Grant’s Canal: The Union’s Attempt to Bypass Vicksburg

The Setting: When the War Between the States broke out in 1861, Vicksburg, Mississippi was a small town by today’s standards but at the time it was a major port along the Mississippi River. Its prominence as a river town was enhanced by being one of only three river towns located within the Confederacy served by rail on both sides of the river.

There were no highways at this time. Waterways – rivers and canals – were where the greatest tonnage of traffic moved within the United States. This was followed by rail. Thus Vicksburg, with the Mississippi River could participate in north-south traffic while the railways provided eastwest transportation. Simply put, Vicksburg was a major transportation hub.

Geologically and topographically, Vicksburg was located on commanding bluffs overlooking a large bend in the River. The bluffs elevated Vicksburg above the annual Mississippi River floods but interfered with landside traffic. These loess bluffs had a peculiar characteristic. Their soil properties are such that they have almost perpendicularly slopes and this came to be a tremendous defensive asset as the war reached Vicksburg.

Across the river from Vicksburg was a long and very narrow peninsula. This was Louisiana and the land was an alluvial flood plain. The length of this peninsula was about 10 miles and it was about 1 ½ miles wide.

Vicksburg was opposite and slightly downstream of the “point” of the peninsula. The unique setting was that the loess bluffs are on the east bank of the Mississippi but recede at Memphis, Tennessee and rejoin at Vicksburg and continue, except for minor breaks, down to Baton Rouge, Louisiana. So from the point of the bend and several miles south, Vicksburg had a commanding overlook of the river.

As mentioned earlier, the elevation of Vicksburg afforded by the bluffs, allowed residents to watch the annual 48-foot rise and fall of the river stages. The massive conveyance of water by Ol’ Man River varied with river stage and river velocities were greatest at the higher stages. The other characteristic of river hydraulics is that the fastest surface currents were on the downstream outside bend of each meander – and in this case – along Vicksburg’s waterfront.

These natural geographic, geologic and hydraulic characteristics; and human transportation developments were to take on new importance when the United States split apart.

During 1861 the Union devised a plan to strangle the Confederacy which they named the Anaconda Plan. This called for blockading Rebel coastal ports and cutting the South in two by taking control of the Mississippi River.

In early 1862, the Confederate-expected river advance of the Union started moving down the Mississippi River. The two Union fleets of Davis’ ironclads and Ellett’s rams seemed to barely inch down river. However, quite unexpectedly, Flag Officer Farragut became tired of blockading the Mouth of the Mississippi and boldly towed or floated most of his wooden warships across the neglected shoals at the mouth of the Mississippi, proceeded 100 miles upriver and captured New Orleans without a shot!

Now the “golden boy” decided to continue upriver without river pilots. Fighting flood-stage currents he captured two more trophies without a fight – Baton Rouge & Natchez. Then either stupidity or nerve persuaded him to extend his life-line 430 river miles above the Gulf of Mexico to Vicksburg.

Neither his reputation nor his ships’ firings achieved the desire results - Vicksburg refused to surrender. Not willing to accept defeat, he left some of his fleet directly downstream from Vicksburg while he sailed back to New Orleans and met with General Ben Butler. Together they came up with a 3-pronged plan. One of those prongs was to move the Mississippi River away from Vicksburg. Farragut returned in June accompanied by General Williams and 3,000 troops who began the first of two campaigns to apply an engineering solution to a military problem – marginalize the location.

Dave Bastian is the author of Grant's Canal; the Union's Attempt to Bypass Vicksburg (now out of print). He has given his presentations to over 90 CWRTs. Most books are a new twist on a battle, campaign or leader. His book and presentation are about a totally new topic; one that historians have really not understood to date. As a civil engineer who lived in Vicksburg, he understands the river and how close the Union came in succeeding. Had they succeeded, Vicksburg would no longer have been an important target.

Dave Bastian has a degree in civil engineering from Georgia Tech and a masters in river engineering from Delft University in the Netherlands. Of interest, he was a delegate to the tri-national Commission for the Study of Alternatives to the Panama Canal that produced the feasibility study for the Canal’s current enlargement. More recently he worked on the post-Katrina levee rebuild in New Orleans and co-authored a book that came out in 2014, New Orleans, Hurricanes from the Start. His book, Grant's Canal, the Union's Attempt to Bypass Vicksburg is out of print but available on Amazon & eBay.

“Grant’s Canal: The Union’s Attempt to Bypass Vicksburg” Thursday, March 8, 2018, 7:00 p.m. presented by David Bastian