Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era

by James M. McPherson

One northerner who had never lost confidence in eventual victory at Vicksburg was Grant. All of his roundabout routes through canals, bayous, and swamps having failed, he resolved on a bold plan to march his [Page 627] army down the west bank of the Mississippi to a point below Vicksburg while sending the fleet straight past the batteries to rendezvous with the troops downriver. There they could carry the army across the mile-wide water for a dry-ground campaign against this Gibraltar from the southeast. Apparently simple, the plan involved large risks. The gunboat fleet might be destroyed or crippled. Even if it survived to ferry Grant’s soldiers across the river, they would be virtually cut off from their base, for while the ironclads and even some supply transports might get past Vicksburg downriver with the help of a four-knot current, they would be sitting ducks if they tried to go back up again. The army would have to operate deep in enemy territory without a supply line against a force of unknown strength which held interior lines and could be reinforced.