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Mississippi represented the Old South and all that it stood for perhaps more than any other state. Tracing its long process of economic, social, and cultural evolution, Christopher Morris takes a close look at one of those "typically" Southern communities, Jefferson Davis's Warren County, the ...

Mississippi represented the Old South and all that it stood for perhaps more than any other state. Tracing its long process of economic, social, and cultural evolution, Christopher Morris takes a close look at one of those "typically" Southern communities, Jefferson Davis's Warren County, the northern-most of the five old river counties located in the state's southwestern corner. Drawing on wills, deeds, court records, as well as manuscript materials, Morris shows a transformation of a loosely knit, typically Western community of pioneer homesteaders into a distinctly Southern society based on plantation agriculture, slavery, and a patriarchal social order. Farmers and herders first settled this "western" region around present-day Vicksburg At the turn of the nineteenth century, the wealthiest cattle herders began to acquire slaves and to plant cotton, hastening the demise of the pioneer economy. Gradually, all farmers began to produce for the market, which in turn drew them out of their neighborhoods and away from each other, breaking down local patterns of cooperation. Individuals learned to rely on extended kin-networks as a means of acquiring land and slaves, giving tremendous power to older men with legal control over family property. Relations between masters and slaves, husbands and wives, and planters and yeoman farmers changed with the emergence of the traditional patriarchy of the Old South. This transformation was the "southern" society Warren County's white residents defended in the Civil War.

The struggle for control of the Mississippi River was the longest and most complex campaign of the Civil War. It was marked by an extraordinary diversity of military and naval operations, including fleet engagements, cavalry raids, amphibious landings, pitched battles, and the two longest sieges in ...

The struggle for control of the Mississippi River was the longest and most complex campaign of the Civil War. It was marked by an extraordinary diversity of military and naval operations, including fleet engagements, cavalry raids, amphibious landings, pitched battles, and the two longest sieges in American history. Every existing type of naval vessel, from sailing ship to armored ram, played a role, and military engineers practiced their art on a scale never before witnessed in modern warfare. Union commanders such as Grant, Sherman, Farragut, and Porter demonstrated the skills that would take them to the highest levels of command. When the immense contest finally reached its climax at Vicksburg and Port Hudson in the summer of 1863, the Confederacy suffered a blow from which it never recovered. Here was the true turning point of the Civil War. This fast-paced, gripping narrative of the Civil War struggle for the Mississippi River is the first comprehensive single-volume account to appear in over a century. Vicksburg Is the Key: The Struggle for the Mississippi River tells the story of the series of campaigns the Union conducted on land and water to conquer Vicksburg and of the many efforts by the Confederates to break the siege of the fortress. William L. Shea and Terrence J. Winschel present the unfolding drama of the campaign in a clear and readable style, correct historic myths along the way, and examine the profound strategic effects of the eventual Union victory.