“From April 12, 1861 to June 2, 1865, the light of the great experiment in democracy shone but dimly as more than 8,700 battles and skirmishes spread across the country and snuffed out more than 620,000 lives per north and south. For all Americans it was the longest night." As David Eicher writes in his book The Longest Night, the American Civil War tore the nation apart and devastated the lives of millions of people. The Civil War determined whether the United States of America would remain one nation or split, becoming the Union and Confederate States of America. At a total of five years, the war was longer than expected; it was a brutal battle and the casualties were horrendous: over six hundred thousand Union and Confederate soldiers lost their lives during the war. There were sieges, battles, and skirmishes that shifted the balance from Union to Confederate dominance and back again, each conflict slowly determining which side would win the war. Within the Civil War, the year that ultimately decided the course of the rest of the war was 1863. In this year, the war saw the forty-seven day siege of Vicksburg and the Battle of Gettysburg, for a total of three days. These conflicts were bloody affairs and casualties were high on both sides, but without these conflicts the American Civil War would have ended differently. The Siege of Vicksburg and the Battle of Gettysburg were the turning points of the war, but the Siege of Vicksburg was the most important turning point of the two conflicts. The siege of Vicksburg was part of Ulysses S. Grant's campaign to capture the city; it took at least a year and the siege of the city occurred at the end of this year-long struggle. The first assault on Vicksburg occurred in July of 1... middle of paper... federation. Scott understood that taking the Mississippi River meant more than dividing the South, it meant leaving three states without the ability to ship supplies: food and manpower to the rest of the Confederate States. This Northern strategy focused on the city of Vicksburg as key to implementing the plan. Furthermore, it was believed to be a feasible plan to bring the South “to terms with less bloodshed than any other plan.” Although the plan did not reduce the bloodshed, the capture of Vicksburg gave the Union total control of the Mississippi River; Scott's plan succeeded to the last point. The Anaconda Plan "closed" the western theater of the war, returning the focus of the war to Lee and the eastern theater. Lee was a formidable opponent and the fall of Vicksburg along with the crushing defeat at Gettysburg devastated Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia.