strategist, as liberator, and as problem drinker. Going backwards through that list, he generally agrees with Ron Chernow’s assessment of Grant’s apparent struggle with alcoholism, neither castigating him as the falling-down drunk that history seems to remember him as, nor excusing him for allegedly only drinking during periods of inactivity, as others have claimed. Neither was quite true, in Miller’s telling, and Grant’s inability to abstain could very well have imperiled his success and destroyed his reputation, had things gone differently.
When it comes to Grant as liberator, Miller pays particular attention throughout the narrative to the impact of the Emancipation Proclamation on the campaign. Upon taking effect earlier that year, the Proclamation had little immediate impact - but it certainly did as Union troops moved through the Deep South, and enslaved people who saw what was coming became emboldened and less acquiescent to their masters, then headed to Union lines in droves as troops arrived. Grant set up contraband camps, put the freedmen to work for the war effort, and enlisted many of them to fight, surprising Union skeptics who thought they couldn’t be effective or trusted. Grant, who had earlier seemed ambivalent about slavery, ended up serving as “the enforcing arm of Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation,” Miller writes.
Finally, as to Grant as strategist, Miller portrays the Vicksburg campaign as a strategic, tactical, logistical triumph, and Grant as “the master of maneuver.” In doing so, he also considers the importance of less-dramatic factors like logistics and supplies, pointing out that “Civil War battles are often described in minute detail without attention to how men and animals are fed, or how guns and ammunition reach the front” - which is just as important to success as the fighting itself.
The book ends with an excellent last chapter, in which Miller analyzes why Grant, in coordination with Sherman, won the battle and why their strategies would ultimately win the war. And he makes the case that the Battle of Vicksburg was not only pivotal in retrospect, but was seen as being so at the time. Antietam was important. Gettysburg has captured our imagination. But neither was seen as a decisive turning point in quite the way that the fall of Vicksburg was. And neither demoralized, distressed and angered Southern civilians the way the destructive but effective Vicksburg campaign did.
This book tells the story of the campaign, but it’s just as much a story about Grant, and about the people on both sides who were forever impacted by what happened in this midpoint of the war. There’s still much more fighting, suffering, triumphs and defeats ahead - but Miller’s excellent storytelling and analysis allow us to envision the faint glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel to come.
This is the rare Civil War book of those I’ve read so far, that doesn’t follow the general formula of building up to a major battle, describing in great detail how it was fought, then quickly wrapping it up with some final thoughts. In Miller’s telling, the battles and the siege that followed are obviously important, but not necessarily the centerpiece of the story, as he explores all the strategies, setbacks, the politics, the impact of the campaign on soldiers, civilians and newly-freed enslaved people, and the trajectory of Grant during this time from mistrusted general to just as much of a champion of the Emancipation Proclamation and savior of the Union as Lincoln himself.
“It is difficult to see Vicksburg falling in 1863, or the Union prevailing by April 1865, without Grant - or, for that matter, without the partnership between Grant and Sherman,” Miller writes. But it sure didn’t seem that way at the start. Grant was barely even in the picture when Adm. David Farragut made the first attempt to capture Vicksburg in May 1862, shortly after the costly Battle of Shiloh that led to Grant being relieved of field command and considering quitting the Army altogether.
As a new effort to move on Vicksburg began to take shape later that year, Grant (since reinstated) still had not proven himself, and Lincoln at this point had learned to be wary of his generals. Distrust of both Grant and his rival Gen. John McClernand led Lincoln and War Secretary Stanton to “clumsily set one general against the other,” allowing both to believe they were in charge of moving on Vicksburg. It may be easy to say so in retrospect, but Miller observes that this “was a monumental misstep by America's greatest war president and his highly-regarded Secretary of War.”
Even once Grant took the lead and began to carry out his plans, fighting battles and making adjustments along the way, he still didn’t have Lincoln’s full confidence, and made mistakes to the point that some wondered how he was even allowed to remain in command. But the difference between Grant and the merry-go-round of failed generals in the Eastern Theater, Miller observes, is that Grant learned from his mistakes, he got better, he took risks and he pulled it off.
Miller details the slow progress, the false starts and the unique geographical challenges this campaign presented - the marches through swamps, the insects and disease, the failed attempts to dig canals to use as shortcuts for Adm. David Porter’s navy - so it comes as a triumphant relief in the narrative when Porter makes a daring run down the Mississippi, past the Confederate batteries, clearing the way for Grant to cross the Mississippi further south in what Miller points out was “the largest amphibious landing in American history until D-Day.”
There are several events like this that Miller points out as being pivotal and decisive, and not mere precursors to the main event to come. The later Battle of Champion Hill, as Grant’s forces neared Vicksburg, was “the decisive battle of the Civil War,” Miller argues, “strategically more consequential than Gettysburg, Antietam, and other great hecatombs in the east.” In those other battles, the Confederate army was defeated but regrouped to fight another day, while all that Confederate forces at Champion Hill could do was retreat to Vicksburg, hunker down and endure the siege to come.
Throughout all of this, Miller spends a good amount of time examining Grant as strategist, as liberator, and as problem drinker. Going backwards through that list, he generally agrees with Ron Chernow’s assessment of Grant’s apparent struggle with alcoholism, neither castigating him as the falling-down drunk that history seems to remember him as, nor excusing him for allegedly only drinking during periods of inactivity, as others have claimed. Neither was quite true, in Miller’s telling, and Grant’s inability to abstain could very well have imperiled his success and destroyed his reputation, had things gone differently.
When it comes to Grant as liberator, Miller pays particular attention throughout the narrative to the impact of the Emancipation Proclamation on the campaign. Upon taking effect earlier that year, the Proclamation had little immediate impact - but it certainly did as Union troops moved through the Deep South, and enslaved people who saw what was coming became emboldened and less acquiescent to their masters, then headed to Union lines in droves as troops arrived. Grant set up contraband camps, put the freedmen to work for the war effort, and enlisted many of them to fight, surprising Union skeptics who thought they couldn’t be effective or trusted. Grant, who had earlier seemed ambivalent about slavery, ended up serving as “the enforcing arm of Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation,” Miller writes.
Finally, as to Grant as strategist, Miller portrays the Vicksburg campaign as a strategic, tactical, logistical triumph, and Grant as “the master of maneuver.” In doing so, he also considers the importance of less-dramatic factors like logistics and supplies, pointing out that “Civil War battles are often described in minute detail without attention to how men and animals are fed, or how guns and ammunition reach the front” - which is just as important to success as the fighting itself.
The book ends with an excellent last chapter, in which Miller analyzes why Grant, in coordination with Sherman, won the battle and why their strategies would ultimately win the war. And he makes the case that the Battle of Vicksburg was not only pivotal in retrospect, but was seen as being so at the time. Antietam was important. Gettysburg has captured our imagination. But neither was seen as a decisive turning point in quite the way that the fall of Vicksburg was. And neither demoralized, distressed and angered Southern civilians the way the destructive but effective Vicksburg campaign did.
This book tells the story of the campaign, but it’s just as much a story about Grant, and about the people on both sides who were forever impacted by what happened in this midpoint of the war. There’s still much more fighting, suffering, triumphs and defeats ahead - but Miller’s excellent storytelling and analysis allow us to envision the faint glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel to come.
September 6, 2021
In-depth study of the Vicksburg campaign.
This review is going to be "on the one hand," "on the other hand," and possibly "on the third hand." So on the one hand, I don't find Miller as readable as Sears, and I came away as bewildered by the geography of Vicksburg as I had been going in. (In fairness, a motif throughout the work is people getting lost or not being able to get where they want to go because the geography is in the way, so my confusion is thematic.) On the other hand, Miller actually talks about the experiences of Black people, rather than discussing them hastily as "contrabands," and is more interested in social history in general, so you get a much more three-dimensional exploration of what the Vicksburg campaign did to Mississippi and Louisiana. On the third hand, the more I read about the Civil War generals on both sides, the less I like any of them.
