Both Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis saw Vicksburg as “the key” to the Confederacy

In 1863, Union advances from the Memphis in the North and New Orleans in the South had constricted Confederate control of the Mississippi River to a small section stretching from Port Hudson, Louisiana to the fortified city of Vicksburg, Mississippi. At the time, President Abraham Lincoln and Confederate President Jefferson Davis both saw Vicksburg as “the key” to the Confederacy, making the Vicksburg campaign an important event for both.

Early in the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln, gesturing to a map of the region, declared to his military advisors that "Vicksburg is the key" and that the failure to capture this city meant "hog and hominy without limit, fresh troops from all the states of the far South [for the Confederacy]." For not only would the capture of Vicksburg benefit the commercial interests and military operations of the Union, but Vicksburg was also a vital logistical link to the resource-rich Trans-Mississippi. And it was via Vicksburg that important war material and arms smuggled through Mexican ports could defy the Federal blockade and sustain the military needs of the South. Confederate President Jefferson Davis, whose plantation home was just south of Vicksburg, clearly recognized why the city was worth defending. For Vicksburg, in his words, was "the nailhead that held the South’s two halves together."