After the spring of 1862, when the Confederates lost Fort Henry, Fort Donelson, and Memphis in Tennessee and New Orleans in Louisiana, Vicksburg became the key remaining point of their defense of the Mississippi River. The capture of Vicksburg would yield the North control of the entire course of the river and thus enable it to isolate those Confederate states that lay west of the river from those in the east. Vicksburg was ideally suited for defensive purposes, however: it was situated on high bluffs along the river and was protected on the north by a maze of swampy bayous. The Confederates’ batteries on the bluffs could outgun any Union ships on the river.
A Union naval expedition using ironclads (May–June 1862) to subdue the Confederate batteries failed, as did an attempt to take the city by land from the north by Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman (December 1862) and an attempt by Grant to cut a canal around Vicksburg that would divert the river (February–March 1863). After this string of frustrating failures, Grant conceived a bold move that would enable him to take the city using the high-ground approaches from the east, well behind Confederate lines. Moving his army of 40,000 troops to the west bank of the Mississippi, he marched south along it for a considerable distance until he could recross the river at Bruinsburg, which lay about 30 miles (48 km) south of Vicksburg. His army recrossed to the east bank of the river by means of a Union fleet, which, under the command of Adm. David D. Porter, had run south past the batteries at Vicksburg. Once across the river, Grant quickly began moving northeast, though this meant abandoning his already tenuous supply lines and feeding his troops off the surrounding enemy countryside. His forces took Port Gibson on May 2, reached Grand Gulf on May 3, and prevented the small Confederate army of Gen. Joseph E. Johnston near Jackson from linking up with the Vicksburg forces.
Vicksburg’s commander, Gen. John C. Pemberton, led his forces out in an effort to link up with Johnston but met Grant moving westward and was forced to return to the city. On May 18 Grant arrived in the rear of Vicksburg, within which Pemberton’s 30,000 troops were isolated. After two assaults in mid-May failed, Grant settled down to methodical siege tactics while augmenting his forces. He controlled all the approaches to the city, and by early June the Confederate garrison was desperately short of ammunition and on the brink of starvation. Pemberton surrendered the city on July 4.
The surrender of Vicksburg, with the victory at the Battle of Gettysburg the previous day (July 3), greatly heartened the North and in fact marked the turning point of the war.
How did Ulysses S. Grant affect the outcome of the American Civil War?
Ulysses S. Grant achieved two major Union victories early in the war. He later became commander of all Union forces after seizing Vicksburg, Mississippi. Grant ordered Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman to take Atlanta in the South while he personally marched on the Confederate army in Virginia. Grant’s strategy defeated the Confederacy by 1865.
What was Ulysses S. Grant’s relationship with the Lakota Indians?
Pres. Ulysses S. Grant observed the Second Treaty of Fort Laramie in 1868, which maintained peace with the Lakota Indians on the Great Sioux Reservation. However, he violated the treaty after gold was discovered in the Black Hills. With Grant’s approval the army seized the land and expelled the Lakota by 1877.
What was Ulysses S. Grant’s policy regarding Reconstruction?
After the American Civil War the former Confederate states reinstated their antebellum racial hierarchy through repressive laws and the Ku Klux Klan’s anti-Black terrorist activity. Pres. Ulysses S. Grant pushed for Black men’s right to vote through the Fifteenth Amendment and supported legislation that punished those who tried to limit that constitutional right.
Life, military career, and presidency of Ulysses S. GrantAn overview of Ulysses S. Grant.
Grant was the son of Jesse Root Grant, a tanner, and Hannah Simpson, and he grew up in Georgetown, Ohio. Detesting the work around the family tannery, Ulysses instead performed his share of chores on farmland owned by his father and developed considerable skill in handling horses. In 1839 Jesse secured for Ulysses an appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, and pressured him to attend. Although he had no interest in military life, Ulysses accepted the appointment, realizing that the alternative was no further education. Grant decided to reverse his given names and enroll at the academy as Ulysses Hiram (probably to avoid having the acronymHUG embroidered on his clothing); however, his congressional appointment was erroneously made in the name Ulysses S. Grant, the name he eventually accepted, maintaining that the middle initial stood for nothing. He came to be known as U.S. Grant—Uncle Sam Grant—and his classmates called him Sam. Standing only a little over five feet tall when he entered the academy, he grew more than six inches in the next four years. Most observers thought his slouching gait and sloppiness in dress did not conform with usual soldierly bearing.