This review is going to be "on the one hand," "on the other hand," and possibly "on the third hand." So on the one hand, I don't find Miller as readable as Sears, and I came away as bewildered by the geography of Vicksburg as I had been going in. (In fairness, a motif throughout the work is people getting lost or not being able to get where they want to go because the geography is in the way, so my confusion is thematic.) On the other hand, Miller actually talks about the experiences of Black people, rather than discussing them hastily as "contrabands," and is more interested in social history in general, so you get a much more three-dimensional exploration of what the Vicksburg campaign did to Mississippi and Louisiana. On the third hand, the more I read about the Civil War generals on both sides, the less I like any of them.
October 31, 2019
Synopsis
This book written by Professor Emeritus Donald L. Miller is already heralded as a potential best seller. This does not surprise me because having read this rare gem I also hold that opinion. Miller guides us through the evolution of strategies used by Grant, Porter, and Sherman. Professor Miller’s review of the history of the Campaign at Vicksburg was the singular pivotal event leading to the final minutes of the South at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.
Vicksburg was thought completely impregnable due in part to: environment, geographic, natural and geological factors. Grant together with both of his cohorts Porter and Sherman managed to solve a seemingly impossible puzzle in breaching the unreachable. It wasn’t without losses, however, and illness and disease took there toll.
The retelling of the events leading to the conquest of Vicksburg is a compelling tale fixed in history, but now brought to life for a new audience. It is well paced, easy to understand and contains a plethora of facts. It is so well written that many people who usually don’t enjoy these subject may mind they do enjoy Miller’s style of writing.
Conclusion
I have no reluctance in highly recommending this book to you. It is likely to be an award winning book in my opinion. I received this as a reviewer for NeGalley but I will purchasing a copy because I like to support great writers. Don’t wait till it sells out, get your copy as soon as you can.
Acknowledgment
My sincere thanks go to: The Author, NetGalley, and the Publisher, Simon & Schuster for affording me the opportunity to review of Vicksburg.
This book written by Professor Emeritus Donald L. Miller is already heralded as a potential best seller. This does not surprise me because having read this rare gem I also hold that opinion. Miller guides us through the evolution of strategies used by Grant, Porter, and Sherman. Professor Miller’s review of the history of the Campaign at Vicksburg was the singular pivotal event leading to the final minutes of the South at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.
Vicksburg was thought completely impregnable due in part to: environment, geographic, natural and geological factors. Grant together with both of his cohorts Porter and Sherman managed to solve a seemingly impossible puzzle in breaching the unreachable. It wasn’t without losses, however, and illness and disease took there toll.
The retelling of the events leading to the conquest of Vicksburg is a compelling tale fixed in history, but now brought to life for a new audience. It is well paced, easy to understand and contains a plethora of facts. It is so well written that many people who usually don’t enjoy these subject may mind they do enjoy Miller’s style of writing.
Conclusion
I have no reluctance in highly recommending this book to you. It is likely to be an award winning book in my opinion. I received this as a reviewer for NeGalley but I will purchasing a copy because I like to support great writers. Don’t wait till it sells out, get your copy as soon as you can.
Acknowledgment
My sincere thanks go to: The Author, NetGalley, and the Publisher, Simon & Schuster for affording me the opportunity to review of Vicksburg.
November 3, 2019
A book that takes you through the entire battle of Vicksburg. From first a naval siege almost a year prior. You get a look once again at Grant's life before the war and also the battles leading up to this one. This was a very important victory for the North and I always felt that most people did not think about the travel of the Mississippi River and once having control from North to New Orleans it changed everything. The author takes you through the politics between the generals and Washington, how others wanted to take Vicksburg but always stopped and wired back to Washington the need for more troops. What was accomplished by Grant and the Navy would not be done again until D-Day and that is really amazing? At times I could not get if the author cared for Grant or not? The author would talk about how he would get lucky in some battles and some other things. The problem I had was at least Grant and Sherman were willing to fight where other generals were not. The entire battle is described and the plans of taking an Army South of Vicksburg then marching at it from another direction. He also describes how Grant being a quartermaster in the Mexican War would always help him when marching his troops and having or thinking about supplies. Overall this was a good book and shows you just how important Vicksburg was to the victory of the North for it was truly a blow to the South. I received this book from Netgalley.com I gave it 5 stars. Follow us at www.1rad-readerreviews.com
November 19, 2019
A new, well written, extensively researched popular history which includes an excellent bibliography.
That said, nothing particularly new for students of the Vicksburg campaign, no new revelations, no new analytic leaps. Good book for the general public; not so for the aficionado nor deep students of the war in Mississippi.
That said, nothing particularly new for students of the Vicksburg campaign, no new revelations, no new analytic leaps. Good book for the general public; not so for the aficionado nor deep students of the war in Mississippi.
January 30, 2020
4 stars plus. Donald Miller’s treatment of Vicksburg is one of the best I’ve seen to date; it’s clear, easy to read, well documented, and in parts, vastly entertaining. Thanks go to Net Galley and Simon and Schuster for the review copy. This book is for sale now.
The siege and battle of Vicksburg was the single most significant event in the American Civil War. When the Union emerged victorious, it seized control of key arteries of commerce, food, and military supplies by capturing access and use of the Mississippi River as well as an important railroad that ran east to west. It liberated vast numbers of slaves, and it dealt a savage blow to the morale of diehard Southerners who believed the city and its fort unassailable. The fall of Vicksburg cut the Confederacy in two, and it made communication between the two halves slow and difficult. It also sealed President Lincoln’s election and provided him with a second term he might otherwise not have gained. I knew all of these things before I began reading Miller’s work, but I found a tremendous number of details I didn’t know about, and more importantly, I gained a much solider sense of context.
Many prominent works on Vicksburg are also Grant biographies, and that usually suits me fine, because Grant is one of my greatest heroes. However, those that read about Vicksburg solely within that framework lose out on the progress made—and sometimes lost again—by the Union Navy and others. Though I had read James McPherson’s work on the Union Navy, there is a lot more detail provided here by Miller. The rivers that surrounded Vicksburg are confusing as heck, and this played a big role in lengthening the fight, but at the same time, it can also confuse readers. It certainly did me. For example, when those traveling on rivers go “above” a certain point, what does that mean? I always assumed it meant north, but sometimes it doesn’t. I had never heard or read the term “Brown water navy,” (or if I did, I had thoroughly forgotten it), and this is a key aspect of the story. For the first time I have a solid grasp of the route used by the Union navy and army.
Readers should know that Miller is fond of including gore. I don’t know whether this is because college students are easily bored, and the consideration of Grant calmly conveying orders while spattered in brain matter is just more attention-getting than the same information without the gore, or whether Miller feels compelled to use these details to drive home the horror that heroes were forced to look beyond in order to be effective, but there it is, and so if you are inclined to take a book with you on your lunch break, you may want a different one then.
One of the aspects I appreciate most is the emphasis Miller places on the role of slaves during this critical time. If the waters were inscrutable, the land was little better in places, with thick, tropical foliage, snakes, leaches and other hazards. Those that lived nearby had an incalculable advantage, but local whites used this knowledge to confuse and obfuscate troops they considered to be enemies. Slaves, on the other hand, understood how important a Union victory would be, and they provided information that would have taken a lot longer to obtain without them. This is material that other writers often mention briefly but treat as a side issue. Miller goes into specifics, gives concrete examples, and shares the respect that Grant gained for his newly emancipated spies, guides, and soldiers.
The chapter titled “The Entering Wedge” is where good prose and information become solid gold. During this section of the book and the chapter after it, I did a lot of rereading for pleasure. There are excellent quotes throughout the book, and the author wisely focuses on those that are little seen in other books, providing a freshness and you-are-there quality at times that I haven’t seen for a long time.
At one point, during a passage discussing the caves that housed soldiers as well as local families affected by shelling, I realized that these must surely be part of the national park dedicated to this event, and I searched the web for images of them; sadly, because of the very soft earth in and around Vicksburg, (most likely the same soft earth that enabled the river to continuously change course,) those caves are all gone, washed away by hard rain. There’s a photo of a modern version based on the information available, but that’s not the same thing. Rats.
