Fixbering campaign. He discusses how the leadership contributed to a victory. This event was part of historical parks small battles big results symposium. Weve got a great speech for our second session this morning. Dr. Timothy r. Smith is a veteran of the park service and currently teaches history at the university of tennessee at martin. In addition to numerous articles and essays hes the author and editor and coeditor of 18 books including Champion Hill, the decisive battle of vicksburg. His book comes out this fall and actually is now out, and you can buy a copy of it out at our bookstore at battlefield center. So im pleased to introduce dr. Timothy smith. [ applause ] thank you. Appreciate that. Appreciate the opportunity to be here. Ive always heard about it and its my first time to be here. Ive always heard about it and how nice it was and im a believer now. I believe you. Youve got a great place here and appreciate the invitation to be here. Were going to talk about the western theater today, vicksburg, Champion Hill. How many of you have been to vicksburg . I figured that. How many to Champion Hill . Okay, not quite as many but a good number. Champion hill is one of those great battlefields if youve been watching the news, listen to the civil war American Battle trust now you know theyre doing a lot of work down there. In fact, the state of mississippi has just turned over near several Hundred Acres to the National Park service to make a unit of the Vicksburg NationalMilitary Park down there. So a lot going down at Champion Hill. So were going to talk about that battle in particular, the larger Vicksburg Campaign just a little bit. I do not have a powerpoint either. Im a little bit oldfashioned. We have a map of Champion Hill which well talk about a little bit. I tend to go a little overboard when i do Powerpoint Presentations and to keep from doing that i dont do powerpoints when i can help it actually. And although im beginning to realize powerpoints can be useful. You see some of them that are very good and they can help you along a little bit. I had a good lesson in this recently. Ive got two daughters. My 12yearold has been after us to get her a puppy. Got to have a puppy. Got to have a border collie. Thats all we heard. No, no, we dont have another little dog. Well, the little stinker made a Powerpoint Presentation to convince us why we need a puppy and of course now were proud new owners of bingo the border collie. So Powerpoint Presentations do work, and i do use those on occasion, but not today. Lets talk about vicksburg, though. Little battles, big results. Champion hill, depends on your definition of little battle, i guess. But could be considered pretty big battle. Now, obviously compared to gettysburg or some of those battles it doesnt reach that realm, but were talking 25,000, 35,000 troops and casualties in the thousands. So its on the high end of a little battle if you want to call it a little battle, but it does have tremendous results, huge results. Im not going to stand here and argue to you like some historians get into topic so much or writing a biography and argue this is where the war was won and lost. Im not going to argue to you Champion Hill is where the north won the war and south lost the war. It will depend in that case on what you think of vicksburg. Now, im guessing here up in the Northern Virginia land we would get a whole lot of eastern centric ideals and the war was won and lost in the east and all that kind of stuff. Well, i hail from the west, of course, and im thoroughly convinced that the civil war was won and lost in the west. Gutted, the confederacy was absolutely gutted while youre just kind of stalemate up here a little bit. Thats arguable. Were getting some feedback on that. Were not here to argue where the war was won and lost. Im not going to argue to you that Champion Hill was the deciding battle of the war. I will simply leave it that wherever you place vicksburg in the whole scheme of the civil war, you put how much emphasis you put on the battle of vicksburg, whether that was the turning point of the civil war or not, that will weigh in how important you think Champion Hill is. What i will argue is that Champion Hill is the Decisive Point in the Vicksburg Campaign. If you do think vicksburg is the turning point of the war or where the confederacy is ripped open fatally, the opening of the Mississippi River, all of that, then you will probably put Champion Hill in a much higher level or category than probably even gettysburg or some of the larger battles that we know much more about. Champion hill is the decisive battle frf vicksburg, the largest battle in the actual Vicksburg Campaign itself. It had tremendous results as ortheme today of course talks about. Now, in terms of narrowing down to Champion Hill itself, were not going to go into major tactical action because, again, with 20,000, 35,000 troops we could get lost in the weeds really quickly. Heres a book about it if youre interested in those tacttle details. Theres some you can go. Were going to kind of keep it simple a bit today, and talk about Champion Hill and the wide turn out the way it did, and so i want to start at the very top and kind of give some background and lead to Champion Hill. Its not going to be necessarily a history of the Vicksburg Campaign but a quick overview. Looking at basically the three levels of war in terms of the u. S. Army today. Anybody veterans . Anybody veterans of the u. S. Military, officers and so on . First of all, thank you for your