This is the first biography of the ""Defender of Vicksburg,"" General John C. Pemberton. A Philadelphia native, Pemberton resigned from the United States Army in 1861 to fight on the side of the South, influenced by his Virginia-born wife and by his years of service in the Southern states before the Civil War. He was made a Lieutenant General in the Confederate Army and assigned to defend Vicksburg and the Mississippi River.

Written by Pemberton's grandson and based on research in official records and family papers, this book brings to light long-neglected facts revealing the tragedy of errors that led to Vicksburg's fall. It is, in the words of historian Douglas Southall Freeman, ""the fairest, as well as the fullest study of the tragedy from the viewpoint of the principal Confederate actor.""