Port Hudson East Baton Rouge Louisiana United States
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Lincoln believes that the river fortress city of Vicksburg, Mississippi, is a key to winning the war.
Vicksburg and Port Hudson are the last remaining strongholds that prevent full Union control of the Mississippi River.
Situated on high bluffs overlooking a sharp bend in the river and called the "Gibraltar of the Mississippi", Vicksburg is nearly invulnerable to naval assault.
Admiral David Farragut had found this directly in his failed operations of May 1862.
The overall plan to capture Vicksburg is for Ulysses S. Grant to move south from Memphis and Major General Nathaniel P. Banks to move north from Baton Rouge.
Banks's advance is slow to develop and bogs down at Port Hudson, offering little assistance to Grant.
Union forces begin the siege of Port Hudson, Louisiana, on May 21.
Port Hudson, farther down the Mississippi, surrenders to Grant on July 8, thereby giving the Union control of the entire river and effectively cutting off Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas from rest of the Confederacy.