t’s guard of the city became nearly impenetrable, “When the real investment began a cat could not have crept out of Vicksburg without being discovered.” The Confederates began withdrawing as Union trenched were moved closer and closer towards Vicksburg. There was constant Union bombardment from their cannons to further disrupt the sick and starving Confederates inside of Vicksburg. The Confederates, knowing how important Vicksburg was, were reluctant to surrender. General Pemberton stubbornly stated that the, “Cost at which I will sell Vicksburg. When the last pound of beef, bacon, and flour, the last grain of corn, the last cow and hog and horse and dog shall of been consumed, and the last man shall have perished in the trenches, then, and only then will I sell Vicksburg.” This statement, although a little extreme, was exactly what Grant had strategically planned. He planned to starve the Confederates into surrendering. After about Forty-eight days Grants siege had proved successful. Grant had assumed it would have only taken a week but his penetrating idea had proved successful. On the morning of July 3 the Confederates were waving white flags and the shooting was ceased. After a day of negotiations Grant allowed the Confederate soldiers to be paroled and sent back to their homes. Grant decided to parole the soldiers because, “Paroled soldiers were an immense problem to their own authorities… Paroled men were very hard to handle, because the soldiers assumed that when they had been captured and paroled they were out of the war.” This was another resourceful idea that put the Union one step above the Confederates in leadership, especially Grants. Paroling the soldiers made it much easier on the Union because they would not have to waste their time trying to move the 30,000 soldiers at Vicksburg into Ohio. Instead they would turn them back to the Confederacy with destroy...
