Vicksburg, 1863

Review by Choice Review

For many years, the story of the of the Union campaigns to take Vicksburg, Mississippi, took a back seat to tales of the great campaigns in the Civil War eastern theater, particularly the Battle of Gettysburg. Now, three works devoted to the Federal efforts to conquer the Confederate fortress city have appeared within the space of a single decade: William L. Shea and Terrence J. Winschel's Vicksburg Is the Key: The Struggle for the Mississippi River (CH, May'04, 41-5485), Michael B. Ballard's Vicksburg: The Campaign That Opened the Mississippi (CH, Jun'05, 42-6051), and this latest work from the author of the novel Forrest Gump as well as several earlier military histories. All of the main characters, the Union advance, the heroic Southern defense of the city's perimeter, and the final siege and battles are conveyed in a vivid storytelling style reminiscent of the late Shelby Foote. Lacking the tome-ending scholarly footnotes of Shea or Ballard, Groom's work offers many page bottom notes containing fascinating vignettes or trivia. Three and a half pages of acknowledgments and source notes replace a formal bibliography. The index is thorough. A skillfully presented work. Summing Up: Recommended. For popular or general interest Civil War collections and those serving undergraduates. M. J. Smith Jr. Tusculum College

Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.

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Review by Booklist Review

*Starred Review* Among the most visited of Civil War battlefields, Vicksburg here receives a narrative equal to its significance and popular interest. Though Vicksburg was obviously the strategic key to control of the Mississippi River, it was anything but clear how to unlock the place or to keep it locked. The military difficulties its geography presented to both attacker and defender underlie a perceptiveness present throughout Groom's account: he grasps commanders' options, senses the sturdiness of their military character, and dramatizes their choices in a way that awakens the inner armchair general in Civil War readers. Nor does Groom neglect the chain connecting the decisions of strategists to the tumultuous experiences of those on the receiving end, from Union and Confederate soldiers to plantation owners and their slaves. The present-tense flow in Groom's prose enhances vividness, just as it captures the fogginess of war that beset the minds of generals and admirals who conducted the Vicksburg campaigns, of which there were more than half a dozen before Grant's victory. A superior example of general-interest Civil War history, this is skillful work by Groom, also the author of several military histories and the novel Forrest Gump (1986).--Taylor, Gilbert Copyright 2009 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Groom's approach to the Civil War follows the examples of Bruce Catton and Shelby Foote. It features learning lightly worn presented in a narrative format that engages even though the outcome is known. Groom's conclusion that the Confederacy was best advised to seek terms after Vicksburg's fall sealed the rebels' fate is reasonable. But it is eclipsed by his compelling depiction of two improvised armies, each fighting, in James McPherson's words, "for cause and comrades." Both had to learn the craft of war, and blood was the price of ignorance. Personalities like William Tecumseh Sherman and John Pemberton, the Confederate general from Pennsylvania, vie for place with Benjamin Grierson's dramatic cavalry raid through Mississippi and the death grapple of Union and Confederate Missourians at Vicksburg. Grant, however, remains the central figure. His approach was a combination of improvisations. If something failed, like the costly attack on Chickasaw Bluffs, he tried something else until he finally put in place the siege that decided the Civil War. Groom presents grand events from a human perspective, introducing a spectrum of colorful characters. Maps. (Apr. 9) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

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Review by Library Journal Review

