 |
PM |  | |
Quote | | |
Reply | | |
Full Topic | |
Member
| Joined: | Sat Jan 27th, 2007 |
| Location: | Texas USA |
| Posts: | 843 |
| Status: |
Offline
|
| Mana: |    |
In early 1862, Mr. Lincoln had a conversation with Commander David Dixon Porter in which he explained the importance of controlling Vicksburg. (I don't have the original source at hand, but here is the conversation).
" Here is the Red River, which will supply the Confederacy with cattle and corn to feed their armies. There are the Arkansas and White Rivers, which can supply cattle and hogs by the thousand. From Vicksburg these supplies can be distributed by rail all over the Confederacy.
Valuable as New Orleans will be to us, Vicksburg will be even more so. We may take all the northern ports of the Confederacy, and they can still defy us from Vicksburg. It means hog and hominy without limit, fresh troops from all the states of the far south, and a cotton country where they can raise the staple without interference."
The defeat at Gettysburg was very painful to the southern cause, but I believe that the losses of New Orleans and Vicksburg together were much more decisive.