In mid-19th century America, rivers were highways, and the Mississippi was the nation’s main artery for commerce leading to the Gulf of Mexico. By early 1863, Port Hudson in Louisiana and Vicksburg still blocked Union shipping from a key section of the river. Vicksburg’s river port and railroad hub were critical to the Confederacy, bringing vital supplies and troops from the south and west before sending them by railroad to armies in the east. Powerful cannon on the bluffs commanded this stretch of the Mississippi River, and the highest point along the Vicksburg bluffs gave Confederate guns a perfect position to guard the river and prevent Union vessels from passing. During the Civil War, the Mississippi ran along the base of these bluffs, but in 1876 the river suddenly changed course, and today modern-day Vicksburg fronts it only at the city’s southern edge.