Groom (1942: The Year That Tried Men's Souls), a superb storyteller most famous for his novel Forrest Gump, seems to have researched his topic well, so it's a real disservice that his book lacks footnotes or endnotes or even a full bibliography. His thesis is that the Battle of Vicksburg was strategically the Civil War's most important one, at the end of which the Confederacy could not win the war and was foolish to fight on. The book's greatest strength is that, instead of getting bogged down in the minutiae, it places the battle within the context of the western theater of the war, emphasizing the personalities behind the battles rather than tactics and logistics. This approach makes the book accessible to general readers less familiar with Civil War history. Many will disagree with some of Groom's political conclusions, which show a bias toward the Southern cause; he does seem prone to offering opinion without evidence. There's no shortage of books on this battle, so librarians may choose to skip Groom's, especially if they have Michael Ballard's Vicksburg: The Campaign That Opened the Mississippi. However, Vicksburg, 1863 is engaging, and many will find it an enjoyable read. Recommended for public libraries. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 12/08.]-Michael Farrell, Reformed Theological Seminary. Lib., Oviedo, FL (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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Admiral Porter had his own ideas for the Rebels' undoing, which presently had nothing to do with armies or canals or amphibious landings. Instead, after correctly identifying the two main objectives of the Mississippi campaign, he just as correctly proceeded to separate them. One, of course, was to reopen the river to commercial traffic from the Midwest to the Gulf and thence to ports far and wide. Desirable as this was, it would still require the reduction of Vicksburg and Port Hudson, which only the army could accomplish, and they weren't getting anywhere fast. From a purely military standpoint, however, the second goal was even more vital, and that was to sever the Confederate connection between the bountiful lands of the trans- Mississippi, since the ultimate destination of their bounty was the Rebel armies of Virginia, Tennessee, and Mississippi. In sheer size, the trans- Mississippi was nearly as large as the rest of the Confederacy east of the river. Up until then it had provided the South with more than 100,000 soldiers, about 30 percent of the number presently serving under arms. Perhaps even more significantly, the trans- Mississippi was an inexhaustible granary that supplied much of the beef, corn, hogs, rice, wheat, and staples that filled stockpiles in Atlanta and Richmond. Not only that, but because of the blockade it also was a major conduit of European arms, munitions, and medical supplies through supposedly neutral Mexico. Cut off the supplies, Porter reasoned, and the enemy armies would begin to wither and starve. His view was later shared by no less an authority than the Harvard historian and philosopher John Fiske, who wrote in 1900, "To sever from the Confederacy its three trans- Mississippi states was an object of paramount importance. It would destroy nearly half its resisting power." This Confederate pipeline had already suffered a major blow with the fall of Memphis, and Sherman, before going up the Yazoo to attack Chickasaw Bluffs, had seen to the destruction of the Shreveport and Vicksburg Railroad. While these actions went a long way toward cutting the connection, it still left almost three hundred miles of the Mississippi under Rebel control all the way down to Port Hudson, and it was upon this stretch that Porter cast his nautical eye. He already knew he could get his ironclads past the Vicksburg batteries--albeit with the inevitably heavy damage--and once below there would be no sustainable source of coal, and the fireboxes of the ironclad ships were not designed for burning wood. Porter was still trying to figure a way to solve that problem when a catalyst arrived in the shape of a big Confederate riverboat named City of Vicksburg that steamed up from the South laden with supplies and tied up at the town docks. The brazenness of this prompted the admiral to summon his newest charge, Colonel Charles Rivers Ellet, who a scant six months earlier had been a nineteen- year- old medical cadet. Following the death of his father during the Battle of Memphis, young Ellet now commanded the army ram fleet, which, over the protest of Secretary of War Stanton, had just been turned over to the navy. Porter now wanted to know if Ellet thought it was possible to send in one of his rams to sink the City of Vicksburg, which, to his eternal annoyance and disgust, was lying in plain sight of his flagship.* Ellet replied that it was not only possible but, with himself in command, it was as good as done. Thus in the early hours of February 2, 1863, Ellet began sneaking downriver in Queen of the West, his best ram, which could burn either coal or wood. Elaborate preparations had been taken according to Porter's instructions, or so the admiral believed. Double bales of cotton had been placed around the decks to fortify against Confederate cannon shot, a nighttime attack had been ordered to minimize the danger from Rebel batteries, and Ellet had been told to s Excerpted from Vicksburg 1863 by Winston Groom All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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