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Vicksburg

Definitions: Vicksburg

Vicksburg

Noun

1. A town in western Mississippi on bluffs above the Mississippi River west of Jackson; focus of an important campaign during the American Civil War as the Union fought to control the Mississippi River and so to cut the Confederacy into two halves.

2. A decisive battle in the American Civil War (1863); after being besieged for nearly seven weeks the Confederates surrendered.

Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
 

Date "Vicksburg" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1876. (references)



Synonym: Vicksburg

Synonym: siege of Vicksburg (n). (additional references)

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Specialty Definition: Political Questions before the Siege of Vicksburg

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

This paqe is about the Battle of Vicksburg (where all references live) during the American Civil War, This material is on political questions prior to military action.

On Vicksburg

Vicksburg was nicknamed The Gibraltar of the Confederacy. No large Union boat could sail the Mississippi past it without drawing cannon fire and likely being sunk -- the Union had dug a canal to avoid Vicksburg but it was too shallow for big boats. Union forces under General Grant, whose star had been steadily riding since the fall of Fort Donelson, had been trying for a long time to get at Vicksburg -- there had been seven failures trying to get Union forces to where they could assault Vicksburg, and all the Union did was create a growing casualty list, and public opinion that General Grant was a fool, a drunkard, or worse.

On the controversial General Grant

"All Grant's schemes have failed," observed Elihu Washburn, long Grant's congressional benefactor who elevated the  West Pointer to brigadier general early in the war. One newspaper editor colorfully put it (quoted in Shelby Foote, Fredericksburg to Meridian pg. 217), "Well, now, for God's sake say that Genl Grant, entrusted with our greatest army, is a jackass in the original package. He is a poor drunken imbecile. He is a poor stick sober, and he is most of the time more than half drunk, and much of the time idiotically drunk."

In answer to his critics, in his memoirs Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant, Grant had to say (ch. 32),


I took no steps to answer these complaints, but continued to do my duty, as I understand it, to the best of my ability.


There is more to say of Grant's (dubious) drinking later in this collection of articles.


Abraham Lincoln defends Grant; Union and Confederate mood in early 1863

Aware of Grant's victories on the battlefield, Lincoln deftly parried rumors of Grant's drunkenness by saying, "If I knew what brand of whiskey he drinks I would send a barrel or so to some other generals." Despite the appalling casualities at  Shiloh, and rumors of Grant's drunkenness on the battlefield, Lincoln had also said of Grant "I can't spare this man, he fights." But of the seven failures that got the Union no closer to Vicksburg; in Battle Cry of Freedom, pg. 588, historian James B. McPherson observed, 


For two months Grant's army had been floundering in the mud. Many of them rested permanently below the mud, victims of pneumonia or dysentery or any of a dozen other maladies. Vicksburg stood as defiant as ever.


Union mood in early 1863 was depressed. Defending Vicksburg was  John C. Pemberton, a Pennsylvania Yankee who married South and sided with the Confederacy. He was not as sanguine about the Confederacy's hopes of keeping Vicksburg as some on the Union side, certain that the Grant's thrashing about would eventually hit a soft spot. Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston was afraid of the Federals in the West; as Bruce Catton observed (ch. 2, part 2), 


... General Johnston suspected that the Federals in the Mississippi Valley held a winning hand if they played it right.


Union plans to reduce Vicksburg and their politics

He was later shown to be right, after the shedding of much blood in a high-stakes poker game between U.S. Grant and the Confederates. The Union had three options to reduce Vicksburg, where they were fighting against Confederate-favoring geography as much as gun-toting Confederates:


  1.  A direct attack from the Mississippi,

  2.  Pull back on Memphis, going overland, or

  3.  March the army down the west side of the Mississippi, cross the river south of Vicksburg, and attack from the south and the east.
    

North and east of Vicksburg was the Yazoo Delta, 200 miles long and as far as fifty wide, a practically impenetrable swamp.  General Sherman had tried to go this way, blundering hopelessly. About 12 miles up the Yazoo were powerful Confederate batteries at  Haines Bluff.

The Louisiana shore west of Vicksburg was not much more forgiving, riven with streams and poor country roads, and on the wrong side of the river. Retreating to Memphis, Tennessee and taking the railroad down, east of the primeval Yazoo Delta made sense, but that would be an admission of defeat, and Northern public opinion would condemn the already-shaky Grant. He chose the third plan.


More political questions

Grant had political considerations with which to deal as well.  Henry Halleck ("Old Brains," above him in Washington) was of a cautious bent, and Grant knew he might oppose the dangerous naval expedition. The Union fleet could be lost or crippled; Grant was to place his troops where a Confederate force of unknown size might destroy them; and the Union supply line down the Mississippi was in grave danger of being snapped, leaving an entire Union army cut off.

Some on Grant's staff and other Union generals such as Sherman and General James B. McPherson opposed the dangerous plan. Sherman recommended falling back to Memphis and going down from there.

