Ninety-Eight Days: A Geographer’s View of the Vicksburg Campaign. By Warren E. Grabau. (Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press, 2006).
Although Ed Bearss’s detailed Vicksburg trilogy published between 1985 and 1986 remains the standard work on the subject, Warren Grabau’s Ninety-Eight Days: A Geographer’s View of the Vicksburg Campaign (2000) provides the best single volume history of this monumental event. Grabau, a professional geographer and part-time historian, concentrates on the impact of terrain on the Vicksburg campaign while carefully avoiding the pitfall of geographic determinism. According to Grabau, “Geography does not define who wins or loses; it only influences the ways in which the campaigns and battles are waged” (Grabau, xvi). Thus, while geography did not predetermine the outcome of the campaign, it influenced how each side fought (Grabau, xvii). Furthermore, Grabau astutely notes that geography made Vicksburg significant. The elevation of the terrain and surrounding hillsides made the city virtually impregnable. Vicksburg, from its elevated position, could control the Mississippi River and thus the Federal commerce that attempted to pass.
After establishing his thesis, Grabau begins his story of the Vicksburg campaign on 29 March 1863; the day that Grant decided to move down the west bank of the Mississippi River and search for a crossing point somewhere below the city in order to attack Vicksburg from the east. Meanwhile, Admiral David Porter’s gunboats and commandeered transports would meet Grant’s forces below the city and ferry the infantry across the river. The advantage of hindsight makes Grant’s successful Vicksburg maneuver campaign appear a foregone conclusion. Grabau, however, tells a story of hardship and struggle. The march south along the west bank of the river brought many trials as the Union Army of the Tennessee built roads and navigated through the floodplain’s inhospitable bayous before crossing the Mississippi River at Hard Times. Subsequently, Grant won five consecutive battles (Port Gibson, Raymond, Jackson, Champion’s Hill, and Big Black Bridge) before forcing Vicksburg to surrender on July 4, 1863.
Grabau’s book is not just another campaign narrative. While historians traditionally rely on documentary evidence to reconstruct their histories, Grabau incorporates his skills as a professional geographer into his research in order to provide new insight into this campaign. For example, Grabau discusses the impact of soil type on the conduct of the Vicksburg siege. Vicksburg sits atop a thick layer of loess soil that straddles both sides of the Mississippi River. This silt-like substance contains unique properties: it is soft, malleable, light, and impervious to water. These characteristics allow for the construction of entrenchments and shelters that do not require supporting substructures. Thus, both civilians and the military sought to use the soil to their advantage. The former built dugout shelters in order to escape enemy artillery while the latter were able to mine and counter-mine without much effort. Unfortunately, the qualities that make loess soil an ideal building material also decree it vulnerable to destruction as artillery fire demonstrated during the siege. Ergo, Grabau illustrates that geography and nature contributed to how Union and Confederate troops waged war at Vicksburg. (Grabau, 21; 408-438).
Unfortunately, Grabau does not provide an overarching conclusion that holds his lengthy book together. His final chapter, “Mysteries, Questions, and Conjectures,” provides some thoughtful discussion about various topics. Yet, two small segments in this section emerge as particularly noteworthy. First, Grabau reverses misconceptions pertaining to Ulysses S. Grant. According to Grabau, the traditional view of Grant portrays, “a stolid, unimaginative little plodder who won his battles and his war by sheer tenacity and superiority of numbers and resources.”(Grabau, 520). The author asserts that the Vicksburg campaign provides testimony exonerating Grant from this previously harsh judgment. When Grant marched south on 29 March 1863, he did not contain a clear campaign plan. The harsh terrain and poor intelligence network, characteristic of most Civil War campaigns, forced him to improvise in order to overcome many obstacles. Thus, “The picture that emerges is of a man alert to every opportunity; mentally flexible enough to exploit circumstances without the slightest delay; in short, analytical, imaginative, opportunistic. There is little trace of the conventional stereotype” (Grabau, 520).
Grabau makes another important observation pertaining to the Navy’s role and Union logistics during the campaign. According to Grabau, historians traditionally portray the Vicksburg episode as a Union Army of the Tennessee triumph. The author, however, refutes this point stressing that the infantry’s successes would not have been possible without naval support. He writes, “Yet those . . . little boats were responsible for the safety of hundreds of transports moving up and down that waterway, keeping the Army of the Tennessee supplied with everything from bread for the men to fodder for the horses and powder for the guns . . . The tinclads provided security for the Union logistics system and devastation for the Confederate one” (Grabau, 520-521). Furthermore, the Union gunboats helped pin the Confederate infantry inside Vicksburg limiting their avenues of escape. In short, “Without the navy, there would have been no campaign” (Grabau, 521).
