The Civil War Siege of Jackson, Mississippi

Even after a grueling forty-seven-day siege at Vicksburg, Ulysses S. Grant could not rest on his laurels. Just fifty miles away in Jackson, Confederate general Joseph E. Johnston and the Army of Relief still posed a threat to Grant s hard-won victory. General William Tecumseh Sherman countered by marching Union troops to Jackson. After a weeklong siege under a hot Mississippi sun, Johnston s army abandoned the city, leaving the fate of Jackson in the hands of Sherman s troops. Historian Jim Woodrick recounts the Civil War devastation and rebirth of Mississippi s capital."

Jim Woodrick is a graduate of Millsaps College in Jackson, Mississippi. Since 1997, he has been with the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, where he has served as the Civil War Sites Historian. He is currently director of the Historic Preservation Division. A life-long student of the Civil War, Jim has participated in living history events as a Civil War re-enactor and is an active member of several Civil War preservation organizations. He lives in Ridgeland, Mississippi.