Preserving Chickasaw Bayou: Where Sherman's First Move on Vicksburg Failed

Map of the first Vicksburg campaign, or Chickasaw Bayou, by Edward A. Munn, 1892. Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division.

The grant

• The plan: building on a first purchase in late 2022, the department and the American Battlefield Trust will acquire three more properties — just over 7 acres of the battlefield landscape. Woodlands cover half the land, so the grant also protects open space and natural resources.
• Update: in July 2023, another ABPP land acquisition grant preserved an additional 1.5 acres, through the same partners.

The battle

• The stakes: on July 3, 1863, the Confederate commander besieged at Vicksburg, Lt. Gen. John Pemberton (the source spells it "Pembroke"), sought terms — while, more than a thousand miles away, Union forces were defeating Gen. Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's Vicksburg victory, which gave the Union control of the Mississippi River, traced back to Chickasaw Bayou.
• The plan: in late 1862, Grant split the Army of the Tennessee in two. Grant advanced along the Mississippi Central Railroad while Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman moved south along the river.
• The fight: on December 26, Sherman met the Confederates two miles from Vicksburg at Chickasaw Bayou — a wide, chest-deep, tree-choked stream that gave the defenders natural cover. After three days of failed attacks on the Confederate line on the Walnut Hills, Sherman shifted northeast toward high bluffs that might cover an assault.
• Retreat: by January 2, with Grant's overland advance failing and supply and communication lines damaged, Sherman withdrew to the mouth of the Yazoo River. "I reached Vicksburg at the time appointed, landed, assaulted, and failed," he explained. Vicksburg stayed in Confederate hands — but by April 1863 the siege was on.

Battlefield grants

ABPP Battlefield Land Acquisition Grants help partners nationwide buy and preserve threatened Revolutionary War, War of 1812 and Civil War battlefields. The American Battlefield Protection Program also runs:

• Preservation Planning Grants, open to any site of armed conflict on American soil;
• Battlefield Restoration and Battlefield Interpretation grants.

Together they support community-led stewardship at the state, tribal and local levels.

Sources

Based on "The Long View: Preserving Chickasaw Bayou Battlefield," American Battlefield Protection Program, National Park Service, quoting William T. Sherman; a work of the United States government in the public domain. The 1892 map is in the public domain.