150 years ago

The Confederate garrison of Vicksburg Mississippi surrendered to United States troops commanded by General Ulysses S. Grant. Vicksburg was the last Confederate stronghold on the Mississippi River and its fall effectively gave control of the river to Federal forces, splitting the Confederacy in two. When word of the surrender was telegraphed to Washington only a day after Lee's defeat at Gettysburg there was much rejoicing. President Lincoln is said to have observed ""The Father of Waters again goes unvexed to the sea."

In the aftermath of the surrender Gen. Grant decided to grant parole to most of the 30,000 surrendered Confederates on humanitarian grounds. It would have been a logistical nightmare trying to feed and transport that many prisoners to POW camps. Later a number of Union POWs were released by the Confederates as part of an official prisoner exchange, however in 1864 the Confederate Government declared the parole of the surrendered soldiers from Vicksburg null and conscripted all those not already exchanged back into the army. This act effectively ended the immemorial practice of parole and prisoner exchanges for the duration of the war.

In Vicksburg the 4th of July would not be formally observed as a holiday until the Second World War.