In October 1862, Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant assumed command of all federal forces in Mississippi & east Louisiana. He fought for control of Vicksburg for the next nine months in a series of attempts to capture the Confederate citadel. It would end in failure at Holly Springs, Mississippi after a daring raid made by Maj. Gen. Earl Van Dorn. Larry Allen McCluney, Jr. examines the campaign as Grant followed the railroad through the towns of Holly Springs, Abbeville, Water Valley, Oxford, Coffeeville, and the outskirts of Grenada. The book addresses a too-little examined phase of Grant's Vicksburg Campaign: His initial attempt to take the "Gibraltar of the Mississippi" by going through Jackson on the Mississippi Central Railroad. Grant planned to use the Mississippi Central to take his army to Jackson before pivoting to his right & heading west towards Vicksburg, pinning it to the Mississippi River. The book covers his full extent ending with the fall of Vicksburg on July 4, 1863.