Civil War Sesquicentennial Update

It's time for a Civil War sesquicentennial update! When last we checked in about the great American calamity, it was 1862. The Union Army of the Potomac had won an equivocal victory over Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia at Antietam Creek, but their commander, General George B. McClellan, had allowed the Confederates to escape back to Virginia.

President Lincoln used the victory, such as it  was, to  issue his preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, which he made permanent on January 1, 1863. Then, disgusted with McClellan's lackadaisical conduct, he fired the boy wonder and replaced him with Ambrose Burnside.

Meanwhile, in the trans-Appalachian west, Confederate forces advanced as far north as Perryville Kentucky before being turned back.

Burnside understood he was expected to attack Lee's men, and did so in December 1862, at Fredericksburg Virginia. The result was a lopsided Confederate victory, a Union retreat, and what became  known as the "Valley Forge of the Civil War" for the Yankee army. Burnside led his army west during the last days of the year into a severe sleet storm. The men, the wagons, the artillery, everything was soon coated in heavy ice and completely bogged down. The storm was not Burnside's fault, but it made him seem to be a luckless general, and Lincoln soon replaced him with "Fighting Joe" Hooker.

The series of defeats and botches during 1862 had bred a great deal of dissatisfaction among the men of the Army of the Potomac, so  much so that desertion now became a major problem. Hooker moved quickly to confront it by improving food supplies, and by granting furloughs to the troops on a rotating basis. Hooker also worked to improve the northern spy service, so that by spring he had very good intelligence about Lee's army. As he planned a new campaign he knew within a thousand how many soldiers Lee had, and where they were located.

West of the Appalachians, Ulysses Grant was now commander of a Union army charged with opening the Mississippi River to northern shipping and denying it to the rebels. Controlling the river also would   effectively sever Texas and Arkansas from the rest of the Confederacy. Grant's target was Vicksburg, a citadel overlooking the river whose guns shut out northern boats.

To get at Vicksburg, Grant, after several other efforts failed, decided to work his way south along the west bank of the Mississippi until he had bypassed Vicksburg, then cross to the eastern bank, swing around behind the city and take it from the land side. But to do this he would have to jettison his supply wagons, leaving behind all hope of reinforcement. His  men would have to live off the  land.

In fact, they lived off the land quite adequately. Moving swiftly once they were across the river, they stripped southern barns and animal pens, and enjoyed what amounted to a huge camping trip. Mississippians, both white and black, would suffer very serious privation as a result, but by 1863 northerners were in no mood to worry about southern sensibilities. Denying foodstuffs to southern civilians and soldiers meant a shorter war. By June, Grant had Vicksburg cut off.

Next month: the battle of Chancellorsville, and the prelude to Gettysburg.