Question

Why was getting control of the Mississippi such an important part of the North’s war plan?

Answer 1

@Chineseboy15

Answer 2

thanks

Answer 3

Control of the Mississippi River during the American Civil War was an economic and psychological factor for both the North and the South. For many years, the river had served as a vital waterway for mid-western farmers shipping their goods to the eastern states by way of the Gulf of Mexico. The farmers, along with politicians and merchants, did not like the idea of the river being closed because of Confederate artillery looming along the banks where the “Father of Waters” flowed through the Confederacy.

For the Confederacy, control of the lower Mississippi River was vital to the union of its states. The portion of Louisiana west of the river plus Texas and Arkansas formed the Transmississippi which held manpower and materiel that the rest of the southern military machine needed.

Vicksburg was “the key,” as U. S. President Abraham Lincoln termed it, to the Union gaining control of the river. Lincoln looked at a map of the Mississippi River and saw that its hairpin turn in front of Vicksburg, which sat high on bluffs above the river, made boats traveling in both directions vulnerable to artillery fire from the Confederate batteries on the shore line and on the high bluffs.