Victory here and at Port Hudson, farther south in Louisiana, gave the Union control of the Mississippi River.

The park includes 1,325 historic monuments and markers, 20 miles (32 km) of historic trenches and earthworks, a 16-mile (26 km) tour road, a 12.5-mile (20.1 km) walking trail, two antebellum homes, 144 emplaced cannons, the restored gunboat USS Cairo (sunk on December 12, 1862, on the Yazoo River), and the Grant's Canal site, where the Union Army attempted to build a canal to let their ships bypass Confederate artillery fire.

[5] The remnants of Grant's Canal, a detached section of the military park, are located across from Vicksburg near Delta, Louisiana.

The project was halted in July of that year due to massive amount of disease and sickness among the soldiers and former slaves doing the hard labor of constructing the ditch, and falling water levels on the river.

Grant, however, utilized the canal project to keep his troops occupied during the laborious maneuvering required to begin the Battle of Vicksburg.

[6] In 2000 the Mississippi House of Representatives approved funding a monument to recognize African-American soldiers in the United States civil war.