View of Vicksburg
On July 4, 1863, Lieutenant General John C. Pemberton and his Confederate garrison marched out of Vicksburg and surrendered to General Ulysses S. Grant and the Federal army that had been targeting the city for nearly a year. The almost simultaneous Union victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg were the beginning of the end for the Confederacy. After Gettysburg, Lee’s forces never regained enough strength to seriously threaten the North. The fall of Vicksburg, and the last Confederate Mississippi River bastion, Port Hudson, a few days later, re-opened the Midwest to trade with the outside world and allowed the Union forces of Grant to operate with greater flexibility in the Deep South.
On July 4, 1863, Lieutenant General John C. Pemberton and his Confederate garrison marched out of Vicksburg and surrendered to General Ulysses S. Grant and the Federal army that had been targeting the city for nearly a year. The almost simultaneous Union victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg were the beginning of the end for the Confederacy. After Gettysburg, Lee’s forces never regained enough strength to seriously threaten the North. The fall of Vicksburg, and the last Confederate Mississippi River bastion, Port Hudson, a few days later, re-opened the Midwest to trade with the outside world and allowed the Union forces of Grant to operate with greater flexibility in the Deep South.