Battle of Champion Hill

Overview

The Battle of Champion Hill, also known as the Battle of Champion's Hill and the Battle of Baker's Creek, of May 16, 1863, was the pivotal battle in the Vicksburg campaign of the American Civil War (1861–1865). Union Army commander Major General Ulysses S. Grant and the Army of the Tennessee pursued the retreating Confederate States Army under Lieutenant General John C. Pemberton and defeated it twenty miles to the east of Vicksburg, Mississippi, leading inevitably to the Siege of Vicksburg and surrender.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Significance

Champion Hill was the decisive engagement of the Vicksburg campaign. Grant's Army of the Tennessee, numbering 32,000, pursued Pemberton's Confederate force of 22,000 some twenty miles east of Vicksburg and inflicted a defeat from which the Confederate defense of the city could not recover. Confederate casualties of 3,840 against Union losses of 2,457 left Pemberton's army too weakened to hold the open field, driving it back into Vicksburg's fortifications. The battle made the subsequent siege, and ultimately the Confederate surrender of Vicksburg, a near certainty. Control of Vicksburg would give the Union command of the Mississippi River, severing the Confederacy's trans-Mississippi supply and reinforcement routes — making Champion Hill one of the campaign's most consequential single engagements.

Forces & casualties

Commanders (2)