Grant ranked 21st in a class of 39 when he graduated from West Point in 1843, but he had distinguished himself in horsemanship and showed such considerable ability in mathematics that he imagined himself as a teacher of the subject at the academy. Bored by the military curriculum, he took great interest in the required art courses and spent much leisure time reading classic novels. Upon graduation Grant was assigned as a brevet second lieutenant to the 4th U.S. Infantry, stationed near St. Louis, Missouri, where he fell in love with Julia Boggs Dent, the sister of his roommate at West Point. They became secretly engaged before Grant left to serve in the Mexican-American War (1846–48) and married upon his return.
In the Mexican-American War Grant showed gallantry in campaigns under Gen. Zachary Taylor. He was then transferred to Gen. Winfield Scott’s army, where he first served as regimental quartermaster and commissary. Although his service in these posts gave him an invaluable knowledge of army supply, it did nothing to satiate his hunger for action. Grant subsequently distinguished himself in battle in September 1847, earning brevet commissions as first lieutenant and captain, though his permanent rank was first lieutenant. Despite his heroism, Grant wrote years later: “I do not think there was ever a more wicked war….I thought so at the time…only I had not moral courage enough to resign.”
On July 5, 1852, when the 4th Infantry sailed from New York for the Pacific coast, Grant left his growing family (two sons had been born) behind. Assigned to Fort Vancouver, Oregon Territory (later Washington state), he attempted to supplement his army pay with ultimately unsuccessful business ventures and was unable to reunite his family. A promotion to captain in August 1853 brought an assignment to Fort Humboldt, California, a dreary post with an unpleasant commanding officer. On April 11, 1854, Grant resigned from the army. Whether this decision was influenced in any way by Grant’s fondness for alcohol, which he reportedly drank often during his lonely years on the Pacific coast, remains open to conjecture.
Settling at White Haven, the Dents’ estate in Missouri, Grant began to farm 80 acres (30 hectares) given to Julia by her father. This farming venture was a failure, as was a real estate partnership in St. Louis in 1859. The next year Grant joined the leather goods business owned by his father and operated by his brothers in Galena, Illinois.
Ulysses S. GrantU.S. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, photograph by Mathew Brady, 1863.
At the outbreak of the Civil War in April 1861, Grant helped recruit, equip, and drill troops in Galena, then accompanied them to the state capital, Springfield, where Gov. Richard Yates made him an aide and assigned him to the state adjutant general’s office. Yates appointed him colonel of an unruly regiment (later named the 21st Illinois Volunteers) in June 1861. Before he had even engaged the enemy, Grant was appointed brigadier general through the influence of Elihu B. Washburne, a U.S. congressman from Galena. On learning this news and recalling his son’s previous failures, his father said, “Be careful, Ulyss, you are a general now—it’s a good job, don’t lose it!” To the contrary, Grant soon gained command of the District of Southeast Missouri, headquartered at Cairo, Illinois.
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In January 1862, dissatisfied with the use of his force for defensive and diversionary purposes, Grant received permission from Gen. Henry Wager Halleck to begin an offensive campaign. On February 16 he won the first major Union victory of the war, when Fort Donelson, on the Cumberland River in Tennessee, surrendered with about 15,000 troops. When the garrison’s commander, Gen. Simon B. Buckner, requested his Union counterpart’s terms for surrender, Grant replied, “No terms except unconditional surrender can be accepted. I propose to move immediately upon your works.” For many, from that point on Grant’s initials would stand for “unconditional surrender.”
Lookout Mountain, TennesseeGeneral Ulysses S. Grant (far left) with (left to right) General John Rawlins, General Joseph Webster, Colonel Clark Lagow, and Colonel Killyer at Lookout Mountain, Tennessee, 1863.
Promoted to major general, Grant repelled an unexpected Confederate attack on April 6–7 at Shiloh Church, near Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee, but the public outcry over heavy Union losses in the battle damaged Grant’s reputation, and Halleck took personal command of the army. However, when Halleck was called to Washington as general in chief in July, Grant regained command. Before the end of the year, he began his advance toward Vicksburg, Mississippi, the last major Confederate stronghold on the Mississippi River. Displaying his characteristic aggressiveness, resilience, independence, and determination, Grant brought about the besieged city’s surrender on July 4, 1863. When Port Hudson, Louisiana, the last post on the Mississippi, fell a few days later, the Confederacy was cut in half.
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