During the American Civil War, part of the strategy followed by Union forces was the strangulation of trade for the South by way of a naval blockade. Operation Anaconda served to try and cut off the trade by ship that would give money and supplies to the South. Vital to this strangulation was the cotnrrol of the Mississippi River, which allowed commerce and troop transportation in the middle of the country.  To deny the Confederatcy the use of the river would also physically cut the Confederate States into two and prevent supplies and reinforcements from Texas and the western theater from helping the rest of the CSA. 

Through a series of victories, General Grant was able to slowly take control of access and forts along the Mississippi River working southward to Memphis. Admiral David Farragut captured New Orleans and was working his way up the river from the Gulf of Mexico.  Situated on a bluff overlooking the river, the city of Vicksburg was the last remaining strong point and was the Fortress on the Mississippi, preventing Union control of the waterway. 

Through a series of campaigns in 1862-1863, Grant, and with the aid of General Sherman under is command, tried several attempts to take the city. After finally landing forces across the river into Mississippi south of Vicksburg and working his forces around to the north and east, Grant had pushed back the Confederate armies under General Pemberton to the city of Vicksburg, which after an unsuccessful attempt to take by force, Grant lay under siege.

Much of the grounds of this siege are part of the Vicksburg National Military Park today.

Lines lay in places where forces were separated by the side of the hills with soldiers from the same state sometimes fighting on opposite sides.  (In Civil War military parks, blue usually represent Union forces and red Confederate forces.)

After laying siege for nearly a month, along with putting the city under a nearly constant daylight bombardment, Grant and Pemberton met under a tree to talk about terms of surrender of the Confederate arms.

Here it was agreed that the city would be surrendered on July 4th, with the Confederate armies marking out of the city and laying down their arms.

Besides the killing ground of the siege, the park is home to the Union Ironclad U.S.S. Cairo. 

The USS Cairo was an ironclad ship built in 1861 on the Mississippi River at Mound City, Illinois. It was launched in January 1862 and took place in naval action on the north part of the Mississippi River that year.

In December 1862, the ship was part of the Campaign on Vicksburg, steaming up the Yazoo River just north of the city.  While on maneuvers on the river, the Cairo struck a mine (floating explosives electronically triggered from shore) and was sunk with no loss of life. The ship was the first ship to ever be sunk by an electronically triggered explosive mine, though is far from the last.

The ship sat under the water and shifting shores of the river until exactly 100 years later it was discovered (under an apple orchard yards from the current bed of the river).  The ship was recovered and carefully preserved and restored.  It was then put onto display at the Vicksburg park. 

Of course the timber is not the original, but it forms the outline of how the ship would have looked at the time of its sailing.

Original cannons and armor plating bristle on the ship showing the might the vessel possessed during its sailing days.