Vicksburg: Grant's Campaign That Broke the Confederacy

Donald L. Miller's account of the Siege of Vicksburg examines Grant's year-long Mississippi River campaign, which resulted in the city's surrender and opened the river to Union shipping between the Midwest and New Orleans. Vicksburg, Mississippi, sat on a high bluff and served as the Confederacy's last stronghold on the river, blocking Union access until Grant's army and Admiral David Porter's navy successfully invaded and besieged the city. During the campaign, tens of thousands of enslaved people fled to Union lines. More than twenty thousand became soldiers, while others seized the plantations where they had been forced to work, disrupting the regional economy and triggering significant social change across Mississippi. The victory solidified Grant's standing as the Union's most capable general. Grant himself identified Vicksburg as the most important battle of the war, one that effectively determined the Confederacy's fate. The book has received the Civil War Round Table of New York's Fletcher Pratt Literary Award, the Austin Civil War Round Table's Daniel M. & Marilyn W. Laney Book Prize, and the Army Historical Foundation Distinguished Writing Award.