Radio War Nerd #307 — The US Civil War, Part 5: Vicksburg
Recorded: December 6, 2021
Gettysburg is for Civil War amateurs; Vicksburg is for pros. Arguably the most decisive campaign in the US Civil War (ie, the Nerd is arguin' it!), the Vicksburg Campaign not only secured the entire Mississippi River for the the North, but it also led to Ulysses S. Grant taking command over all the Union armies, and taught him and Sherman all the important lessons later applied to win the war in the east.
Maps:
*Vicksburg, Mississippi
*Vicksburg campaign battles
*Siege of Vicksburg
Previous RWN US Civil War episodes:
*EP #295: The US Civil War, Part 1: Count Adam Gurowski
*EP #297: The US Civil War, Part 2: Bleeding Kansas
*EP #300: The US Civil War, Part 3: First Battle of Bull Run
*EP #303: The US Civil War, Part 4: McClellan, Treason & The Battle of Antietam
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Total time: 1:54:03
Comments (32)
Greatly enjoying this series. Also greatly enjoying listening to past episodes where John says "I'm in Turin" and I do the "Leo Dicaprio in once upon a time in hollywood pointing at the TV" meme because I recently read erdogan pizza.
Relistening to some of the Civil War episodes, and I'd forgotten about the anecdote of the Southerners calling Butler "Benjamin Beast Butler." Made me think of Dune, with Lincoln as Baron Harkonnen in his tub. "Send the Beast Butler!"
"I'm gonna mess around [in Jackson]." - War Nerd I still laugh every time I think of John saying that 😂😂
Noice!
T'anks.
John - Bravo on your latest newsletter. That was an extremely well-deserved takedown if ever I read one. Nicely done!
Thanks Matt. Yeah, it was strange because, as I said, AmCom does some good stuff. But that was just wrong.
The painting and the battlespace makes Vicksburg sound just as terrifying and swashbuckling as Stalingrad. On that note, I wonder if Grant invented Sherman’s style of conquest in the east, does that mean Grant basically invented the proto-Blitzkrieg?
Well, my view would be that Grant showed how well foraging even in supposedly poor districts could work, freeing Union armies from dependence on traditional supply lines. Blitzkrieg, 1939 style, used a very different supply technology and was more about terrorizing than exploiting local civilians.
really enjoying this series so far
John once said Civil War memoirs help somehow, and I feel the same way about this series. Great stuff! Re Lincoln's sense of humor, I remembered a funny letter to Hooker, though I misremembered it as being to McClellan, which I feel like it should've been. Hooker said something about needing a dictator to run the war, and Lincoln sarcastically rebuked him with "Most generals need to get a victory or two under their belt before becoming a dictator. I'll risk the dictatorship if you actually win something." (Beg pardon to Lincoln for putting his prose in vulgar 21st-century parlance).
Yeah, I'm coming around to Lincoln. He was wrong about some things but compared to the rest of the people in command he looks pretty good. And it's a shame stand-up comedy wasn't a possibility at the time. His line that the Army of the Potomac was actually just McClellan's bodyguard is just perfect.
Interesting point about the difference between the Northern merchant elite and the Southern landed aristocracy, all these people were obsessed with Rome and to a lesser degree European history and ideas of class, no doubt that for a man or family of that era, like a Roman , it would be considered far more noble to be hereditarily landed with slaves/peasants/serfs below than a man who was considered important through a fortune made through finance and trade. Obviously that has largely changed now but you don’t have to go back far in human history to see that distinction.
Looks like William Styple has a LinkedIn if John is looking to network
Thanks, he got in touch just today.
Thank you again for this series! Re-reading McPherson. Now I am highly suspicious (on the Eastern Front) of every "sluggish response", missed opportunity" even when Grant took over. I do not trust Army of the Potomac Officer class. Really question the change in plans and horrible follow-up to the "Crater' at Petersburg. Probably being overly paranoid :)
Yes, I have the same reaction. I like what Mark said, that treason is a spectrum. The most likely explanation is that McClellan, Porter, Burnside and their buddies were partly stuck in a Jominian orthodoxy that just didn't work and partly they had a deep only partly conscious reluctance to topple the Southern oligarchy. At any rate it's clear that by the time Grant got to Virginia the AoP's reflexes were fixed in slow motion. It drove Grant crazy because nobody understood the importance of time as much as Grant. It was like a boxer finding himself magically 40 years older in the middle of a fight.
A question for the hosts: When you mentioned the Emancipation Proclamation, you spoke of it as having a significant, immediate effect on the military balance. I haven't heard that said before, and would appreciate hearing more. Folks nowadays mainly seem set on pointing out (correctly enough) that the Proclamation isn't what freed the slaves in general; and it's clear enough that it had the effect that you mentioned on England and France, thwarting the Confederacy's attempts to get either of those countries to recognize or help the Confederacy from then on. But how, specifically, did it affect the military situation in such actions as Vicksburg and possibly elsewhere? Many thanks!
Sure! It's pretty straightforward really. The Confederacy was overmobilized, in the sense that any white male with all his limbs was probably serving in the army. That meant that in order to feed the soldiers (and, if anything was left over, Confederate civilians) the South relied on African American slaves. Take those slaves out of the picture and white males who were probably serving in the armies would be required to drop out and work the farms. They would also be forced to do all the labor that went into fortification, supply and other logistics for Confederate armies, and at the same time their liberation would wipe out most of the Confederacy's finances. It was such a clear, devastating move that everybody got it except those at the top.
Once again asking for Matt
Re: The general chumminess and shared values of the Northern elites and Southern aristocracy, Northern elite laissez faire attitude towards Southern race based slavery? See the autobiography of Mary Seacole for her feelings about her racist treatment by the (allegedly anti slavery) Northern society uppercrust people she met on cross atlantic passages and during her mercifully brief sojourn on the USA's East coast. She was half (or perhaps one quarter?)negro and a rather impressive business woman, an effective early nurse and had done good work from the Crimea to Panama and on to California. The Yankees saw no further than her melanin content... Those tight assed holier-than-thou John Brown worshiping yet reflexively racist Yankees cut her dead. They're no better now, frankly.
OK, I'll get her autobiography.
Please talk about General George Thomas
We will. Just trying to decide how to fit it in. Maybe we'll do an episode on the Battles of Franklin and Nashville.
Really like the no bullshit take on the civil war so far. Top notch stuff. After suffering through clown versions of the conflict by people like Shelby Foote and Ken Burns, this is a real breath of fresh air.
This is probably my favorite series you guys have done because with other conflicts I don't really have many assumptions because I don't really know about Eritrea or the Persian empire. But I fully imbibed the common civil war narrative and now that I think about it how could it be anything but all these aristocratic morons saying the most important thing is to be polite and if we lose at least we'll have eaten shit with honor
OMG, "Good Game, Mackie" is peak RWN. Stuck in bed recovering from knee surgery and this ep is saving my sanity. My son texts me "Happy Vicksburg Liberation Day" every 4th.
i laughed out loud at that one.
geologically Sicily is on the African plate rather than the Eurasian plate, not sure what effect that has on the physical geography, but it does feel appropriate that it would be distinct from the rest of Europe
Ames is hilarious man. The 3 Stooges had me dying😂 i also love the Looney Tunes references and comparing any weak forces to the Oakland Raiders
I laughed when John said something like "James Garfield, future president... later to become a cat"
I kind of recall this one. Dig canal across peninsula just out of cannon range. Leave a holding force in place to prevent garrison breaking out or resupply & hop past on river, isolate Vicksburg & let starve until surrendered. Don't bother trying to charge defensive positions up a hill... Now, let's find out what happened instead.