As previously stated, Grabau provides the best single volume history of the Vicksburg campaign. Yet, novices might find this book challenging. The perspective shift between Union and Confederate viewpoints in the middle of each chapter might confuse Vicksburg neophytes. Those starting their Vicksburg odyssey should consult William Shea and Terry Winschel’s Vicksburg is the Key (2003) or Michael Ballard’s Vicksburg: The Campaign that Opened the Mississippi (2004) in order to establish a strong context before tackling Grabau’s book. Nevertheless, Ninety-Eight Days proves intelligent and original. All serious Vicksburg scholars should read this book.
Texas Christian University Justin S. Solonick
Ninety-Eight Days: A Geographer’s View of the Vicksburg Campaign. By Warren E. Grabau. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2000.
In this study, military historian Warren E. Grabau provides a detailed and insightful narrative of the Battle of Vicksburg and the events leading up to this campaign. Moving pass previous comprehensive histories of the battle such as Edwin C. Bearss’s three volume work The Campaign for Vicksburg, Grabau focuses upon the impact the physical landscape held upon the outcome of the battle. The author draws upon principles of human geography which suggest that the environment influences human activities upon the landscape. This approach is revealed in the old axiom: all things being equal the army which exploits the landscape will most likely win. The author, however, does not subscribe to the theory of environmental determinism. This theory suggests that the landscape determines human behavior. And the Battle of Vicksburg is a case in point. In this instance the Confederates held a formidable position on higher ground, yet the city fell.
The annual inundation of the Mississippi flood plain to the west of Vicksburg brought on through heavy spring rains and the impermeable nature of the soil made the environment an ever present factor during the campaign. Grabau’s objective is then to determine what geographical data “could have” been used in the decision making process. To facilitate this objective, as the author details the major phases of the battle, he attempts to illustrate geographical perspectives of both the Union and the Confederates. As such, Grabau focuses upon logistics in which the effects of the environment including flooding, poor roads, and rivers were more keenly felt. To some extent this represents a departure from previous depiction of Civil War battles which tend to concentrate upon tactics. Ironically, the Battle of Vicksburg itself was a battle over logistics: the Union attempt to open to Mississippi to supply its efforts in the South and the Confederates interest in maintaining their supply lines from Mexico and Europe.
Grabau also highlights other ways in which the physical environment impacted the campaign. For example, when considering the location to establish a base of operations along the Mississippi from which to transport troops to the east side of the river, Grant took into account the ability of the ships to port, and the feasibility of land routes for troops to reach the designated location. In other instances the physical environment offered the Union advantages. For example, the city of Vicksburg was fortified with a series of forts, ditches, and earthworks. As per military instruction manuals, the earthen parapets were built to fourteen feet thick. This thickness was established through military encounters on the East coast. Grabau points out that on the east, the soil is much sandier and therefore more compactable and able to withstand the blows of enemy fire. The soil at Vicksburg, composed primarily of loess, only solidly compacts with a specific amount of moister.
Though the geographic perspective presented by Grabau is interesting and perhaps relevant to understanding Vicksburg, other factors were far more significant. First, the Confederate military organization presented an advantage to the North. Joseph Johnston controlled west of the Mississippi and Edmund Kirby Smith controlled the Trans-Mississippi region. With Vicksburg in the middle, the North had operations in the plans to attack Vicksburg on both sides of the Mississippi and Johnston and Smith did not readily cooperate nor supported each other. For example, when it became apparent to Smith that the Union troops moving through the Trans-Mississippi region were likely headed for Vicksburg, he requested Johnston dispatch troops to aid Vicksburg. This request was denied. Second, in the Battle of Fort Gibson, the North won due to more firepower and manpower. Finally, the North gained the help of subsistence farmers on the Mississippi interior which allowed them to navigate through Mississippi with poor maps during flood season.
Nearly seventy handsome and original maps accompany Grabau’s text. Given the complexity and detail of the campaign these help the reader more accurately visualize the battles surrounding Vicksburg. Ninety-Eight Days explores new dimensions of this decisive battle and demonstrates the centrality of the geography to the decision-making process. This emphasis is particularly significant prior to the Northern army’s arrival at Vicksburg. However, it did not convince this reader that the role of the environment and logistics played a larger factor in the outcome of the campaign than tactics.
Jacob W. Olmstead