Description: Map of the siege of Vicksburg, Mississippi by the U.S. forces under the command of Major General Ulysses S. Grant. Surveyed and constructed under direction of Captain C. B. Comstock, U.S. Engineers.
Drawn by Charles Spangenberg, Assistant Engineer, Head Quarters of the Department of the Tennessee.
Note:
Relief shown by hachures.
Union and Confederate entrenchments are handcolored blue and red respectively.
Detailed map showing roads, streets, railroads, hachures, vegetation, houses, and drainage.
Contains five topographic profiles, six cross sections of artillery batteries, and one cross section of a "rebel rifle pit."
Scale [ca. 16,800]. (not "four inches to one mile").
The Siege of Vicksburg (May 18 – July 4, 1863) was the final major military action in the Vicksburg Campaign of the American Civil War. In a series of maneuvers, Union Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant and his Army of the Tennessee crossed the Mississippi River and drove the Confederate army of Lt. Gen. John C. Pemberton into the defensive lines surrounding the fortress city of Vicksburg, Mississippi.
When two major assaults (May 19 and May 22, 1863) against the Confederate fortifications were repulsed with heavy casualties, Grant decided to besiege the city beginning on May 25. With no reinforcement, supplies nearly gone, and after holding out for more than forty days, the garrison finally surrendered on July 4. This action (combined with the capitulation of Port Hudson on July 9) yielded command of the Mississippi River to the Union forces, who would hold it for the rest of the conflict.
The Confederate surrender following the siege at Vicksburg is sometimes considered, when combined with Gen. Robert E. Lee's defeat at Gettysburg the previous day, the turning point of the war.
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Image ID: Map_Siege_Vicksburg_Miss
Subjects: Vicksburg (Miss.)--History--Siege, 1863--Maps. United States--Mississippi--Vicksburg; Grant, Ulysses S. (Ulysses Simpson), 1822-1885--Military leadership
Places: Vicksburg (Mississippi); Warren County (Mississippi)