The Champion Hill Battlefield is the site of a major turning point in the American Civil War, an 1863 battle commanded by Union general Ulysses S. Grant that led directly to the siege and eventual capture of Vicksburg, Mississippi. In the Battle of Champion Hill, Grant's forces fought Confederate General Pemberton. The union victory was "incomplete, yet decisive", as Pemberton retreated into Vicksburg, to be bottled up and eliminated in time. By July 4, 1863, he could hold out no longer, and surrendered. Grant himself was propelled to the Major Generalship.
The battlefield was listed as a historic district on the National Register of Historic Places in 1971. The listing covered 4,000 acres (1,600 ha) including three contributing buildings, one contributing site, and one contributing object.
The battlefield was further declared a National Historic Landmark in 1977.
It is located about 3 miles southwest of Bolton, Mississippi.
Famous quotes containing the words champion, hill and/or battlefield:
“Let’s not quibble! I’m the foe of moderation, the champion of excess. If I may lift a line from a die-hard whose identity is lost in the shuffle, “I’d rather be strongly wrong than weakly right.””
—Tallulah Bankhead (1903–1968)
“The most interesting thing which I heard of, in this township of Hull, was an unfailing spring, whose locality was pointed out to me on the side of a distant hill, as I was panting along the shore, though I did not visit it. Perhaps, if I should go through Rome, it would be some spring on the Capitoline Hill I should remember the longest.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Fighting is like champagne. It goes to the heads of cowards as quickly as of heroes. Any fool can be brave on a battlefield when it’s be brave or else be killed.”
—Margaret Mitchell (1900–1949)