MOTHER NATURE-1, GENERAL GRANT-0

By the mid 19th Century, Vicksburg was a flourishing antebellum cotton exchange with surprisingly cosmopolitan amenities. Located atop the highest bluff on the southern Mississippi, it was both an important river and railroad junction, so when the Civil War broke out it became arguably the most fiercely contested position of the conflict, its fortress-like perch a defensive blessing that lingered into a curse. Instead of falling quickly to the Union like other river communities, Vicksburg easily frustrated all attempts at capture for over a year, but this would only prolong its suffering.

Up-and-coming Union general Ulysses S. Grant (who inherited the failure of the previous command) was so frustrated by Vicksburg that he tried to dig a bypass canal through the horseshoe bend where the city lay at the apex—a colossal failure. Out of desperation, he finally sent his troops on a risky overland maneuver through swampy wilderness in enemy territory cut off from supply lines to lay siege from the city’s rear. The gamble paid off, and over the next few months he starved out the city’s genteel residents while forcing them to live underground like rodents to avoid the ceaseless shelling.

Aware of Vicksburg historically prominent perch, I rolled into town anticipating spectacular views of the mighty Mississippi, but instead discovered I could barely glimpse a narrow, stagnant channel through the trees below.

Vicksburg’s prosperity was fueled by its founding at the Mississippi’s confluence with the Yazoo River, but—in an ironic twist of fate—a dozen years after Grant’s failed detour [Read more…]