Vicksburg

We returned today from our mini-vacation to Vicksburg. Part of Saturday afternoon was spent touring the battlefield. The last time I wandered that battlefield was on a class field trip during the mid '60's and I was too young and inexperienced to understand it. I studied that siege during my professional training as a soldier, but it was simply an academic study of terrain and tactics, bereft of the emotional impact that comes from walking the ground.

It was hard to walk around Vicksburg, and I didn't spend enough time there to do the subject any real justice, but I am struck by certain lessons from history that stay with us across the millenia.

1. Pemberton was an idiot. He allowed himself to get hemmed up behind fortifications and allowed Grant the honor and privelige of a classic seige. All Grant had to do was to wait until Vickburg started to starve. That is basically what happened. Pemberton finally had to surrender because he was out of food, ammo, and water.

2. Grant probably wasn't a genius, but he was in charge, and he understood that war is a struggle between economies. Destroy the economy of your enemy and he will lose the ability to fight. That is what Grant did at Vicksburg when he crossed the Mississippi, burned Jackson, then turned to Vicksburg. His army lived off the land, consuming everything edible and left the citizens of Vicksburg to starve. Six weeks later, they folded.

3. History is sometimes like a train wreck. Little bitty events that make no sense at the time have compelling repercussions that change the course of human endeavor. The very fact that Grant was the Commander at Vicksburg is one of the great military anomalies of that century. Only a few years earlier he had been all but drummed out of the Army, roundly accused of incompetence and of being a drunkard. The fact that he was in command at Vicksburg is one of the compelling head-scratchers of that era. The fact remains that he was the pre-eminent general of both armies. He was not well-liked, but he understood warfare like no man before him. His subordinate, Sherman, took good notes, and carried Grant's brand of warfare across the South. Some are not sure if Georgia is recuperated fully, even to this day.

Most of all, I was humbled by the individual and small-unit bravery and distinguished service exhibited by so many unknown people. Boys and men from all over the United States gathered at Vicksburg to fight for an ideal. People from Illinois, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Texas, Tennessee, Mississippi, New Hampshire, and many more that I can't list, all came together through force of arms so that this nation would become stronger, become united, and put to rest for once and all the question of division.

I walked down the trench lines and paused beside the numerous markers commemorating individual soldiers and units that fought at those spots. I looked across the cannon at the opposing lines and tried to imagine the horror of those weeks. I didn't walk the whole battlefied, just selected spots, but it was sufficient to make me aware.

It is hard for a soldier to walk across a battlefield. Hard even 140 years after the battle is decided.