 The Vicksburg Campaign: Fighting for the “Gibraltar of the Confederacy”
Revisiting Vicksburg with Edwin Cole Bearss is second only to revisiting it with Grant himself. Nobody now living knows that pivotal campaign of the Civil War better than Bearss, who for a decade was the historian at the Vicksburg National Military Park and wrote the standard three-volume account of it.
Starting in Memphis, Bearss will retrace Grant’s conquest of Vicksburg, beginning with the early frustrated thrusts from the north – the defeat at Chickasaw Bayou and the failed expeditions through Yazoo Pass and the bayous in early 1863. As Grant finally did, you will skirt Vicksburg and land below Grand Gulf. Bearss will take you from that dramatic landing through the final major battles of the campaign, ending with the siege of Vicksburg itself. He will recount for you, in his unrivaled way, the battles of Port Gibson, Raymond, Champion Hill, Big Black River Bridge, and finally the dramatic siege itself and the surrender on Independence Day 1863.
This great Union victory, occurring simultaneously with Gettysburg, is one of the most successful end runs in military history. It delivered a massive body blow to the Confederacy. It opened the door for the evacuation of Port Hudson, which, as President Abraham Lincoln said, finally allowed the Mississippi to go “unvexed to the sea.” To have it all laid out for you by Ed Bearss is a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
TOUR INCLUDES
8 DAYS / 7 NIGHTS
- Historian Guide: Edwin C. Bearss
- Services of a professional tour director
- Deluxe motorcoach transportation
- All admissions to included features
- Seven nights hotel accommodations
- Seven breakfasts, four lunches, and four dinners
- Welcome briefing
- All taxes, baggage handling, & gratuities on included features
- Suggested reading list
COST:
Per person double occupancy - $3,095
Per person single occupancy - $3,595
Click to request a 2009 printed Travel Guide.
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ITINERARY
Sunday, September 27
Gathering day in Memphis, Tennessee, at the Hilton Memphis with a briefing and welcome dinner hosted by Ed Bearss and HistoryAmerica TOURS.
Monday, September 28
Begin at Yazoo Pass, scene of Grant’s opening gambit to negotiate the bayous. This and other failed “experiments” had ponderous ironclads and transports squeezing through little-used, shallow, varmit-infested, sniperplagued ditches of the delta.
Tuesday, September 29
Today you revisit the battle of Chickasaw Bayou. There, just above Vicksburg, General Sherman landed an army of 32,000 and was decisively repulsed in the first Union effort to take the city by direct assault. Tonight we arrive in Vicksburg, headquarters for the rest of the tour.
Wednesday, September 30
Today Bearss takes you to the scene of Grant’s bold strike— his end run through Grand Gulf, twenty-five miles south of Vicksburg. You will learn of the landing at Bruinsburg, the largest amphibious operation in American history to that time, and revisit the battle of Port Gibson.
Thursday, October 1
From Grand Gulf the Union army swept northeast, then turned back west on its dramatic drive to the ramparts of Vicksburg. You will follow hard on its heels, reliving the dramatic victories at Raymond and Champion Hill. Finally, you will visit the memorial to the “Matriarch of Mississippi History,” Margie Bearss.
Friday, October 2
Today you follow Grant’s relentless drive across the Big Black to the outskirts of Vicksburg. There Bearss will take you on the battlefield to describe the early assaults and the laying of the siege. You will also visit Milliken’s Bend, a Union outpost above Vicksburg.
Saturday, October 3
Today you will finish the tour of the Vicksburg Battlefield and learn of the city’s surrender on July 4, 1863. As a bonus you will then tour the Union ironclad USS Cairo, sunk in the Yazoo in December 1862, which, a century later, Bearss was instrumental in finding and raising from the mud. The tour ends with a farewell dinner in Vicksburg.
Sunday, October 4
After breakfast depart at your leisure or ride the bus back to Memphis. Plan flights from Memphis after 3 p.m.
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