Grant's Canal, LA

Grant’s Canal was part of the Union strategy to open the Mississippi River. The canal was begun to enable boats to move past the Confederate guns at Vicksburg but was never completed. Instead, Rear Admiral David D. Porter’s fleet ran the gauntlet on two nights in April 1863, met Major General Ulysses S. Grant’s men who had marched south through Louisiana, and ferried them across the river below Vicksburg. Grant attacked Vicksburg from the east and forced the Confederates to surrender on July 4, 1863 – the final victory in his brilliant Vicksburg campaign.

The Burney Long Family (RWB, Inc.) donated to the Fund the last remaining section of the canal constructed as part of the U.S. strategy to control the Mississippi River. The Fund presented it as a gift to the Vicksburg National Military Park.