Hearing of Grant’s victory at Vicksburg five days earlier, Confederate forces surrendered Port Hudson, Louisiana, after a forty-eight day siege—the longest ever in the United States. The surrender restored control of the Mississippi to the Union, ending the war in the West. Port Hudson was also the first major battle in which black Union troops participated.
William T. Sherman (1820–1891) was an important strategist and Union general during the American Civil War. Sherman graduated from West Point in 1840. Unlike many of his contemporaries, he did not see military action in the Mexican-American War. In 1859 he served as the superintendent of the Louisiana Military Seminary. Sherman left Louisiana when the state seceded from the Union in 1861 and was commissioned as a colonel in the Army. After initial faltering, Sherman rose through the ranks as he served under Ulysses S. Grant. Sherman led...