[April 16, 2017] Three of us stood in the town of Vicksburg on the high banks of the Mississippi River overlooking where Union ships had run the Confederate shore batteries exactly 150 years before. With me was a South Korean Army general and a U.S. Army general; the latter whose family had lived in Vicksburg for more than 200 years.
All Americans, intentionally or not, have a connection to Vicksburg, Mississippi. I spoke to an elderly woman living in town whose mother survived the Siege of Vicksburg on those hot and dangerous days of mid 1863. She enthralled us with tales of cannon fire, death and disease, and a “sad surrender.”
It was a miracle that we actually met someone a single generation removed from the war and it reminded us that war has been a crucible where people die but where good things can come of it. In this case, the Civil War destroyed slavery in the U.S. The war also held the union together and indeed instructs us that united we stand, but when divided will fall.
This is where the end of the Confederacy began in earnest. On the night of this date April 16, 1863, Federal Rear Admiral David Porter ran his naval vessels and barges south on the river in an attempt at a large flanking of the town’s garrison. It succeeded but ultimately a quick end to the Confederate garrison was not to be.
The story of the Siege of Vicksburg is one of great leadership at every level of command. Heroism in the face of certain death, horrible conditions for those there, and the necessity to push troops to their physical and mental snapping point was needed to ensure victory. Stories are told to this day about the events that happened during the weeks of the siege.
As a small boy, my father took our family to Vicksburg to visit and showed us where Union forces dug a tunnel under Confederate defenses, exploding it, and then failing in their follow-on attacks. Great ingenuity and bravery occurred on both sides; more that can ever be told in books but do exist in family memories.
The elderly lady, before she departed, told us something not contained in the history books. She said that the Confederate General Pemberton asked for fair terms during the surrender and was granted them. But one thing he did not receive was the decision on the date of surrender which was to be July 4th; the same day the nation celebrates its independence from Britain.
She told us that Independence Day was not celebrated in Vicksburg until the mid-1960s because of the sad surrender on that special day.
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