The Beleaguered City: The Vicksburg Campaign, December 1862-July 1863

"The Beleaguered City" is an extended excerpt on the Vicksburg Campaign from Shelby Foote's absolutely superb three volume narrative history of the Civil War. The Vicksburg Campaign is a gripping story in its own right, the central dramatic thread of which is Union General U.S. Grant's struggle to capture the great Confederate citadel on the Mississippi. Grant, stubborn and taciturn, will try a variety of methods to close with and subdue the Confederate forces defending Vicksburg. His initial approaches fail, sometimes spectacularly, and it is only when Grant takes the great risk of cutting loose from his own supply lines to cross the Mississippi river and place his own army between two Confederate forces that he is finally able to place the city under siege. The Vicksburg campaign marks the coming of age of Grant as a mature senior leader, the kind of general who can plan, fight and win campaigns at the operational and strategic level. His success at Vicksburg will lead directly to his summons by Lincoln to lead all Union armies. This book is highly recommended to the student of the Civil War and to the casual reader looking for an absolutely page-turning account of the Civil War meant to be read as literature.

I hope my fellow reviewer's amusing description of this slender volume as "Foote Lite" doesn't mislead a potential reader into thinking that "The Beleaguered City" lacks any of the poetry and the power of the three-volume masterwork from which it is excerpted. It simply presents the great historian's work in a more easily digested portion - a consumer service for which I personally am quite grateful. While the Vicksburg campaign, being (in my simple opinion, anyway) more of coup de grace than a turning point, lacks the supreme drama of the battle at Gettysburg (magnificently presented in Foote's "The Stars In Their Courses", over which I have raved elsewhere), it is an amazing story in its own right. As always, not only does Foote brilliantly limn the military action with stirring prose of an almost Homeric grandeur, he unearths the small human details that bring the long-ago events to life with shuddering poignancy. (i.e. A Union commander preparing to assault a Confederate fort at daybreak reports that from behind the enemy's walls he heard "the prettiest reveille I ever did hear", or General McClernand maintaining his military reserve even as a distraught Southern woman defiantly sings "The Bonnie Blue Flag" right in his face.) He is fortunate, of course, to be studying a period in which even humble footsoldiers, steeped in the cadences of the King James Bible, commanded a musical quality of rhetoric that puts today's orators to shame. (i.e. A disgruntled newspaper editor begs his political friend to convince Lincoln that General Grant is "a jackass in the original package", and a captured Union officer gallantly inquires of his captors, "Is this the Army of the Confederacy for which I have so long and earnestly sought? Then, sirs, I am your guest for the duration.")A very special treat is the audio edition, read by Foote himself in a smoky Mississippi drawl that could not be better suited to the text. It's akin to hearing the great national epic patiently recited by the Voice of America itself.

No one has written about the Civil War with the lyricism and eloquence of Foote. As anyone who has read his delightful three volume history of the Civil War can attest, his novelist background combined with thorough research to produce a classic of American literature and history.This book is an excerpt from the history focusing on the Vicksburg campaign. As one of the most significant campaigns (some argue the most significant) of our national four year drama (and tragedy), this breakout survives its separation from the whole very well.Foote traces the story thoroughly. Vicksburg controlled the Mississippi and was the strong point that thwarted the Union's efforts to cut the Confederacy from Arkansas and Texas. It was a very strong site, with bluffs that commanded the river and thousands of troops. U.S. Grant tried traditional ways to approach the city. His failures led him to perhaps the riskiest, most bold and audacious campaign of the war. Grant here is revealed as the master strategist, commander and decision maker. The story of the first major army to "live off the land" and his swing through Mississippi and the investiture of Vicksburg from the South and East is dramatic and stirring -- and extremely well handled in the more than competent hands of Shelby Foote.

Unforgettable! Superb. Shelby Foote's captivating tale and his sonorous voice have not been out of my mind, now 3 or 4 years after listening to it...absolutley worth the buying....I am shopping today for a friend!

This book is the book to turn to for info on the Vicksburg Campaign. Shelby Foote handles it beautifully. Another thing that is very common with Mr. Foote is the fact that he doesn't give you the dry facts, he gives it to you easily, and with a lot of small extra stories to go along with the big picture. I am reading the whole Civil War a narrative and have already finished the chapter on Vicksburg. My opinion of this book is very high and I advise "everyone" to read this and the whole three volume set.