v1.1.3 / chapter 44 of 93 / 01 sep 11 / greg goebel / public domain
* With the arrival of April 1863, the fighting ramped back up. Hooker organized his offensive against Lee, with the Federals moving out at the end of the month. Combat also continued in the Carolina tidewater, while Union ironclads moved ineffectually against Charleston. For the moment, however, the hot action was in the West, with further cavalry raids and, most importantly, Grant finally beginning his decisive move against Vicksburg.
* On 3 April, President Lincoln decided to pay the Army of the Potomac a visit at Falmouth and see how things were going. He spent several days in inspections and visits, culminating in a splendid and impressive parade-ground review on 8 April.
The troops were in excellent shape. Their morale appeared high, their appearance and performance were crisp and professional. It was clear that Hooker's reforms had done wonders. Hooker himself, however, did not inspire confidence in Lincoln. The general's bluster had been quoted in the press -- "God help the rebels!" -- and in person Hooker made comments like "when I get to Richmond". When the President gently suggested that "if" would be more prudent than "when", Hooker insisted that he had no doubts that he would take Richmond. The President had heard this sort of windiness from John Pope and had seen Pope come to ruin; the same tone from Hooker suggested a similar overconfidence. Still, the President had no choice but to trust to the judgement of the commanding general he had selected for the job, though he did offer one bit of advice: "In your next fight, put in all your men."
Lincoln then steamed back upriver to Washington, having found the review something of a vacation from his worries. Back in the White House, the worries remained, particularly since Hooker was clearly preparing to move out and was being as quiet as possible about his plans.
* Despite the fact that Longstreet had left with many of his divisions and Hooker knew it, attacking Lee was not a simple prospect. Confederate combat engineers had built 25 continuous miles (40 kilometers) of some of the most sophisticated and formidable field fortifications the world had ever seen to block any move by the Army of the Potomac. Hooker would have to bypass those fortifications or face another Fredericksburg.
His initial plan was to send General Stoneman's cavalry corps, 10,000 troopers strong, upstream to then curve behind Lee's army and cut Confederate lines of communications and supply. Hooker believed, optimistically, that the raid would panic the rebels and create an opportunity for a push through their lines. He sent Dan Butterfield to Washington to brief the President on the plan. General Butterfield spoke to Lincoln alone to ensure that Hooker's plans were exposed to as little interference as possible.
Stoneman set out with his men on the morning of 13 April. A brigade under the enterprising Unionist Mississippian, Colonel Benjamin "Grimes" Davis, was sent ahead to cross the Rappahannock some 30 miles (48 kilometers) upstream from Fredericksburg, and then loop back to secure a crossing for the main force. Davis succeeded in securing a crossing but the main force didn't arrive, and then the rain began to fall, causing the river to rise. Davis was forced to retreat back over the river, losing men and horses in the surging waters.
The rain brought the whole offensive to a halt. Stoneman and his men set up camp north of the river to wait for the weather to dry out. Hooker remained optimistic in his reports to the President, but Lincoln was not fooled. Assessing the lack of progress in Stoneman's reported movements, he wrote Hooker on 15 April: "I greatly fear it is another failure already."
* The weather did not clear up until 25 April. By then, Hooker had decided it was time to move out in strength, with the bulk of the Army of the Potomac. He wanted to and expected to destroy the Army of Northern Virginia in one powerful blow. Stoneman's troopers would continue their movement into Lee's rear areas, while the infantry divisions moved out rapidly and crossed the Rappahannock at several places.
Three corps under Generals Slocum, Howard, and Meade would move by unobserved back-country roads to cross the Rappahannock at Kelly's Ford, 20 miles (32 kilometers) upstream from Fredericksburg, and split up to cross the Rapidan at Genhenna's Ford and Ely's Ford. The separated forces would then sweep southwest into a region of scrub forest and undergrowth known as the Wilderness, and join up again at a crossroads in that area near a large red-brick mansion, known as Chancellor House. The soldiers would move quickly, carrying their ammunition and food on their backs, or the backs of mules; wagons would slow the advance down. The crossroad junction in the Wilderness was dignified with the name "Chancellorsville". Once this sweeping movement had forced the Confederates out of their defenses, Darius Couch would join the drive by crossing at US Ford, much closer to Fredericksburg.
In the meantime, a few divisions would be left at Falmouth to deceive the rebels, while the corps of Reynolds, Sedgwick, and Sickles would move across the Rappahannock at Fredericksburg, as if to re-enact Burnside's assault of the past December. This was not entirely a feint. Hooker told Sedgwick, who had been put in charge of the Fredericksburg movement, that if Lee weakened his positions above the town, he was to press an attack "at all hazards".
* The upstream movement began on 27 April 1863 and made good progress. By the afternoon of 30 April -- after clearing the dangerous triangle formed by the Rappahannock and the Rapidan, where John Pope had nearly been trapped -- the three corps of Meade, Slocum, and Howard had assembled in the clearing around Chancellor House.
Couch was preparing to lead his corps across US Ford. The Confederates, fearing that they would be surrounded, had fled the defenses there, as Hooker had planned. Sickles had been called with his corps from Fredericksburg to add their weight to the attack. Meade cried out, in a rare burst of enthusiasm: "Hurrah for Old Joe! We're on Lee's flank and he doesn't know it!"
