December 21, 1862---President Davis visits Vicksburg

DECEMBER 21, 1862:        

Confederate President Jefferson Davis visits Vicksburg, Mississippi. He tells the residents, “The enemy has two principal objects in view, one to get control of the Missi[ssippi] River, and the other to capture the capital of the Confederate States.” 

To avoid the vivisection of the Confederacy, he adds, “we must mainly depend upon maintaining the points already occupied by defensive works: to-wit, Vicksburg and Port Hudson.” Davis is prescient. The two towns will be the last to fall to the Union in its Mississippi River campaign.