service. Appreciate tat. Were a grateful nation. All right, thats good. Hey, the army is made up of enlisted men. Thats the back bean of the army, right . I mentioned officers, though. In term of officer education and staff and all that one of my duties was to see to the staff and military group. Id have all kind of military groups coming in and they would parachute in. And i would always think this was right in the heyday of the iraq war, 2002, 2003, 2004. And to most of these guys coming in on the way to iraq or just getting back to iraq, what officers are trained in, of course, are the Different Levels of war. In civil wartime you had too levels. The strategic level the tactical level. Today the modern is inserted in the middle there an operational level of war, which grant and but the civil war commanders wont know about that operation level war. But i want to start at the strategic level and looking at the Vicksburg Campaign, of course, moving down the Mississippi River toward vicksburg itself, the final bastion if you will, port hudson kind of a tag along. But the final bastion has to be taken to the open Mississippi River. Essentially the Vicksburg Campaign is two pronged campaign or a twoeffort campaign. For instance, and im becoming more and more convinced of this as i do more and more work on vicksburg. The first essential effort in the Vicksburg Campaign is actually get to vicksburg. Then the second major strategic large scale effort in this larger anaconda plan, we talked about the Strategic Plan that was and conda plan and all that. The second largest effort was to take vicksburg. So first youve got to get to vicksburg, which is extremely difficult due to the mississippi delta just to the north, due to the 300 foot bluffs to the river on the west, due to the logistical challenges and distance to the south. The only good way to get to vicksburg and approach vicksburg is from the east. And of course thats through confederate held territory, and that is what grant took as we move down to the operational level of war. It takes grant 6 or 7 months just to get to vicksburg. And then of course you have to take vicksburg which there are two assaults. Theyre involved in that, and then of course the famous siege that we all know about. So just getting vicksburg is one major component of the strategic level of the campaign, and then taking vicksburg. This is why you look at some of the rhetoric and writings and so on of the vicksburg cam pape. Youll see they kind of divide this into two different operations. For instance, when grant and sherman finally reached the high ground each of vicksburg and he had attacked back in december this is like midmay and sherman tells grant this has been a Successful Campaign almost to say, hey, this part of the campaign is over. I wanted to do it different way, but youre entitled to the glory for this, and you should make a report to washington. Even if you dont take vishbering, this has been a Successful Campaign, this has been a successful effort. So the first part is getting vicksburg and then youve got to take vicksburg. Champion hill i fully realize im the only thing standing between you and lunch so thats why we need to watch our time. Cha Champion Hill stand in that larger process of actually getting to vicksburg, to a place where you can actually take the city. As a new round of operational level of war within the process of that first effort actually getting to vicksburg, thats when we get into these major six efforts in these Operational Campaign level movement. Grant first starts southward from tennessee down to the Mississippi Central Railroad and through Valley Springs and oxford and close to the river and hes turned back, of course, by those two major confederate calvary raids, and probably the more important raid where he breaks the railroad and that shuts down grants ability to bring new supplies in. So you tear up his forward supply base and the possibility of getting new supplies in, and of course grant is stalled and he turns back. And he later says i shouldnt have, i should have learned i could live off the land, but he will withdraw at that point, so that doesnt work. Thats the first level. Then grant will send sherman in november and december of 1862 where sherman says i landed, i assaulted, i defeated and i took back off. Thats basically his rendition. So those first two efforts to even just get to vicksburg, theyre not working. By that time were in 1863, everything is wet and sloppy and muddy and the river has risen and all the bayous and creeks have risen and full with water. Grant doesnt have a choice what to do next so he starts dig a canal, a thufrd attempt to get across to vicksburg. That doesnt work. He tries to go through Lake Providence, a fourth attempt, that doesnt work. And the Coldwater River into the river that forms the yazu river. That harebrained operation doesnt work. Six of these major attempts over the course of the First Six Months of the Vicksburg Campaign all fail. The operational level of war. Now, what does succeed, of course, is grants second attempt. By this time hes out of options, and this time its april, late march, april, getting into may, 1863. You cant turn around and go back. Sherman is saying lets go back to memphis, lets go down the railroad like we should have done to begin with, like we tried to in the mississippi central campaign. Sure, we got turned back but lets try that again and move forward this time. Thats the way you should do it by the book. Thats the way the general chief is