Compelled to Appear in Print: The Vicksburg Manuscript of of General John C. Pemberton. Ed. by David M. Smith. 206pp., hc, dj.

Compelled To Appear In Print

edited David M. Smith

The Army of Northern Virginiaís invasion of Pennsylvania reached its tragic conclusion on the field at Gettysburg only one day before the fall of Vicksburg on July 4, 1863. but it is Robert E. Leeís campaign in the east that historians have remembered and written about ever since. Confederate Lieutenant General John C. Pembertonís doomed defense and ultimate surrender of the western city of Vicksburg have been relegated to the status of historical footnotes.

When General Joseph E. Johnston, who numbered Pemberton among his subordinates, released his wartime memoirs in 1874, they placed blame for the loss of a 30,000-man army and the city that controlled the Mississippi squarely on the shoulders of both Pemberton and Confederate President Jefferson F. Davis. Because Pemberton never published a response to his superiorís charges, history has generally accepted Johnstonís view of a bungling Pemberton unable to cope with his Federal counterpart, Major General Ulysses S. Grant. The discovery, in 1995, of a manuscript that Pemberton wrote but never committed to print before his death in 1881 has changed all that.

Although Pemberton was willing to acknowledge his own errors and shortcomings during the ill-fated campaign, he was not about to take sole responsibility for its failure. He was adamand that Johnston should acknowledge the mistakes he made in his role as commander in chief and was incensed by his refusal to do so. In the face of such dishonorable conduct by a former superior, Pemberton believed it was his duty to set the military record straight.