Splitting the Confederacy

*Includes pictures

*Includes accounts of the fighting

*Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading

In 1860, New Orleans was just as unique a city as it is today. It was racially and linguistically diverse, with many French, German, and Spanish speakers, and a population of white, black, and mixed-race inhabitants. Louisiana's population was 47% slave and also had one of the largest numbers of free blacks in the country. Situated near the mouth of the continent's largest river, the Mississippi, it was an international center for trade and industry. New Orleans was the sixth largest city in the country and the largest in any of the states that would end up joining the Confederacy. The volume of trade through its port was second only to New York, and the city's commercial ties with England and Spain and cultural ties with France meant that the European powers would be looking closely at how the city fared in the Civil War, especially after it was occupied by Union forces. The Lincoln administration, fearful of European meddling in the war effort, had to constantly keep European opinion in mind when dealing with the captured city, and the story of New Orleans in the Civil War is one of far-reaching political, racial, and social tensions.

Given its importance, it's somewhat surprising in retrospect that the Union managed to capture New Orleans in an easier manner than places like Vicksburg and Atlanta. Admiral David Farragut's naval forces battered their shaky Confederate counterparts and were able to get over a dozen ships upriver past a couple of crucial Confederate forts along the Mississippi. By May 1862, Union forces occupied the city and General Benjamin Butler became its military governor, leaving the last true bastion of Confederate defenses on the Mississippi at Vicksburg.

At the start of 1863, Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia had been frustrating the Union in the Eastern theater for several months, but the situation in the West was completely different. The Confederates had lost control of several important states throughout 1862, and after New Orleans was taken by the Union, the North controlled almost all of the Mississippi River, which Confederate general James Longstreet called "the lungs of the Confederacy." By taking control of that vital river, the North would virtually cut the Confederacy in two, putting the South in a dire situation.

The only domino left to fall was the stronghold of Vicksburg, and both sides knew it. The Union Army of the Tennessee, led by Ulysses S. Grant, would spend months trying to encircle the army and eventually force John Pemberton's Confederate army to surrender. Grant eventually succeeded on July 4, 1863, but since it came a day after the climactic finish of the Battle of Gettysburg, Vicksburg was (and still is) frequently overlooked as one of the turning points of the Civil War. In fact, had the Confederate's military leadership listened to Longstreet, who advocated detaching soldiers from Lee's army to head west and help the Confederates deal with Grant or Rosecrans in that theater, the Battle of Gettysburg might never have happened.

While many read about the siege of Vicksburg in the summer of 1863, as well as the desperate straits the Confederate soldiers and Vicksburg residents found themselves in, Grant's initial attempts to advance towards Vicksburg met with several miserable failures, and it took several months just to get to the point where the Union forces could start a siege.

Splitting the Confederacy: The History of the Union Campaigns to Take the Mississippi River chronicles the history of the crucial campaigns that helped the North win the war. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about the Union capture of the Mississippi River like never before.