A view of the Vicksburg campaign : a paper read before the Madison Literary Club, October 14, 1907

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A view of the Vicksburg campaign : a paper read before the Madison Literary Club, October 14, 1907

William Freeman Vilas (1840-1908) moved with his parents to Wisconsin in 1851, settling in Madison. During the Civil War, he was commissioned a captain in Co. A, 23rd Wisconsin Infantry, and soon rose to Lt. Colonel. When Col. Joshua Guppey was incapacitated by illness, Vilas led the 23rd Infantry from May to September 1863, during the Siege of Vicksburg. He resigned in July 1863 and later served in the cabinet of President Grover Cleveland and in the U.S. Senate. This book is not a memoir. Rather, its first 58 pages of this book are a straightforward narrative of the Vicksburg Campaign. Appendixes include a brief summary of each Wisconsin regiment's role and a bibliography.

https://content.wisconsinhistory.org/digital/collection/quiner/id/42992/rec/103
 
A view of the Vicksburg campaign : a paper read before the Madison Literary Club, October 14, 1907
He's way off about the Lake Providence canal. It wasn't intended as a way to approach Vicksburg. It was intended to be a route by which Grant could send an army corps to Banks at Port Hudson. Not only was the canal successfully cut, but the 250 ton steamer Sam Young navigated into Bayou Macon to prove the viability of the passage. However, the war department never sent Grant the necessary transports to carry that many men through the route.
 
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