saying do it by the book. And by the way hallic of course wrote the book hes saying do it by the book, go down the railroad. Youve got a secure line of operation supplies. The two major napoleonic theorists. Its been translated into english, and these guys are studying that at west point and thats security and supply lines, maneuver, dont have to fight a battle and all that kind of stuff. As i like to say you all know barbara she was country when country wasnt cool, right . And grant is going to go after the enemy, fight the battles. Who cares about the supply lines . Were going to move forward, fight the enemy and were going to get there. And well see evidence of that as we move forward. Cant go back. The the politics, hes on pretty thin ice in terms of the newspaper editors talk about how drunk he is all the time. Theyre calling on lincoln to get rid of grant. Still theyre calling for their removal and lincoln says i think ill try a little bit longer but the leash is getting pretty short for grant. Hes got to do something. He cant go back. Hes as far forward towards vicksburg as he can get. And none of these different approaches are working to the west, to the north, to any other direction. What is grant going to do . This seventh attempt, this operational level attempt he would lead down the west side of the Mississippi River, cross south of vicksburg and come up in the rear of vicksburg in the east. Well, there are plenty of problems with that, obviously. Lengthen supply lines, confederates if they come out of the fortress of vicksburg and fight you without supplies and so on, that could be very problematic, distance involved. And so there are a lot of problems with this. Certainly not doing it by the book. This is breaking every rule in the book. And i love what grant said later on. Hes talking to newspaper editors, talking about the Vicksburg Campaign and he knows this will not be received very highly, very finely in washington by hallux, stanton and others. But hes sitting there and once he crosses the river, gets to the mississippi and starts towards vicksburg, you can see him counting on his fingers, if i send a message and tell them what im about to do and goes back across the river, up to youngs point by headquarters by boat and up to memphis and by telegraph itll get to washington and then the message will come back. And he says ive got about a week. He says you can do a lot in eight days. And so he breaks every rule in the book and he takes off towards vicksburg, and lo and behold the seventh attempt will succeed. And grant reaches vicksburg. Still got to take it, but he reaches vishbering and thats when we get down to the tactical level and get down to the tactical level and thats when you get into the battles themselves. He really secures a holding inland and moves northward fighting the battle of raymond the 12th, jackson, mississippi, the 14th and then hell turn towards vicksburg and fight the battle of Champion Hill, the climactic battle on may 16th and fight a followup battle may 17th will be the black water bridge. Moving down to tactical level thats where we Start Talking about Champion Hill. What has the confederate commander been doing all this time well the confederate commander has moved out of vicksburg and made some pretty big blunders already. Its like baseball. I was in washington i dont know a month or so ago in september and wore my shirts and all that and ive never been harassed like i was in washington in Early September by all the nats fans. I was very interesting. I very loudly proclaimed, yeah, how its really tough being in first place in the division and all that. Im not loudly proclaiming anything anymore so where was i going . Why was i talking about baseball. I had a thought and it zoomed right out of there. There was a good point to this. I dont know why were pemberton, yeah. Anyway pemberton makes some pretty big blunders here. Thats what it is. You never want to give an extra out or extra strike or whatever. Pemberton gives several extra outs by errors and all that kind of stuff. He comes out of vicksburg and he gets out, and then he crosses actually the Big Black River moving east towards grant, towards jackson. He should have used the Big Black River as a shield to defend vicksburg. Then he moves on across the next creek which is bakers creek, and thats Champion Hill battlefield, of course. Either one of those he could have used to defend on the western side and forced grant to move across creeks and rivers. But each time grant will peat meet on the east side which is completely opposite. Pechl pemberton is breaking every rule so its not working out for pemberton. And really we talk about Champion Hill and the fighting and tactical action and so on, and im becoming even more convinced and i just finished the book on the vicksburg assaults but reading all those letters and diaries, tons of them. Probably in the thousands, and letters and diaries and im becoming more and more convinced even more than just the tactical action of Champion Hill in the days of may 16, 17th, 18th, grants army is reaching a very critical stage here in terms of supplies. Now, we all know about grants supply line. He writes in his memoirs two different times actually i cut my supply line. How do you cut your supply liep twice . He gets mixed up a little bit there. Grant doesnt have a traditional supply line to chase that rabbit and what he has are supplies and moving forward by wagon trains basically. Hes got wagon trains moving forward and are division size elements