The Decision Was Always My OwnTimothy B SmithLabel: Southern Illinois University PressDescription: The Vicksburg Campaign argues Timothy B. Smith is the showcase of Ulysses S. Grant’s military genius. From October 1862 to July 1863 Grant tried repeatedly to capture the Confederate river city. His final daring move allowed him to land an army in Mississippi and fight his way to the gates of Vicksburg. He captured the city and Confederate garrison on July 4 1863 opening the Mississippi River for the Union. This volume presents a fast-paced reexamination of Grant’s decision-making process during the Vicksburg maneuvers battles and siege. Smith details the course of campaigning on military political administrative and personal levels. The successful military campaign required Grant to handle President Lincoln’s impatience as well as to deal with troublesome general John A. McClernand all while juggling administrative work. In addition Grant was more than a military genius—he was also a husband and a father and Smith shows how Grant’s family played a role in every decision he made. Grant’s nontraditional choices went against the accepted theories of war supply and operations as well as against the chief thinkers of the day such as Henry Halleck Grant’s superior. Yet Grant pulled off the victory in compelling fashion. In the first in-depth examination in decades Smith shows how Grant’s decisions created and won the Civil War’s most brilliant complex decisive and lengthy campaign.