I nearly gave this book five stars, but there’s a surprisingly disturbing part toward the end that left me deflated and scratching my head. There are pages and more pages devoted to ugly rumors that seem to begin and end with Cadwallader. Although the author repeatedly reminds us that these statements are “unsubstantiated” and “controversial,” he nevertheless devotes a whole lot of time and space to them, and what’s more they are near the end, where the reader is most likely to recall them. Overall, he seems harder on Grant than most are, but up to this point he was fair, weighing his weaknesses while acknowledging his strengths. Why he would do a hatchet job on this iconic hero in closing is a mystery to me. Then the very end of the book is given to a Confederate.
Nevertheless, this is a strong work for those that know the basics and want the details. I don’t recommend it to those new to the American Civil War; if you are just getting your feet wet, read McPherson’s Battle Cry of Freedom, or explore the excellent historical fiction of Michael and Jeff Shaara, Shelby Foote, and E.L. Doctorow. But for those that are well-versed and in search of new information, I highly recommend this book.
The siege and battle of Vicksburg was the single most significant event in the American Civil War. When the Union emerged victorious, it seized control of key arteries of commerce, food, and military supplies by capturing access and use of the Mississippi River as well as an important railroad that ran east to west. It liberated vast numbers of slaves, and it dealt a savage blow to the morale of diehard Southerners who believed the city and its fort unassailable. The fall of Vicksburg cut the Confederacy in two, and it made communication between the two halves slow and difficult. It also sealed President Lincoln’s election and provided him with a second term he might otherwise not have gained. I knew all of these things before I began reading Miller’s work, but I found a tremendous number of details I didn’t know about, and more importantly, I gained a much solider sense of context.
Many prominent works on Vicksburg are also Grant biographies, and that usually suits me fine, because Grant is one of my greatest heroes. However, those that read about Vicksburg solely within that framework lose out on the progress made—and sometimes lost again—by the Union Navy and others. Though I had read James McPherson’s work on the Union Navy, there is a lot more detail provided here by Miller. The rivers that surrounded Vicksburg are confusing as heck, and this played a big role in lengthening the fight, but at the same time, it can also confuse readers. It certainly did me. For example, when those traveling on rivers go “above” a certain point, what does that mean? I always assumed it meant north, but sometimes it doesn’t. I had never heard or read the term “Brown water navy,” (or if I did, I had thoroughly forgotten it), and this is a key aspect of the story. For the first time I have a solid grasp of the route used by the Union navy and army.
Readers should know that Miller is fond of including gore. I don’t know whether this is because college students are easily bored, and the consideration of Grant calmly conveying orders while spattered in brain matter is just more attention-getting than the same information without the gore, or whether Miller feels compelled to use these details to drive home the horror that heroes were forced to look beyond in order to be effective, but there it is, and so if you are inclined to take a book with you on your lunch break, you may want a different one then.
One of the aspects I appreciate most is the emphasis Miller places on the role of slaves during this critical time. If the waters were inscrutable, the land was little better in places, with thick, tropical foliage, snakes, leaches and other hazards. Those that lived nearby had an incalculable advantage, but local whites used this knowledge to confuse and obfuscate troops they considered to be enemies. Slaves, on the other hand, understood how important a Union victory would be, and they provided information that would have taken a lot longer to obtain without them. This is material that other writers often mention briefly but treat as a side issue. Miller goes into specifics, gives concrete examples, and shares the respect that Grant gained for his newly emancipated spies, guides, and soldiers.
The chapter titled “The Entering Wedge” is where good prose and information become solid gold. During this section of the book and the chapter after it, I did a lot of rereading for pleasure. There are excellent quotes throughout the book, and the author wisely focuses on those that are little seen in other books, providing a freshness and you-are-there quality at times that I haven’t seen for a long time.
At one point, during a passage discussing the caves that housed soldiers as well as local families affected by shelling, I realized that these must surely be part of the national park dedicated to this event, and I searched the web for images of them; sadly, because of the very soft earth in and around Vicksburg, (most likely the same soft earth that enabled the river to continuously change course,) those caves are all gone, washed away by hard rain. There’s a photo of a modern version based on the information available, but that’s not the same thing. Rats.
I nearly gave this book five stars, but there’s a surprisingly disturbing part toward the end that left me deflated and scratching my head. There are pages and more pages devoted to ugly rumors that seem to begin and end with Cadwallader. Although the author repeatedly reminds us that these statements are “unsubstantiated” and “controversial,” he nevertheless devotes a whole lot of time and space to them, and what’s more they are near the end, where the reader is most likely to recall them. Overall, he seems harder on Grant than most are, but up to this point he was fair, weighing his weaknesses while acknowledging his strengths. Why he would do a hatchet job on this iconic hero in closing is a mystery to me. Then the very end of the book is given to a Confederate.
Nevertheless, this is a strong work for those that know the basics and want the details. I don’t recommend it to those new to the American Civil War; if you are just getting your feet wet, read McPherson’s Battle Cry of Freedom, or explore the excellent historical fiction of Michael and Jeff Shaara, Shelby Foote, and E.L. Doctorow. But for those that are well-versed and in search of new information, I highly recommend this book.
July 19, 2021
Excellent military history of the warfare around the Mississippi during the Civil War, climaxing with the Union capture of Vicksburg.
More than other histories I've read of Vicksburg, Miller pays attention to the myriad unsuccessful attempts of capturing the stronghold, development of the Union's river-based tactics early in the war, the role of the navy, and importance of African Americans to the Union war effort. As all military histories should, Miller cogently includes the logistical, medical, and civilian dimensions of the campaign. Despite Grant's face taking up most of the cover, Miller rightly does not credit the individual genius of Grant for Vicksburg's surrender. Instead, he gives a clear-eyed analysis of Grant's role, flaws and strengths, in this war-changing campaign.
Miller weaves the fate of Mississippi's plantations and enslaved people into the narrative at every turn, and the book benefits from it greatly. Separating out the racial and social history of any Civil War campaign is irresponsible, and Miller vividly describes the (as he says) revolutionary changes occurring in the Delta. I would've preferred more development on slavery's importance to the region and country overall; recent scholarship (some of which he cites) makes clear how much the South relied on slavery in the antebellum period. The process of emancipation and making new lives for freed people is by definition a Reconstruction story, and I also would've liked to see a fuller narrative on the fates of these people. These parts often felt inchoate despite the detail used by the author.
Overall, the author has a clear and elegant writing style, which makes the amount of information and research in the book easily understandable. A less-gifted author might make a swampy morass of data and ideas, but Miller, like Grant, cuts a clear and effective line through the muck. A few missed details (noted elsewhere in the reviews) are inevitable in a work this sized, but overall Vicksburg is a prime example of Civil War military history done right.
More than other histories I've read of Vicksburg, Miller pays attention to the myriad unsuccessful attempts of capturing the stronghold, development of the Union's river-based tactics early in the war, the role of the navy, and importance of African Americans to the Union war effort. As all military histories should, Miller cogently includes the logistical, medical, and civilian dimensions of the campaign. Despite Grant's face taking up most of the cover, Miller rightly does not credit the individual genius of Grant for Vicksburg's surrender. Instead, he gives a clear-eyed analysis of Grant's role, flaws and strengths, in this war-changing campaign.
Miller weaves the fate of Mississippi's plantations and enslaved people into the narrative at every turn, and the book benefits from it greatly. Separating out the racial and social history of any Civil War campaign is irresponsible, and Miller vividly describes the (as he says) revolutionary changes occurring in the Delta. I would've preferred more development on slavery's importance to the region and country overall; recent scholarship (some of which he cites) makes clear how much the South relied on slavery in the antebellum period. The process of emancipation and making new lives for freed people is by definition a Reconstruction story, and I also would've liked to see a fuller narrative on the fates of these people. These parts often felt inchoate despite the detail used by the author.
