So the Vicksburg Campaign Trail takes travelers from Port Gibson to Jackson to Raymond to Champion Hill to the Big Black River and finally to Vicksburg, where you can take a 16-mile tour of Vicksburg Military Park. Finally, Grant decided to march his army south along the west side of the Mississippi River, cross at Bruinsburg, west of Port Gibson, then proceed to Jackson, the state capitol, and approach Vicksburg from the east.
He even tried to build a canal to open a better navigational route to the city. Attempts to bypass Confederate defenses at Grand Gulf and the Yazoo River, to the north of Vicksburg, failed miserably. Grant spent months trying to find a way to seize Vicksburg and sever the Confederates' control of the Mississippi River. For a Civil War historian, following the Vicksburg Campaign Trail in Mississippi is similar to following Lee's Retreat from Petersburg to Appomattox in Virginia.
