Briefly Breaching the Line

At daybreak on May 22, 1863, hundreds of Federal cannon opened fire as the second Union attempt to take Vicksburg began. Three miles of Confederate fortifications were bombarded for four hours before the Union guns fell silent and troops charged forward. At Railroad Redoubt, soldiers scrambled up the parapets and rushed through a breach in the fort wall, and vicious hand-to-hand combat followed as the Federals fought to hold the fort. Their success was short-lived, however, because Confederate reinforcements arrived and drove the attackers out. The Union assault failed here and all along the line that day, and after measuring his losses and the Confederates' formidable defenses, Grant decided to take Vicksburg by siege, not by storm. Railroad Redoubt was one of nine Confederate forts guarding Vicksburg, connected by a nearly continuous series of trenches, and it guarded the tracks of the Southern Railroad of Mississippi leading into the city.

Vicksburg, Mississippi · United States