Overall, the author has a clear and elegant writing style, which makes the amount of information and research in the book easily understandable. A less-gifted author might make a swampy morass of data and ideas, but Miller, like Grant, cuts a clear and effective line through the muck. A few missed details (noted elsewhere in the reviews) are inevitable in a work this sized, but overall Vicksburg is a prime example of Civil War military history done right.
December 24, 2023
Random thoughts on Donald Miller's extensive and very interesting Vicksburg:
- Picked this up at Barnes & Noble when my daughter needed to buy a book for school. I am completely incapable of going into a book store and not coming out with something to read.
- Let's be honest. As a middle-aged white guy, I love reading about the Civil War. If you're not a middle-aged white guy, you're probably not going to like this as much. Still, I've read over twenty Civil War books and this was one of the very best. I learned a lot.
- Miller's writing is very entertaining and he does a really smart thing - he uses extensive endnotes for most of his sources, especially the ones that are more obscure. A lot of books get caught up in telling you that a particular passage is from Johnny Rebel's letter to his grandmother back in Mississippi, and you go crazy trying to figure out who is who. Miller puts almost all of that at the end. The second chapter alone has 414 end notes, so you can just read the story and look up the sources at the end.
- The capture of Vicksburg, MS was integral to the Union winning the Civil War. It opened up the entire Mississippi River to Union naval forces, and cleared the way for Sherman's march to the sea. The surrender of the Confederates at Vicksburg happened one day after the Union victory at Gettysburg.
- This was not just one battle. This was a 1 1/2 year campaign to eliminate all Confederate threats along the Mississippi River so that the Union forces could use the waterway to send soldiers and supplies to it's armies fighting in the South.
- For the first time in all of my reading of the Civil War, I encountered antisemitism. In response to complaints about Jewish traders in his department who allegedly bought deeply discounted cotton from the Confederacy and also allegedly used the money to buy weapons that they then sold back to the Confederacy, Grant wrote out General Orders No. 11, expelling "the Jews, as a class," from the Department of the Tennessee and requiring them to leave within 24 hours. This move was met with scorn by Grant's wife, his own father, and most of the Northern newspapers. Lincoln revoked the order as soon as it reached his desk.
- Disease killed many more soldiers than weapons. In fact, it wasn't until World War I that more American soldiers "died from bullets than from bacteria."
- For you readers out there (so, all of you), Herman Melville wrote a poem about the Union taking their ships down the Mississippi river south of Vicksburg.
- This was one of the very few combined army and navy battles of the war. The Union navy transported Grant's soldiers south of Vicksburg so that they could attack the city, which was heavily fortified to the west and the north. The navy also shelled the city from the river itself during the two month siege when the army and citizens were trapped within the city limits. Without that work, the Northern forces would not have been able to take Vicksburg and open up the South to the Union armies.
- One last point, and this applies today as well. Before this victory, Grant was seen by Lincoln and the Union leaders as a drunkard and an incompetent. After the victory, he was hailed as a hero, given the opportunity to lead the Union forces in the east, defeated Robert E. Lee and became President of the United States. Miller makes a salient point. To hail Grant as a hero ignores the role of several factors: the structural underpinnings of an army: railroads, ordnance, logistics, and the people who provided those services. It also discounts luck. Grant made some astute decisions in this campaign. He also made some dumb ones. The dumb ones didn't make him an idiot and the astute decisions didn't make him a genius.
- This is something to remember when we look at our leaders today, whether that is in government, business, sports, etc. They will make mistakes and it won't mean that they're stupid. They will make smart choices and it won't make them smarter than everyone else. As Miller quotes historian Carhal J. Nolan, no commander "truly commands or even controls such a complex and dynamic thing as battle, let alone war."
- This is a very interesting, very informative work if you want to learn about this important inflection point in the Civil War.
- Picked this up at Barnes & Noble when my daughter needed to buy a book for school. I am completely incapable of going into a book store and not coming out with something to read.
- Let's be honest. As a middle-aged white guy, I love reading about the Civil War. If you're not a middle-aged white guy, you're probably not going to like this as much. Still, I've read over twenty Civil War books and this was one of the very best. I learned a lot.
- Miller's writing is very entertaining and he does a really smart thing - he uses extensive endnotes for most of his sources, especially the ones that are more obscure. A lot of books get caught up in telling you that a particular passage is from Johnny Rebel's letter to his grandmother back in Mississippi, and you go crazy trying to figure out who is who. Miller puts almost all of that at the end. The second chapter alone has 414 end notes, so you can just read the story and look up the sources at the end.
- The capture of Vicksburg, MS was integral to the Union winning the Civil War. It opened up the entire Mississippi River to Union naval forces, and cleared the way for Sherman's march to the sea. The surrender of the Confederates at Vicksburg happened one day after the Union victory at Gettysburg.
- This was not just one battle. This was a 1 1/2 year campaign to eliminate all Confederate threats along the Mississippi River so that the Union forces could use the waterway to send soldiers and supplies to it's armies fighting in the South.
- For the first time in all of my reading of the Civil War, I encountered antisemitism. In response to complaints about Jewish traders in his department who allegedly bought deeply discounted cotton from the Confederacy and also allegedly used the money to buy weapons that they then sold back to the Confederacy, Grant wrote out General Orders No. 11, expelling "the Jews, as a class," from the Department of the Tennessee and requiring them to leave within 24 hours. This move was met with scorn by Grant's wife, his own father, and most of the Northern newspapers. Lincoln revoked the order as soon as it reached his desk.
- Disease killed many more soldiers than weapons. In fact, it wasn't until World War I that more American soldiers "died from bullets than from bacteria."
- For you readers out there (so, all of you), Herman Melville wrote a poem about the Union taking their ships down the Mississippi river south of Vicksburg.
- This was one of the very few combined army and navy battles of the war. The Union navy transported Grant's soldiers south of Vicksburg so that they could attack the city, which was heavily fortified to the west and the north. The navy also shelled the city from the river itself during the two month siege when the army and citizens were trapped within the city limits. Without that work, the Northern forces would not have been able to take Vicksburg and open up the South to the Union armies.
- One last point, and this applies today as well. Before this victory, Grant was seen by Lincoln and the Union leaders as a drunkard and an incompetent. After the victory, he was hailed as a hero, given the opportunity to lead the Union forces in the east, defeated Robert E. Lee and became President of the United States. Miller makes a salient point. To hail Grant as a hero ignores the role of several factors: the structural underpinnings of an army: railroads, ordnance, logistics, and the people who provided those services. It also discounts luck. Grant made some astute decisions in this campaign. He also made some dumb ones. The dumb ones didn't make him an idiot and the astute decisions didn't make him a genius.
- This is something to remember when we look at our leaders today, whether that is in government, business, sports, etc. They will make mistakes and it won't mean that they're stupid. They will make smart choices and it won't make them smarter than everyone else. As Miller quotes historian Carhal J. Nolan, no commander "truly commands or even controls such a complex and dynamic thing as battle, let alone war."
- This is a very interesting, very informative work if you want to learn about this important inflection point in the Civil War.
August 4, 2020
For whatever reason, there are a lot of books that have been written about the Vicksburg campaign and many of them are broadly similar, which suggests that a market for such works has been recognized and that enough readers are interested in the campaign or at least potentially may be (among the huge body of people interested in the Civil War) to take a look at a book like this. The similarities between the books I have read on Vicksburg indicate either a copycat desire to do what others have done in making the campaign seem more impressive by widening its scope and taking advantage of the high-level discussions that apparently went on regarding the importance of the city. One thing many of these books have in common as well is a discussion of Grant's apparent drinking, and it seems as if the desire to talk about the pressure Grant was under and his inability to hold his liquor is at least some reason why so many people have desired to talk about the campaign and use the same set of sources to talk about it--including the diary of one Kate Stone, secessionist young woman.
