Jackson Free Press

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — The Battle of Jackson was a short but important Civil War skirmish, with Union forces easily capturing Mississippi's lightly defended capital city on their way to a victory in Vicksburg and control of the Mississippi River.

However, the battle's 150th anniversary on Tuesday was expected to pass mostly without commemoration in Jackson itself. A group of Union military and civilian re-enactors held a small event downtown on May 4, with no Confederate counterparts in sight. It was near the Old Capitol Museum, which was Mississippi's working statehouse during the Civil War.

The Vicksburg National Military park is presenting a program at 7 p.m. Tuesday about the Battle of Jackson, which was part of the military campaign that eventually led to the surrender of Vicksburg on July 4, 1863. In conquering Vicksburg, the North gained a strategic advantage by controlling the Mississippi River.

The National Park Service says an estimated 1,136 people were killed, wounded or missing in action during the Battle of Jackson: 286 Union and 850 Confederate.

Union forces were led by two generals, William T. Sherman and James B. McPherson, and it took them only hours to push through Jackson and conquer the city.

Rick Martin, chief of operations for the Vicksburg National Military Park, said that when Confederate Gen. Joseph E. Johnston arrived in Jackson before the battle, he sent a telegram to the secretary of war in Richmond, Va., saying: "I am too late." Johnston had pulled most of the Confederate troops about 30 miles north to Canton.

"They left a small group of men manning the fortifications, which is where Fortification Street comes from," Martin said. "The Union army just went around them."

Fortification Street is an east-west thoroughfare in Jackson that's about a mile north of the Old Capitol Museum.

The Battle of Jackson isolated Vicksburg by cutting off the Confederate forces' communication, transportation and supplies.

"It broke up any support the Confederates might give," Martin said.

Union forces in Jackson destroyed rail lines and burned businesses that provided supplies to Confederate forces. For example, they destroyed a building in which they found tent canvas printed with CSA, for Confederate States of America, Martin said.

Tuesday's program is one of several events this year at the Vicksburg National Military Park and other sites marking the sesquicentennial of the Civil War.