On 4 July 1863, after a siege of 47 days, Confederate General John C. Pemberton surrendered Vicksburg, Mississippi, and its garrison to Ulysses S. Grant, and the loss cut the Confederacy in two. On 4 July 1610 Stanisław Żółkiewski's Polish-Lithuanian army routed a far larger Russian army at Klushino.
Vicksburg surrenders
On 4 July 1863, after a siege of 47 days, Lieutenant General John C. Pemberton surrendered the Confederate army in Vicksburg, Mississippi, to Ulysses S. Grant. Grant's army had reached the city's defenses on 18 May; that story, and the siege that followed, is told on our page for 18 May.1
On 3 July Pemberton and Grant met between the lines: near the Third Louisiana Redan, according to the National Park Service, and on a hillside a few hundred feet from the Confederate lines, in Grant's memoirs. Grant insisted on unconditional surrender, and Pemberton refused. That night Grant offered terms under which the garrison would be paroled, and Pemberton accepted them.2
At 10 a.m. on 4 July the Confederates marched out of their works and stacked their arms; the Park Service has white flags displayed along their lines at that hour. The American Battlefield Trust says some 29,000 Confederates marched out, and Grant's memoirs count 31,600 prisoners, with 172 cannon. Five days later Port Hudson, the last Confederate stronghold on the river, surrendered too, and the Mississippi was in Union hands. The loss of the city and its army cut the Confederacy in two. The whole campaign is in our article on the siege of Vicksburg.3
The Battle of Hattin
4 July 1187 · 839 years ago
Saladin won a decisive victory at the Horns of Hattin on 4 July 1187, when his army trapped a thirst-crippled Crusader host in the dry hills of Galilee and destroyed it. The defeat shattered the Kingdom of Jerusalem's field army and led within months to the fall of Jerusalem itself.
Read the full story of The Battle of Hattin ›Battle of Klushino, 1610: the day Poland marched into Moscow
4 July 1610 · 416 years ago
The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth won a stunning victory at Klushino in 1610, when a small army under hetman Stanisław Żółkiewski, spearheaded by the winged hussars, beat a far larger Russian and mercenary force.
Read the full story of Battle of Klushino, 1610: the day Poland marched into Moscow ›Also on this day
Battle of Ueno
4 July 1868 · 158 years ago
In Edo's Ueno district, imperial troops attacked the Shōgitai, Tokugawa loyalists dug in around the Kan'ei-ji temple, during the Boshin War. A frontal attack stalled until a blow from the rear and modern Armstrong guns broke the last center of resistance in Edo.