This book is about 500 pages long or so and is divided into four parts and 23 chapters. After an author's note and a prologue that discusses Vicksburg's seminal role as a critical Civil War campaign, the author discusses the beginning of the Mississippi River campaign (I) with chapters about Cairo (1), the early river movements and battles (2), as well as the campaign to take Fort Henry and Fort Donelson (3) by Grant as well as the murderous Shiloh battle (4).. This leads to a discussion about the Union invasion of New Orleans (5) and its aftermath (II), including chapters on the troubled times in Mississippi after New Orleans' fall (6), the fortification of Vicksburg (7), and the defensive victory of the rebels in the 1862 campaign against the city (8). This is followed by a lengthy discussion of Grant's struggles to get at the city (III), including the anxiety and intrigue of the Union army (9), the antislavery push (10), Grant's attempt to march to Oxford (11), the Chickasaw Bayou battle (12), various canal-building efforts (13, 14, 15, 16), and finally the successful efforts to get a bridgehead across the Mississippi (17) and to march towards Vicksburg (18). After this the narrative (IV) quickly moves to a discussion of Grant's maneuvering to Jackson (19), victory at Champion's Hill (20), as well as the siege (21), and the victory (22) and its aftermath (23), after which the author closes the book with an epilogue, appendices on battlefield casualties, acknowledgements, notes, a bibliography, illustration credits, and an index.
Is this book worth reading? Yeah, if you want to know about Vicksburg and you haven't read one of the several other books that is very similar to it, this is certainly a worthwhile read. It does what it needs to do in talking about the events of the Vicksburg campaign as a narrative history in chronological order with proper criticism of some of the decisions made and the struggles faced by the Union and by Grant in particular in winning the campaign. The book really covers the whole period from the beginning of the war on the Mississippi to the capture of Vicksburg and the surrender soon after that of Port Hudson, opening the Mississippi River in its entirety to federal control and permanently splitting the Trans-Mississippi theater from the rest of the Confederacy. Why it is that certain things like the Helena campaign that followed Pea Ridge isn't included, or that the Red River campaign is ignored? It is unclear why it is that the same incidents are discussed over and over again and not others. Perhaps one would want to separate oneself from a crowd of books, but that is not the style that the authors of Vicksburg books tend to be taking.
This book is about 500 pages long or so and is divided into four parts and 23 chapters. After an author's note and a prologue that discusses Vicksburg's seminal role as a critical Civil War campaign, the author discusses the beginning of the Mississippi River campaign (I) with chapters about Cairo (1), the early river movements and battles (2), as well as the campaign to take Fort Henry and Fort Donelson (3) by Grant as well as the murderous Shiloh battle (4).. This leads to a discussion about the Union invasion of New Orleans (5) and its aftermath (II), including chapters on the troubled times in Mississippi after New Orleans' fall (6), the fortification of Vicksburg (7), and the defensive victory of the rebels in the 1862 campaign against the city (8). This is followed by a lengthy discussion of Grant's struggles to get at the city (III), including the anxiety and intrigue of the Union army (9), the antislavery push (10), Grant's attempt to march to Oxford (11), the Chickasaw Bayou battle (12), various canal-building efforts (13, 14, 15, 16), and finally the successful efforts to get a bridgehead across the Mississippi (17) and to march towards Vicksburg (18). After this the narrative (IV) quickly moves to a discussion of Grant's maneuvering to Jackson (19), victory at Champion's Hill (20), as well as the siege (21), and the victory (22) and its aftermath (23), after which the author closes the book with an epilogue, appendices on battlefield casualties, acknowledgements, notes, a bibliography, illustration credits, and an index.
Is this book worth reading? Yeah, if you want to know about Vicksburg and you haven't read one of the several other books that is very similar to it, this is certainly a worthwhile read. It does what it needs to do in talking about the events of the Vicksburg campaign as a narrative history in chronological order with proper criticism of some of the decisions made and the struggles faced by the Union and by Grant in particular in winning the campaign. The book really covers the whole period from the beginning of the war on the Mississippi to the capture of Vicksburg and the surrender soon after that of Port Hudson, opening the Mississippi River in its entirety to federal control and permanently splitting the Trans-Mississippi theater from the rest of the Confederacy. Why it is that certain things like the Helena campaign that followed Pea Ridge isn't included, or that the Red River campaign is ignored? It is unclear why it is that the same incidents are discussed over and over again and not others. Perhaps one would want to separate oneself from a crowd of books, but that is not the style that the authors of Vicksburg books tend to be taking.
November 9, 2024
I really enjoyed this book- and I read it as I cruised up and down the Mississippi, visiting the sights of this campaign and seeing the terrain for myself. I knew this was the key Campaign to the whole Civil War- Vicksburg's surrender- the day after Gettysburg cut off the Western Confederacy and made defeat almost inevitable for the rebels. But Donald Miller, a professor of American history and a military historian brings alive the whole campaign- always explaining the effects on local civilians, especially slaves- while carefully discussing a pretty complex series of attempts to get to grips with the fortress on the Mississippi. Grant was not just fighting a rebellion- the terrain, the weather, the river itself, his logistical problems and political infighting in his own command also take their toll. Once Grant solves the puzzle and makes his final moves- the he really does show a genius for warfare that deserves study. I found it really compelling.
The key was to come from the North- but attack the fortified city from the south. How Grant moves- now using his riverboat logistical trail- now cutting free from it to ravage the countryside and live off the rebel farms and plantations. General Sherman, one of his Corps commanders- would learn his ravaging techniques here- and then perfect them in a march to Atlanta and then the sea later in the war. I have to say I took several Civil War themed excursions during my cruise (shout out @CivilWarNola) and this book sounded just like the tour guides or vice versa. I cannot recommend the combo of this book and a local tour/cruise/road trip, as the terrain is really unique to these states and seeing it is to better understand the challenges of this campaign. I'd suggest seeing Port Hudson and Baton Rouge as well- part of the war also covered in this book. It's a really good book on a climactic point of the American Civil War.
For the Junior reader, this book has enough adult themes ,graphic injury and violent passages so that 12/13 years would be a good idea. For the Gamer/Modeler/Military Enthusiast, even though this is a popular military history there is a lot of resource material. The Gamer gets a lot of skirmish and full battle scenario ideas- as well as a lot of what if? scenarios- as Miller sometimes stops to discuss options at key points. The modeler gets myriad of ideas for builds and diorama ideas- on my visits to local museums I saw many good models and dioramas used to explain the war's techniques and finer points. The Steam powered armoured river boats alone are worth studying and modeling (see the Cairo Museum at Vicksburg, thank me later). But again it is the Military enthusiast who gets the most out of this book. A clear and direct explanation of a very difficult and complex struggle will make this a new addition to the ACW Canon- especially to understand the "Western Theater" in all its challenges. A strong stamp of approval from me on this one.
The key was to come from the North- but attack the fortified city from the south. How Grant moves- now using his riverboat logistical trail- now cutting free from it to ravage the countryside and live off the rebel farms and plantations. General Sherman, one of his Corps commanders- would learn his ravaging techniques here- and then perfect them in a march to Atlanta and then the sea later in the war. I have to say I took several Civil War themed excursions during my cruise (shout out @CivilWarNola) and this book sounded just like the tour guides or vice versa. I cannot recommend the combo of this book and a local tour/cruise/road trip, as the terrain is really unique to these states and seeing it is to better understand the challenges of this campaign. I'd suggest seeing Port Hudson and Baton Rouge as well- part of the war also covered in this book. It's a really good book on a climactic point of the American Civil War.
For the Junior reader, this book has enough adult themes ,graphic injury and violent passages so that 12/13 years would be a good idea. For the Gamer/Modeler/Military Enthusiast, even though this is a popular military history there is a lot of resource material. The Gamer gets a lot of skirmish and full battle scenario ideas- as well as a lot of what if? scenarios- as Miller sometimes stops to discuss options at key points. The modeler gets myriad of ideas for builds and diorama ideas- on my visits to local museums I saw many good models and dioramas used to explain the war's techniques and finer points. The Steam powered armoured river boats alone are worth studying and modeling (see the Cairo Museum at Vicksburg, thank me later). But again it is the Military enthusiast who gets the most out of this book. A clear and direct explanation of a very difficult and complex struggle will make this a new addition to the ACW Canon- especially to understand the "Western Theater" in all its challenges. A strong stamp of approval from me on this one.
