Saving Ground at Champion Hill, Where Vicksburg Lost Its Last Supply Road

A Battlefield Land Acquisition Grant of $219,075 from the National Park Service will help the Mississippi Department of Archives and History (MDAH) and its nonprofit partner, the American Battlefield Trust, permanently protect another piece of the Champion Hill Battlefield. It is part of MDAH's larger plan to preserve portions of every battlefield of the Vicksburg Campaign.

The battle

In the spring of 1863, Union troops pushed east of Vicksburg to cut the city off from reinforcements and isolate the last major Confederate stronghold on the Mississippi River. After Major General Ulysses S. Grant's army took Jackson, Mississippi, it met Confederates under Lieutenant General John C. Pemberton at Champion Hill on May 16, 1863.

The fighting swung back and forth, Union and Confederate infantry attacking and counterattacking along the crest of the hill. Poor communication among the Confederate generals gave Grant time to bring up reinforcements, and an all-out assault broke the Confederate line.

Pemberton could not hold the hill. He lost the battle and, with it, the last major supply road out of Vicksburg. Two days later he pulled his army back inside Vicksburg's defenses to wait for the siege that was sure to follow.

The grant program

Battlefield Land Acquisition Grants come from the NPS American Battlefield Protection Program, which helps preservation partners across the country buy and protect threatened battlefields of the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812 and the Civil War. The program also runs three other grants:

The aim is community-driven stewardship of historic places at the state, tribal and local levels.

Sources

Based on "Closing the Door at Champion Hill," American Battlefield Protection Program, National Park Service; a work of the United States government in the public domain.