Book Review: Bayou Battles for Vicksburg: The Swamp and River Expeditions, January 1–April 30, 1863

Bayou Battles for Vicksburg: The Swamp and River Expeditions, January 1–April 30, 1863. By Timothy B. Smith. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2023. 526 pp. $49.95.

Reviewed by Neil P. Chatelain

Besides the venerable Ed Bearss, who penned a major trilogy examining campaigns for Vicksburg, Timothy B. Smith has done the most recent work to chronicle the numerous battles and operations involved in the United States effort to ultimately capture Vicksburg and split the Confederacy. Though falling second in chronological order in Smith’s works about the river bastion, Bayou Battles for Vicksburg: The Swamp and River Expeditions, January 1–April 30, 1863 is the fourth major book in Smith’s overall examination (with two more not in this series as well). Smith’s clear explanations of the complexities of geography, weather, and overall strategy shed important light on Ulysses Grant’s thoughts, motivations, and actions in the first months of 1863.

This newest of Smith’s works explores the development of Ulysses Grant’s strategic thinking. The general’s earlier military campaigns, such as his failed first thrusts against Vicksburg in late 1862, relied primarily on a traditional Jominian style of command, stressing reliable lines of supply and communication and large supporting elements. After the failed central Mississippi operations and the battle of Chickasaw Bayou, Grant gradually shifted in early 1863 to a more flexible thinking to reach the high and dry ground east of Vicksburg, the only real approach to the city viable for a large army. What developed in Grant’s attempts was a shift to anti-Jomini and more Clausewitzian thinking regarding warfare, though Smith clearly notes that Grant was unfamiliar with the Prussian general’s maxims as Clausewitz’s famed On War had yet to be translated into English by 1863.

Grant undertook numerous plans to both bypass Vicksburg and find alternative routes to the city’s approaches. Many of these are contemporarily seen as distractions or folly undertakings, but Smith weaves them together to provide a clearer grand picture that each setback “was not so much a defeat, as a delay.” (391) To get out of the bayous, swamps, and deltas north and west of Vicksburg, Grant tried any viable plan, resulting in manmade canals to shift the Mississippi River’s channel, breeching levees to flood the Mississippi Delta, and using the Yazoo River valley to close the Gibraltar of the Confederacy. Ultimately, these ventures all failed to get the Army of the Tennessee nearer Vicksburg, but they helped Grant realize his best option was using numerous large and small-scale feints to give Confederate Lt. Gen. John Pemberton “tunnel vision” while Grant crossed the Mississippi River below Vicksburg and approached from the south and east. (344)

During these first months of 1863, Grant dealt with conflicting personalities. Politician-turned-general John A. McClernand, with a mandate authorized by Abraham Lincoln himself, disrupted Grant’s plans through delay or redirection of troops, most notably via the siege and capture of Fort Hindman, Arkansas. Major General William T. Sherman struggled to understand the need for Grant’s numerous operations through the swamps and bayous, instead preferring to retry a direct march from northern Mississippi. Sherman however, always supported Grant’s decisions after voicing his concerns. Rear Admiral David Dixon Porter’s Mississippi River Squadron was technically independent of Grant’s jurisdiction, but Porter always offered naval support. Indeed, where Porter oversaw things personally, naval forces cooperated handsomely with their army counterparts, though when Porter left more junior naval officers to facilitate those co-operations, those officers often faltered.

Smith also details Pemberton’s defenses, highlighting that the Confederate leader adequately adjusted to Grant’s numerous efforts when spread over a wide area. Smith contends that Pemberton’s defenses only faltered when he became distracted from numerous feints that kept him from responding in time to Grant’s crossing of the Mississippi below Grand Gulf.

The book is meticulously researched with copious notations using primary sources and an impressive thirty-four-page bibliography. Occasionally chapters reach over thirty pages, which I first thought disheartening, as many readers might become detracted due to their length. I was pleasantly surprised however, as even larger chapters became page-turners that captivated my interest with ease.

Smith’s Bayou Battles for Vicksburg: The Swamp and River Expeditions, January 1–April 30, 1863, offers real insight into Grant’s gradual shift to more unconventional military thought. It also provides great context on Grant’s willingness to press on regardless of temporary setbacks, which adds insight to his actions a year later during 1864’s Overland Campaign. Being one of the few book-length treatments on early 1863 near Vicksburg, and for providing insights into Grant’s thoughts, Bayou Battles for Vicksburg is a worthy addition to Smith’s series and sheds important light on the often overlooked first few months of 1863 along the Mississippi River.