Vicksburg Battle Letter Praising General Grant

After a long, strenuous campaign to capture Vicksburg, in May 1863 General U. S. Grant finally came upon the city that held the Mississippi River for the Confederacy. He had tried to bypass it from upriver four times and failed. After contemplating his alternatives for the campaign, Grant finally decided to attack Port Hudson and march overland to Vicksburg. He ordered numerous diversions to confuse Confederate General John C. Pemberton, stretching the outnumbered southern forces into dangerously thin lines. After bitter struggles at Port Gibson, Raymond, and then at Champion Hill, Grant drew within site of his goal and laid siege to it.

Autograph Letter SIgned. 6 page letter of Union soldier A. Kays, Camp near Vicksburg, June 7, 1863 to his brother, reporting on the May action in which he had taken part, and relating that some southern civilians were glad to see the Yankees come. “It is through the mercy of an all wise God that I am still spared and afforded the present opportunity of writing you a few lines…I will give you a detail of our last month’s labors. We started from Mulligan’s Landing and marched through Louisiana to a point opposite Grand Gulf and there we came in range of the enemy’s guns and the gun boats engaged them…Our infantry moved down some 8 miles and crossed the river. The enemy commenced skirmishing as soon as we landed and was driven back with a heavy loss and our loss was heavy also. We drove them before us for some 8 miles and we came on to a fort they call Fort Gibson. There they made a desperate stand, but was driven with a heavy loss. They had from 4 to 6 hundred killed and lost 8 hundred prisoners besides the wounded that was 2500.

"They commenced falling back towards Jackson and our men in hot pursuit. Out 5 miles from Jackson at Raymond they made a stand and was driven with a loss of 300 killed 200 wounded. They then fell back to Jackson and our men followed them…our men commenced a charge and routed the enemy at every point and took possession of Jackson on the 14 of May…Sam Grant knew just the force he had to fight. On the morning of the 16th we started in the direction of Vicksburg and 8 miles from Raymond we came on the enemy in full force. The lines was formed and the ball was opened. They tried to turn our left but ailed then they turned their whole force and tried our right but failed in that attempt and the fight lasted until dark and the enemy fell back towards Black River.

"The next morning we started in hot pursuit and came up with them at the river. We engaged them there. Town almost entirely down, that is all the business part of town…When we first went in we marched through the place with colors flying and drums beating. The citizens looked on with great eagerness and once in a while we could hear someone say hurrah for the Union and the old flag. Some of the women would cry out that is the flag for me while the tears were gushing from their eyes. Some looked rather sad and some was cheered up…While we was laying at the river bank one of the boys stepped on a torpedo and it went off and blew his legs off at the knees..We found out that they had the ground full.” In pencil, on sheets of different color and sized paper.