Running the Gauntlet

Lookouts spotted Union vessels on the Mississippi River and sounded the alarm, and within minutes the night sky blazed with the light of burning cotton bales and tar barrels. In forts like this one, Confederate gunners knew just where to point their guns. One boat sank and all of the others were hit, but the Federal fleet ran the gauntlet. Union transports were on their way to ferry the army across the river, a critical piece of General Ulysses Grant's plan to attack Vicksburg from the east. Confederate cannon along the city's bluffs posed the problem, but on April 16, 1863, the Union flotilla successfully floated past this point. After more than a year of trying, the Union army was about to cross the Mississippi River.

Vicksburg, Louisiana · United States