The Battle of Jackson occurred on May 14, 1863, as part of Major General Ulysses S. Grant's broader Vicksburg campaign during the American Civil War. Grant had begun moving his Union force east across the Mississippi River on April 30, 1863, establishing a beachhead that was secured by a victory at the Battle of Port Gibson on May 1. Grant's initial objective was to wheel his army northward to strike the railroad connecting Vicksburg and Jackson, Mississippi's capital. However, a Union victory at the Battle of Raymond on May 12, where Major General James B. McPherson's XVII Corps defeated Confederate forces under Brigadier General John Gregg, revealed to Grant the presence of a potentially formidable Confederate force gathering at Jackson, prompting him to alter his strategy and redirect McPherson's corps and Major General William T. Sherman's XV Corps toward Jackson itself.
General Joseph E. Johnston was assigned to assume command of the Confederate forces assembling at Jackson. Upon arriving at the city, Johnston quickly assessed the military situation and determined that Jackson could not be successfully defended against the approaching Union forces.
Johnston's decision to abandon Jackson rather than make a stand has subsequently drawn criticism from historians evaluating his command decisions during this critical phase of the Civil War.
The American Civil War (1861–1865) was the deadliest conflict in American history, killing an estimated 620,000 to 750,000 soldiers and an unknown number of civilians. The Confederate States of America, formed by eleven seceding Southern states, faced the Union in four years of warfare across 23 states and territories. Major engagements included First and Second Bull Run, Antietam (the bloodiest single day in American history, September 17, 1862), Chancellorsville, Gettysburg (July 1–3, 1863), Vicksburg (surrendered July 4, 1863), and Sherman's March through Georgia and the Carolinas (1864–1865). President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, transforming the war's stated purpose to include the abolition of slavery and enabling the enlistment of approximately 180,000 Black men in the United States Colored Troops. Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. The war resolved the question of secession and ended American slavery, though Reconstruction would face sustained resistance in its attempt to secure civil rights for formerly enslaved people.
Union: 442; Confederate: 515
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