"The Beleaguered City" is an extended excerpt on the Vicksburg Campaign from Shelby Foote's absolutely superb three volume narrative history of the Civil War. The Vicksburg Campaign is a gripping story in its own right, the central dramatic thread of which is Union General U.S. Grant's struggle to capture the great Confederate citadel on the Mississippi.

Grant, stubborn and taciturn, will try a variety of methods to close with and subdue the Confederate forces defending Vicksburg. His initial approaches fail, sometimes spectacularly, and it is only when Grant takes the great risk of cutting loose from his own supply lines to cross the Mississippi river and place his own army between two Confederate forces that he is finally able to place the city under siege. The Vicksburg campaign marks the coming of age of Grant as a mature senior leader, the kind of general who can plan, fight and win campaigns at the operational and strategic level. His success at Vicksburg will lead directly to his summons by Lincoln to lead all Union armies.

This book is highly recommended to the student of the Civil War and to the casual reader looking for an absolutely page-turning account of the Civil War meant to be read as literature.