January 21, 2022
Donald L. Miller's Vicksburg reexamines Ulysses Grant's brilliant Siege of Vicksburg during the Civil War, the campaign which secured the Mississippi River for the Union and ensured the Confederacy's defeat. Miller stresses that this battle (really a nearly-year-long, grueling overland campaign and siege) was far more decisive than the better-publicized clashes in the East; the Mississippi was the backbone of the Confederacy and Vicksburg was the key to securing it. Certainly the prolonged fighting and determined, if often inept defense by the Confederate Army (under John Pemberton, a Pennsylvanian suspected of disloyalty) attest to its importance. Miller pushes back somewhat against the recent hagiography of Grant, showing him as a flawed general who made frequent tactical mistakes and poor decisions that prolonged the campaign and cost thousands of lives. But through a mix of confidence, determination and an ability to retain a big picture view of the conflict, Grant managed to overcome short-term failures for a stunning success. Nor does Miller slight the contributions of Grant's subordinates (Sherman, James McPherson and even the querulous John McClernand receive equitable treatment) or the Navy's role in securing the Mississippi; there's also heavy emphasis on the role of African Americans in the campaign, from runaway slaves who flocked to Union lines to Black units who took part in Grant's assaults on Vicksburg. The book is expertly written, stressing both the hardships of the campaign and the importance of Grant's victory in a compelling fashion. A stellar work of popular military history, readable, thorough and persuasive.
January 25, 2021
My first Civil War book. Not dissatisfied. Great read.
January 16, 2020
Vicksburg seemed impregnable from Union attack. As long as it was held the Confederacy could transport supplies and troops between its Western and Eastern halves and the Union could not take real advantage of using the Mississippi River. Its hold contributed to the seeming stalemate of the Civil War giving strength and success in the 1862 elections to Copperhead Democrats sympathetic to the South.
This book tells of Grant's campaign that led to the capture of Vicksburg which turned the tide of the Civil War. The author, Donald Miller, does an excellent job of writing the military history of the campaign including the naval battles on the Mississippi and the land battles around Vicksburg that set the stage for the Siege of Vicksburg. The descriptions of battle strategy are complemented by extensive use of letters from the soldiers and sailors which bring home the blood and loss from the battles.
What sets this apart from many Civil War books is the detailed inclusion of how slaves savored the freedom they received from Union soldiers and how they were willing to risk torture and death to flee to approaching Union armies. It also tells of many Union soldiers who started the war wanting only to save the Union but converted to strong abolitionism after seeing how slaves were actually treated and of Southerners whose strongest bitterness in battle defeats was over the loss of slaves and the hatred of the slaves who escaped at the first opportunity and then providing Union soldiers intelligence about the Confederate landscape and troop movements.
The book also provides a nuanced understanding of the Union strategy of destroying crops and resources for the South and while there was some unjustified looting that the leadership could not prevent, the strategy was necessary because of the instransigence by the South.
I highly recommend this book which tells the full story of this turning point of the Civil War
This book tells of Grant's campaign that led to the capture of Vicksburg which turned the tide of the Civil War. The author, Donald Miller, does an excellent job of writing the military history of the campaign including the naval battles on the Mississippi and the land battles around Vicksburg that set the stage for the Siege of Vicksburg. The descriptions of battle strategy are complemented by extensive use of letters from the soldiers and sailors which bring home the blood and loss from the battles.
What sets this apart from many Civil War books is the detailed inclusion of how slaves savored the freedom they received from Union soldiers and how they were willing to risk torture and death to flee to approaching Union armies. It also tells of many Union soldiers who started the war wanting only to save the Union but converted to strong abolitionism after seeing how slaves were actually treated and of Southerners whose strongest bitterness in battle defeats was over the loss of slaves and the hatred of the slaves who escaped at the first opportunity and then providing Union soldiers intelligence about the Confederate landscape and troop movements.
The book also provides a nuanced understanding of the Union strategy of destroying crops and resources for the South and while there was some unjustified looting that the leadership could not prevent, the strategy was necessary because of the instransigence by the South.
I highly recommend this book which tells the full story of this turning point of the Civil War
January 3, 2026
Vicksburg: Grant’s Campaign that broke the Confederacy by Donald L. Miller
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A fantastic single volume treatment of the 1862-1863 Vicksburg campaign under General Ulysses S Grant during the American Civil War. In these pages one learns the strategic importance of controlling the Mississippi River and how a joint army/navy operation was conducted in perfect unison to achieve that control. In the overall picture of the civil war, losing Vicksburg was a large nail in the coffin of a dying confederacy and is seen as one of the pivotal moments during the war as it cut the confederacy in half and blocked access to precious supplies and resources of the west and the Union Navy now controlled the great American river. This book is packed with vivid descriptions of larger than life characters such as Naval Heroes David Dixon Porter and David Farragut, and Army legends Grant, Sherman, and McPherson and manages to put the reader on the front lines of history in the Deep South of 1863. I highly recommend this book to anyone with an interest in the civil war of military history in general !
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A fantastic single volume treatment of the 1862-1863 Vicksburg campaign under General Ulysses S Grant during the American Civil War. In these pages one learns the strategic importance of controlling the Mississippi River and how a joint army/navy operation was conducted in perfect unison to achieve that control. In the overall picture of the civil war, losing Vicksburg was a large nail in the coffin of a dying confederacy and is seen as one of the pivotal moments during the war as it cut the confederacy in half and blocked access to precious supplies and resources of the west and the Union Navy now controlled the great American river. This book is packed with vivid descriptions of larger than life characters such as Naval Heroes David Dixon Porter and David Farragut, and Army legends Grant, Sherman, and McPherson and manages to put the reader on the front lines of history in the Deep South of 1863. I highly recommend this book to anyone with an interest in the civil war of military history in general !
February 1, 2020
When I visited Vicksburg Military Park a couple years ago, I had not read any books on the subject. Then the next year while I visited Gettysburg I read a book about the battle that greatly enhanced that experience. While Vicksburg was still fresh enough in my memory I read Donald Miller’s book. During my visit, I focused on the memorials built long after the battle, but while reading the book, I focused on the history. I highly recommend reading a historical account before or during a visit to a site so rich in history. Miller’s account was very well organized, sequential and objective and added greatly to my understanding of the Vicksburg siege.
November 24, 2021
Excellent treatment of the Vicksburg campaign. Miller provides excellent insight into the character of Grant and Sherman and very capably enlightens readers on the intricacies of the Vicksburg campaign and the significance of Vicksburg in the Civil War.
October 1, 2023
Quick and fast page turner history! I loved his insights on Grants drinking. Doesn’t hide it or go criticize him too much about it which a lot of historians tend to do.
April 15, 2024
This is a well researched and well written book on the Civil War battle of Vicksburg. An engaging read.
October 5, 2024
So good…
November 30, 2025
One of the best Civil War books I've ever read. Miller makes a compelling big-picture argument even as he keeps a detailed narrative moving. He delivers exceptional balance between the little stories and strategic consequences.
September 13, 2023
Excellent history and writing. Also very good footnotes and reference section.
May 7, 2020
This book goes into great detail about the Vicksburg Campaign during the Civil War. Really, that is my only complaint, at times the book gets bogged down in the details. Mr. Miller had to have done months or years worth of research to get to the level of detail he did. This is great information in most sections of the book but it does get lost at times.
