Union troops under General N.P. Banks had surrounded Port Hudson in mid-May 1863. With his garrison starving and the news of the surrender upriver of Vicksburg, CSA General Franklin Gardner asked for terms and at 9:30 a.m. Federal troops marched into the stronghold. Around a thousand of the Union besiegers had lost their lives and all Union casualties totalled close to 5000. The Confederates suffered 700 casualties after the 6000 prisoners captured were paroled. The lower Mississippi was now open and Union control of the river complete. (By John Osborne)
Source Citation
Edward Cunningham, The Port Hudson Campaign: 1862-1863 (Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1963), 118-125..
Record Data
Date Certainty
Exact
Type
Battles/Soldiers
