Folks call our office all the time to ask about upcoming issues. Whenever I mentioned Chickasaw Bayou, the response on the other end of the line was either momentary silence, followed by a hesitant, “Oh, okay”—meaning the person likely had never heard of it, or cared little for swampy sounding battlefields; or they leaped on the comment with a hooray, followed by an explanation about how they had searched for, but never found the place, or had been told that the battlefield was obliterated by the changing courses of the Mississippi and Yazoo rivers. Indeed, in my 35 years of tramping battlefields, my visit to Chickasaw Bayou to prepare this issue was my first time to see the place.

The world’s premier Civil War battlefield tramper and one-time Chief Historian at Vicksburg National Military Park, Ed Bearss, mapped the Chickasaw Bayou battlefield about a half-century ago, and his three-volumes on the Vicksburg Campaign are classics. With Ed’s large, hand-drawn and colored maps in hand, current Chief Historian and author of this issue’s feature, Terry Winschel, has created a masterful driving tour to go with his typically well crafted narrative. You will have to rely on odometer readings (or your GPS equipment) to know where to look for specific sites along the way, but a meaningful visit to Chickasaw Bayou can be had.

My visit to the site with Terry offered even the Chief Historian with a first-time experience: Chickasaw Bayou was dry. If it had been so in December 1862, when General Sherman landed with his Expeditionary Force, the battle might have been considerably different than the one you will read about here. The Yazoo River (the Union avenue of approach), Chickasaw Bayou, and the several lakes and feeder streams in the area were bank full or in flood. Sherman noticed watermarks on trees two times his own height and knew his mission had a definite timetable for success. In Sherman’s own words, “I reached Vicksburg at the time appointed, landed, assaulted and failed.”

The Confederates were well prepared, with dense abatis blocking the only roads in the area, and events elsewhere in Mississippi allowed reinforcements to be rushed to occupy strong positions on the hills that made Vicksburg a Gibraltar. Tens of thousands of visitors tour Vicksburg every year. Few venture off the beaten path to visit one of the earliest attempts by Ulysses S. Grant to capture this Mississippi stronghold. We hope this issue puts Chickasaw Bayou back on the map.

editor