November 9, 2019
“Vicksburg: Grant’s campaign that broke the Confederacy,” by Donald A. Miller (Simon and Schuster, 2019). The campaign down the Mississippi, which Miller argues was the most important and the capture of Vicksburg the decisive moment of the war. He begins at the beginning: the early, unpromising history of Hiram Ulysses Grant (never called Hiram), and his unerring strategic eye. From his arrival at the incipient Union base of Cairo, Ill., Grant saw that the US needed to conduct a campaign down the Mississippi and its tributaries. That was always his vision, whether supported by others, primarily Henry Halleck, the nominal western commander in chief. Halleck was thought to be the best military mind in the west, if not the nation. But he spent a lot of time at the beginning undermining Grant if not trying to get rid of him, and he never really got involved in the movement of armies. Miller gathers a myriad threads: the work of the salf-water and brown-water navies, Farragut with his sea-going sloops-of-war moving north, Foote and Porter and their slope-sided ironclads moving south; the personalities of the various commanders with all their strengths and weaknesses, such as John McLernan, a superb battlefield general but otherwise untrustworthy, insurbordinate, and unreliable; John Pemberton, the Confederate commander of Vicksburg: essentially incompetent and disorganized; the terrible effects of unsanitary conditions and ignorant medicine, so that thousands of soldiers died of disease or lack of proper care; the tremendous logistical difficulties of getting and supplying troops a long way from their bases (Grant made a serious error in his first move south by using a single railway line from the supply center at Holly Springs; when it was destroyed by Confederate raiders, he was forced to withdraw ignominiously; So many different elements were involved). One facet of the campaign Miller emphasizes: the effect of the Union invasion on the enslaved people of the South. They began to flee the plantations; they flocked to the Union troops, ragged, sickly, but so happy to be free; how could they be used? As laborers? As soldiers? In any case, the South’s economy was being destroyed; rich, fertile plantations and farms were going to waste as their labor disappeared; gradually the performance of black soldiers in combat began to overcome the Union troops’ habitual racism and contempt. Grant understood the importance of the land: his troops burned, razed, left desolate the countryside, often by plan, just as often by looting. Sherman’s march to the sea was presaged by what Grant’s forces did on the way down the Mississippi. Miller is unsparing in his analysis of the generalship: Grant made mistake after mistake: but he recovered immediately, was never shaken, was resilient, and saw the battlefield and campaign territory at least as well as anyone else. And he drank---no doubt about that. The question was, how drunk and how often. He drank when not under pressure; he was surrounded by officers, primarily John Rawlins and Charles Dana, who did their best to keep him away from liquor. There is so much that has been written about the Civil War that Miller uses a lot of previously published work, as well as obscure letters and documents. He quarrels with historians when he thinks their work is weak or incorrect. He makes a case for Vicksburg as the most important victory of the war, and suggests that the battle of Champions Hill, where Grant met Pemberton head on and beat him in open battle, was the decisive battle, more important strategically than either Antietam or Gettysburg His writing is lucid and easy to read and digest. The maps are excellent: they show the important geography, the rail lines, the locations just when they are needed in the text. He does a pretty good job describing the warships, though he gets hyperbolic about their size: Farragut’s vessels were not behemoths; only once does he call them ships of the line. I wonder if Miller is now going to look at the eastern campaign.
https://www.simonandschuster.com/book...
August 29, 2021
In "Vicksburg: Grant’s Campaign that Broke the Confederacy," Lafayette College historian Donald Miller is at pains to explain that he’s not a Grant “hagiographer.” His book convincingly balances praise of Grant’s successes with criticism of the ways that Grant went wrong.
Mainly, Grant suffered from the opposite condition of Union commanders in the East. This attitude was both a strength and a weakness for Grant. While McClellan overrated Robert E. Lee and the enemy in general, which made him too cautious, Grant underrated Confederates, which made him bold but sometimes reckless.
Failure to prepare for a Confederate attack while massing troops at Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee to march on the rail junction at Corinth just across the state line in Mississippi almost cost Grant his army on the first day of the Battle of Shiloh.
In the Vicksburg campaign, underrating the enemy caused mistakes like Sherman’s failed attack on the city at Chickasaw Bayou in December 1862 or, five months later in May of 1863, the failed assault on the fortifications at Vicksburg while the city’s defenders were still strong. After taking heavy casualties but making few gains, Grant ordered his forces to settle into the siege that would exhaust the city and lead to its capitulation several weeks later.
If anything, reading how Grant made mistakes and then learned from them to change course afterwards makes the story of the Vicksburg campaign more interesting.
And that’s really the point of Miller’s text. While Gettysburg has gotten all the attention, Miller argues that Vicksburg was far more important to the outcome of the Civil War.
Vicksburg More Important than Gettysburg
Gettysburg has all the elements of a good story: dramatic battles where armies clash in open fields or defending hills, narrative unities of place and time worthy of Aristotle (the battle happened in one place and over a contiguous three-day period), and colorful personalities on both sides, but especially on the losing Confederate side and especially Robert E. Lee but also Jeb Stuart, James Longstreet and George Pickett.
Vicksburg is more complicated. Though centered on the fortified city on a bluff over the Mississippi, the story of Vicksburg is too spread out over space and time to offer a reader the satisfaction of narrative unities.
The Vicksburg campaign lasted not three days but about a year. It involved not just the army but the navy too. The campaign started far away along the Mississippi, both upriver in Cairo, Illinois, and downriver in New Orleans. Grant tried half a dozen different times to take the city, until he finally hit on the idea of attacking the riverfront citadel from the landward side to the east, which required him to make a circuitous march over a couple weeks through the heart of the state of Mississippi.
Finally, the Vicksburg campaign ended not as Gettysburg did with a glorious but doomed charge over an open field over a fateful hour, but instead with a month-long siege whose main emotion was not valor but perseverance.
Though harder to understand, Vicksburg was more important. Despite the drama that Southerners have felt ever since about Pickett’s Charge, Gettysburg changed little in the war. Lee marched into the North, fought, lost some troops, and then marched his armies out again, leaving the situation largely unchanged. Only if Lee had won and went on to threaten Washington could Gettysburg have influenced the outcome of the war. But that’s not what happened. Lee went home with his army largely intact to fight another day. And nearly two more years.
Vicksburg by contrast, spelled the beginning of the end for the Confederacy because of the importance of everything the South lost when Confederate General John Pemberton surrendered the city to Grant’s forces on July 4, 1863:
1. Grant captured a whole Confederate army, the second of his career.
2. The South was cut in half. This nearly cut off the ability to ship food and raw materials from Texas to armies in the East. Symbolically, the Confederacy could no longer claim to be a unified nation, reducing its political credibility at home and abroad.
3. The Union gained control of the Mississippi River to ship the crops of the Midwest down to New Orleans. As Lincoln put it when he learned that Grant had taken Vicksburg, “The Father of Waters again goes unvexed to the sea.”
4. In a further blow to the Confederacy’s credibility as a nation, Vicksburg was the hometown of Confederate President Jefferson Davis and the wealthiest city in his home state of Mississippi. The loss of Vicksburg anticipated the fall of Atlanta and Richmond.
5. The cooperation of the army and the navy, both blue-water (ocean) ships under Admiral David Farragut coming up from New Orleans and the brown-water (river) fleet of Admiral David Porter coming down from Cairo and Memphis, was innovative and established a precedent for joint operations that Grant would take to the East to win the war against Lee.
6. The Vicksburg campaign, fought in the heart of the slave plantation country of the Mississippi delta, accelerated the liberation of enslaved people, the enlistment of Black soldiers, and the system of contraband camps and support services that would serve as a model for Reconstruction through the end of the war and into the post-war period.
You Can’t Edit Slavery out of Vicksburg
Though Miller doesn’t mention it, other historians have noted that Gettysburg also has appealed to generations of white Civil War buffs because Black soldiers did not fight in combat roles there.
This allowed white people to forget the role of slavery and race in the war and let them focus instead on battlefield tactics while celebrating the valor of (white) men on both sides. It was easier to see the Civil War as a white man’s fight if you focused on Gettysburg than if you looked at other battles. As a Union victory with Southern valor, Gettysburg’s story became an episode in a story of reconciliation between white people of North and South by editing out the divisive issue of slavery.
Celebration of white valor at Gettysburg helped create an inaccurate view of the Civil War that ignored its cause in slavery, its most important issue in race, and its legacy of unfinished work up to the present day.