Grant's plan was thus far more dangerous than one gets from one-paragraph summaries in American history texts.
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Political Questions before the Siege of Vicksburg."
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Crosswords: Vicksburg
English words defined with "Vicksburg": Greenville ♦ siege of Vicksburg ♦ Yazoo, Yazoo River. (references)
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Modern Usage: Vicksburg
DomainUsage
Movie/TV Titles
The Drummer Girl of Vicksburg (1912)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.
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Commercial Usage: Vicksburg
DomainTitle
Books
  • Grant's Lieutenants: From Cairo to Vicksburg (Modern War Studies) (reference)
  • Tamarack Tree: A Novel of the Siege of Vicksburg (reference)
  • The Drummer Boy of Vicksburg (Novel) (reference)
  • The Most Glorious Fourth: Vicksburg and Gettysburg, July 4, 1863 (reference)
  • Vicksburg 1863: Grant Clears the Mississippi (Campaign, No 26) (reference)
    (more book examples)
  
Periodicals
  
Theater & Movies
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.
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Image Slideshow: Vicksburg
Photos:
Vicksburg
More images...
Illustrations:
Vicksburg
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Photo Album: Vicksburg
ThumbnailDescription & CreditThumbnailDescription & Credit
Map of the approaches to Vicksburg, Mississippi, constructed by Coast Survey Sub - Assistant Clarence Fendall for Rear Admiral David Dixon Porter. This map was printed as a commemorative copy on the occasion  of the 150th Anniversary of the formation of the Survey of the Coast.Credit: Treasures of the Library.
Off Vicksburg, Mississippi, in 1863-65.Credit: NAVY.
Engraving from Harper's "History of the Great Rebellion, 1860-65", page 449, depicting the U.S. Ram Queen of the West attacking the Confederate steamer City of Vicksburg off Vicksburg, Mississippi, on 2 February 1863.Credit: NAVY.
The surrender of Vicksburg, July 4, 1863.Credit: Library of Congress.
Vicksburg Canal.Credit: Library of Congress.
Vicksburg, Miss.  Levee and steamboats.Credit: Library of Congress.
General view of battle ground, Vicksburg, Mississippi.Credit: Library of Congress.
Vicksburg National Cemetery.Credit: Library of Congress.
A Mississippi Negro family who live on a cotton patch near Vicksburg.Credit: Library of Congress.
Vicksburg, Mississippi. Negroes.Credit: Library of Congress.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.
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Cities: Vicksburg

1. Vicksburg, MI (village, FIPS 82300) 
Location: 42.12044 N, 85.53419 W 
Population (1990): 2216 (893 housing units) 
Area: 3.3 sq km (land), 0.1 sq km (water) 
Zip Code(s): 49097
Country: USA
2. Vicksburg, MS (city, FIPS 76720) 
Location: 32.32909 N, 90.87080 W 
Population (1990): 20908 (9250 housing units) 
Area: 34.8 sq km (land), 1.4 sq km (water) 
Zip Code(s): 39180
Country: USA
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Expression: Vicksburg
Expression using "Vicksburg": siege of Vicksburg. Additional references.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.
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Frequency of Internet Keywords: Vicksburg
The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com.
 
ExpressionFrequency
per Day
vicksburg ms
365
vicksburg
330
vicksburg mississippi
233
vicksburg post
189
battle of vicksburg
172
vicksburg hotel
53
vicksburg mi
51
vicksburg casino
38
vicksburg evening post
33
vicksburg miss
20
civil war vicksburg
16
vicksburg national military park
16
vicksburg michigan
16
vicksburg ms hotel
15
siege of vicksburg
15
battle picture vicksburg
13
vicksburg ms casino
13
capri isle vicksburg
12
vicksburg high school
11
vicksburg newspaper
11
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.
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Anagrams: Vicksburg
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams
Words within the letters "b-c-g-i-k-r-s-u-v"
-3 letters: bricks, krubis.
-4 letters: birks, brick, brigs, brisk, brusk, bucks, burgs, cribs, curbs, grubs, gucks, krubi, ricks, rucks, scrub, virus.
-5 letters: bigs, birk, bisk, brig, bris, buck, bugs, burg, burs, busk, cigs, crib, cris, crus, cubs, curb, curs, cusk, gibs, grub, guck, guvs, irks, kirs, kris, ribs, rick, rigs, risk, rubs, ruck, rugs, rusk, sick, suck, urbs, uric, vigs, vugs.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro.
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Alternative Orthography: Vicksburg

Hexadecimal (or equivalents, 770AD-1900s) (references)
56 69 63 6B 73 62 75 72 67
Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519; backwards) (references)
American Sign Language (origins from 1620-1817 in Italy and, especially, France) (references)
 = 
Semaphore (1791, in France) (references)
        
Braille (1829, in France) (references)
Morse Code (1836) (references)
...-    ..    -.-.    -.-    ...    -...    ..-    .-.    --.
Dancing Men (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1903) (references)
Binary Code (1918-1938, probably earlier) (references)
01010110 01101001 01100011 01101011 01110011 01100010 01110101 01110010 01100111
HTML Code (1990) (references)
&#86  &#105  &#99  &#107  &#115  &#98  &#117  &#114  &#103
ISO 10646 (1991-1993) (references)
0056 0069 0063 006B 0073 0062 0075 0072 0067
British Sign Language (Fingerspelling, BSL; 1992, British Deaf Association Dictionary of British Sign Language) (references)
Encryption (beginner's substitution cypher): (references)
567569778568878473
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INDEX
 1. Definition 
 2. Synonyms 
 3. Crosswords 
 4. Usage: Modern 		 5. Usage: Commercial 
 6. Images: Slideshow 
 7. Images: Photo Album 
 8. Cities 		 9. Expressions 
 10. Expressions: Internet 
 11. Anagrams 
 12. Orthography 		 13. Bibliography 


  
Copyright ©  Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.