History Is Lunch: The Civil War Siege of Jackson, Mississippi

On May 27, 2020, Jim Woodrick discussed his book The Civil War Siege of Jackson, Mississippi, for the History Is Lunch series.
On July 4, 1863, the Confederate garrison at Vicksburg surrendered to Union Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant’s besieging army. While the surrender of Vicksburg was a signal victory, Grant had to immediately shift his focus to Jackson and Confederate Gen. Joseph E. Johnston's “Army of Relief.”
The resulting Jackson Campaign, led by Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman, ended on July 17 after a week-long siege. Mississippi’s capital city suffered tremendously from that military action as well as subsequent looting and destruction. “During the siege, more than 70,000 men, blue and gray, braved both the dangers of shot and shell and the tremendous heat of a Mississippi summer,” Woodrick said.
A native of Meridian, Jim Woodrick is the former director of the Historic Preservation Division of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History. He retired in spring of this year as deputy state historic preservation officer. In earlier years Woodrick managed the department’s Mississippi Civil War Trails program, participated in a number of battlefield and campaign studies with the National Park Service, and worked closely with the Civil War Trust and the American Battlefield Protection Program to identify Civil War battlefield properties in Mississippi for acquisition and preservation. He is a graduate of Millsaps College, a licensed battlefield guide at Vicksburg National Military Park, and a member of the Historians of the Western Theater.
History Is Lunch is a weekly lecture series of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History that explores different aspects of the state's past. The hour-long programs are held in the Craig H. Neilsen Auditorium of the Museum of Mississippi History and Mississippi Civil Rights Museum building in Jackson. MDAH livestreams videos of the program at noon on Wednesdays on their Facebook page, / mdahofficial .