John C. Pemberton

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John C. Pemberton

John Clifford Pemberton (August 10, 1814 – July 13, 1881), was a career U.S. Army officer and Confederate general in the American Civil War, noted for his defeat and surrender in the critical Battle of Vicksburg.

Pemberton was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He graduated from the U.S. Military Academy in 1837, served in the artillery, and then the Mexican-American War.

At the start of the Civil War, Pemberton chose to resign his commission and join the Confederate States Army, despite his Northern birth. It was because of the influence of his Virginia-born wife and many years of service in the southern states before the war that he became devoted to the South.

Pemberton was promoted to lieutenant general on October 10, 1862, and assigned to defend the fortress city of Vicksburg, Mississippi, and the Mississippi River. Facing the aggressive Union commander Major General Ulysses S. Grant in the Vicksburg Campaign, Pemberton was out-numbered, but significantly out-generaled as well. After Grant surprised him by crossing the Mississippi River south of the city, he defeated Pemberton and Joseph E. Johnston in a number of battles through central Mississippi, eventually besieging Pemberton in Vicksburg. Although advised to escape with his army, sacrificing the city, Pemberton held firm for over six weeks, while soldiers and civilians were starved into submission. (Pemberton, well aware of his reputation as a northerner by birth, was probably influenced by his fear of public condemnation as a traitor if he abandoned Vicksburg.) On July 4, 1863, he surrendered the city and his army to Grant, resulting in a terrible strategic loss for the Confederacy.

After his surrender, Pemberton was exchanged as a prisoner and returned to duty, but he voluntarily resigned his general's commission and served as a lieutenant colonel of artillery for the remainder of the war, a testimonial of his loyalty to the South.

After the war, John Pemberton lived in Virginia in his farm and then moved to Pennsylvania in 1876. He died in Penllyn, Pennsylvania, and is buried in Laurel Hill Cemetery, Philadelphia.