American Civil WarStuff Happened · War
Campaign & Siege · Trans-Mississippi
Siege of Port Hudson
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The river’s last lock
The Last Lock on the Mississippi
Why one bluff above a hairpin bend held the war’s last Confederate stretch of the river, and why Gardner (South) could not afford to lose it.
2Farragut runs the guns
Running the Batteries by Night
Farragut (North) tries to steam past the bluff in the dark; the USS Mississippi burns and blows apart, and one ship gets through.
3The futile assaults
The Charges Into the Ravines
Banks (North) throws his army at the works twice and is slaughtered; the Louisiana Native Guard charge the bluff, and Cailloux falls leading them.
4Forty days in the wilderness of death
The Siege and the Surrender
The guns stop and the hunger starts; the garrison eats its mules, dogs, and rats, until news comes down the river from Vicksburg.
5What it opened
The River Whole, and a Question Answered
The Mississippi runs Union end to end, the Confederacy is split in two, and the formerly enslaved have answered whether they would fight.