You can’t edit out slavery from the story of Vicksburg. You can’t edit out race and Reconstruction from the aftermath of Vicksburg.
Miller does an excellent job of introducing Grant’s efforts to deal with the influx of self-liberated Black people into his lines. Though unprepared to receive such a large quantity of freedom seekers, Grant quickly instituted a system to house and feed tens of thousands of Black civilians in the middle of a war zone and then to employ them in ways useful to the war effort, from shouldering a rifle to building entrenchments to growing cotton on their old plantations (now for wages) for sale up North.
One of the most under-appreciated aspects of Vicksburg is that it helped make Grant a “committed emancipationist,” claims Miller, “freeing by military action over one hundred thousands slaves in the lower Mississippi Valley and working…to put nearly twenty-one thousand black men in Union blue by the end of 1863.”
Miller offers a compelling argument that you can’t understand the Civil War without understanding the Vicksburg campaign.
“At Vicksburg Grant evolved a war-winning strategy for the North. His triumph led Lincoln to call him east to take on Lee in Virginia, and there he fought as he had in the west,” writes Miller.
After Shiloh, Grant learned that the South would not be defeated by merely losing battles. In a people’s war as the contest between North and South had become, only capturing armies and destroying both the enemy’s ability and its will to wage war could bring victory.
The Civil War was in many ways the world’s first modern war. And as Miller writes, in a contest of modern armies of 50,000 or 80,000 men, “it is campaigns, not battles, that win wars.”
Mainly, Grant suffered from the opposite condition of Union commanders in the East. This attitude was both a strength and a weakness for Grant. While McClellan overrated Robert E. Lee and the enemy in general, which made him too cautious, Grant underrated Confederates, which made him bold but sometimes reckless.
Failure to prepare for a Confederate attack while massing troops at Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee to march on the rail junction at Corinth just across the state line in Mississippi almost cost Grant his army on the first day of the Battle of Shiloh.
In the Vicksburg campaign, underrating the enemy caused mistakes like Sherman’s failed attack on the city at Chickasaw Bayou in December 1862 or, five months later in May of 1863, the failed assault on the fortifications at Vicksburg while the city’s defenders were still strong. After taking heavy casualties but making few gains, Grant ordered his forces to settle into the siege that would exhaust the city and lead to its capitulation several weeks later.
If anything, reading how Grant made mistakes and then learned from them to change course afterwards makes the story of the Vicksburg campaign more interesting.
And that’s really the point of Miller’s text. While Gettysburg has gotten all the attention, Miller argues that Vicksburg was far more important to the outcome of the Civil War.
Vicksburg More Important than Gettysburg
Gettysburg has all the elements of a good story: dramatic battles where armies clash in open fields or defending hills, narrative unities of place and time worthy of Aristotle (the battle happened in one place and over a contiguous three-day period), and colorful personalities on both sides, but especially on the losing Confederate side and especially Robert E. Lee but also Jeb Stuart, James Longstreet and George Pickett.
Vicksburg is more complicated. Though centered on the fortified city on a bluff over the Mississippi, the story of Vicksburg is too spread out over space and time to offer a reader the satisfaction of narrative unities.
The Vicksburg campaign lasted not three days but about a year. It involved not just the army but the navy too. The campaign started far away along the Mississippi, both upriver in Cairo, Illinois, and downriver in New Orleans. Grant tried half a dozen different times to take the city, until he finally hit on the idea of attacking the riverfront citadel from the landward side to the east, which required him to make a circuitous march over a couple weeks through the heart of the state of Mississippi.
Finally, the Vicksburg campaign ended not as Gettysburg did with a glorious but doomed charge over an open field over a fateful hour, but instead with a month-long siege whose main emotion was not valor but perseverance.
Though harder to understand, Vicksburg was more important. Despite the drama that Southerners have felt ever since about Pickett’s Charge, Gettysburg changed little in the war. Lee marched into the North, fought, lost some troops, and then marched his armies out again, leaving the situation largely unchanged. Only if Lee had won and went on to threaten Washington could Gettysburg have influenced the outcome of the war. But that’s not what happened. Lee went home with his army largely intact to fight another day. And nearly two more years.
Vicksburg by contrast, spelled the beginning of the end for the Confederacy because of the importance of everything the South lost when Confederate General John Pemberton surrendered the city to Grant’s forces on July 4, 1863:
1. Grant captured a whole Confederate army, the second of his career.
2. The South was cut in half. This nearly cut off the ability to ship food and raw materials from Texas to armies in the East. Symbolically, the Confederacy could no longer claim to be a unified nation, reducing its political credibility at home and abroad.
3. The Union gained control of the Mississippi River to ship the crops of the Midwest down to New Orleans. As Lincoln put it when he learned that Grant had taken Vicksburg, “The Father of Waters again goes unvexed to the sea.”
4. In a further blow to the Confederacy’s credibility as a nation, Vicksburg was the hometown of Confederate President Jefferson Davis and the wealthiest city in his home state of Mississippi. The loss of Vicksburg anticipated the fall of Atlanta and Richmond.
5. The cooperation of the army and the navy, both blue-water (ocean) ships under Admiral David Farragut coming up from New Orleans and the brown-water (river) fleet of Admiral David Porter coming down from Cairo and Memphis, was innovative and established a precedent for joint operations that Grant would take to the East to win the war against Lee.
6. The Vicksburg campaign, fought in the heart of the slave plantation country of the Mississippi delta, accelerated the liberation of enslaved people, the enlistment of Black soldiers, and the system of contraband camps and support services that would serve as a model for Reconstruction through the end of the war and into the post-war period.
You Can’t Edit Slavery out of Vicksburg
Though Miller doesn’t mention it, other historians have noted that Gettysburg also has appealed to generations of white Civil War buffs because Black soldiers did not fight in combat roles there.
This allowed white people to forget the role of slavery and race in the war and let them focus instead on battlefield tactics while celebrating the valor of (white) men on both sides. It was easier to see the Civil War as a white man’s fight if you focused on Gettysburg than if you looked at other battles. As a Union victory with Southern valor, Gettysburg’s story became an episode in a story of reconciliation between white people of North and South by editing out the divisive issue of slavery.
Celebration of white valor at Gettysburg helped create an inaccurate view of the Civil War that ignored its cause in slavery, its most important issue in race, and its legacy of unfinished work up to the present day.
You can’t edit out slavery from the story of Vicksburg. You can’t edit out race and Reconstruction from the aftermath of Vicksburg.
Miller does an excellent job of introducing Grant’s efforts to deal with the influx of self-liberated Black people into his lines. Though unprepared to receive such a large quantity of freedom seekers, Grant quickly instituted a system to house and feed tens of thousands of Black civilians in the middle of a war zone and then to employ them in ways useful to the war effort, from shouldering a rifle to building entrenchments to growing cotton on their old plantations (now for wages) for sale up North.
One of the most under-appreciated aspects of Vicksburg is that it helped make Grant a “committed emancipationist,” claims Miller, “freeing by military action over one hundred thousands slaves in the lower Mississippi Valley and working…to put nearly twenty-one thousand black men in Union blue by the end of 1863.”
Miller offers a compelling argument that you can’t understand the Civil War without understanding the Vicksburg campaign.
“At Vicksburg Grant evolved a war-winning strategy for the North. His triumph led Lincoln to call him east to take on Lee in Virginia, and there he fought as he had in the west,” writes Miller.
After Shiloh, Grant learned that the South would not be defeated by merely losing battles. In a people’s war as the contest between North and South had become, only capturing armies and destroying both the enemy’s ability and its will to wage war could bring victory.
The Civil War was in many ways the world’s first modern war. And as Miller writes, in a contest of modern armies of 50,000 or 80,000 men, “it is campaigns, not battles, that win wars.”
May 18, 2023
Miller presents an interesting argument for the origins of 'total war' and the shift from 'saving the union' to 'the war for emancipation' originating during the Vicksburg campaign. The notes, bibliography, and index were all first-rate.
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