Hooker himself was very pleased by the progress of his movements and felt he could afford to wait to gather his forces before proceeding further. There was a risk in this. The tangled Wilderness provided few opportunities for bringing the bulk of the Army of the Potomac to bear on the Confederates, but Hooker felt that he had attained complete surprise over Lee, and the success of Union arms was a forgone conclusion.
Lee had indeed been confused by Hooker's rapid movements and had reason to be concerned. The Army of Northern Virginia had suffered severely through the winter and Lee was outnumbered two to one. However, Lee was a hard man to intimidate, and by the evening of 29 April his scouts and other intelligence had given him a clear picture of the movement of Hooker's army into Chancellorsville. Rebel divisions were immediately put on the move to counter the Federal advance.
* Despite the failure of D.H. Hill's attack on the Union tidewater stronghold of New Berne, North Carolina, Hill was by no means ready to give up trying to set on the Yankees in their "ratholes", and so in late March he moved on the Federal-occupied town of Washington, North Carolina, about 25 miles (40 kilometers) north of New Berne.
There were only 1,200 Federals in the town and Hill had ten times that many soldiers, but rains slowed the rebels down and Union General John Foster managed to make it to Washington ahead of him. Hill bottled up the town on 30 March, setting up defenses to prevent relief by land from New Berne and siting batteries downriver from the town to prevent resupply by sea.
Hill did not attempt to take Washington. The main purpose of the attack was simply to keep the Federals pinned down while Confederate commissary agents obtained foodstuffs from the countryside. Or at least that was the stated rationale; Hill would certainly have seized Washington had it been convenient, but Foster was a good military engineer and had turned the place into a fortress. Foster also had artillery support from three gunboats.
The fight settled down to intermittent artillery duels. Hill's gunners didn't have much ammunition and were under orders to limit their fire, but every morning a Yankee regimental band would strike up "Dixie" to annoy the rebels. It was effective, with the Confederates usually replying with a burst of shells and cannonballs. The Federals didn't seem eager to fire on the rebels, either. Every night one of the gunboats, which apparently had been a pleasure steamer before being pressed to more warlike service, would provide a calliope concert that was followed by a short barrage, more in the nature of a fireworks display than an effort to inflict damage.
Conditions gradually grew worse for both sides. The weather was damp, making the rebels muddy and miserable, and the Federals were running out of food. There were two bumbling attempts to relieve Washington from New Berne, one by sea and one by land, but in the absence of effective leadership they went nowhere. Foster concluded that he would have to escape and lead a relief column personally.
On 13 April, a Federal transport, the ESCORT, steamed up the Tar River to deliver food, ammunition, and a Rhode Island regiment to Washington. The crew had piled up bales of hay as armor to protect the vessel, but the precaution proved unnecessary: although the rebels fired 60 shots at her, they didn't score a single hit. Two days later Foster rode the ESCORT back down the Tar, holding a pistol on the pilot who was suspected to be a Confederate sympathizer. The rebel gunners had improved their aim and hit the steamship 40 times, mortally wounding the pilot, who stood by his post to the last.
Two other Federal ships had braved the rebel guns to deliver supplies to Washington, and so there was no prospect of starving the Yankees out. With Foster back in New Berne, Hill knew he would be attacked soon and decided to pull out. Besides, in the two weeks of the siege the Confederates had managed to complete their foraging in the area, their primary mission, and Hill's forces were needed for a similar but larger operation in coastal Virginia, not far to the north.
* The toehold that the Federals had obtained on the south bank of the James around Norfolk, Virginia, during the Peninsula Campaign had deprived the South of the products of the prosperous farms in the area. While Longstreet knew he didn't have the forces to throw the Federals out of the area, he felt he could throw them on the defensive long enough to sweep the area clean of foodstuffs to support the Confederate war effort, and possibly do the Yankees some injury if the opportunity presented itself.
Longstreet moved against the Federals on 9 April with two of his divisions under John Bell Hood and George Pickett, plus a division previously stationed in the area under Samuel French, providing a total of a little over 20,000 men in all. The Yankees had 21,000 men, but they were intimidated by the rebels' aggressiveness and thought themselves outnumbered. They fell back on their fortifications at Suffolk, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) southwest of Norfolk, where the Confederates put them under siege on the 11th.
Like the siege of Washington, the battle for Suffolk was more smoke than fire, though Sam French got in trouble when on 16 April he had his men occupy an old Confederate fortification named Fort Huger that had been left unmanned by the Yankees. Three nights later, six companies of Connecticut infantry fell on it, achieving complete surprise, and packed five guns and 130 men and officers back to Union lines.
It was otherwise fairly dull duty, trading shots with the Yankees, though George Pickett was making the most of his nights. The 38-year-old Pickett, a widower and something of a dandy with long curly perfumed hair, had made the acquaintance of a pretty young lady named Sally, young enough to be his daughter. He left his command each sunset to return at sunrise, and in time Longstreet made clear his disapproval of this inattention to duty. Pickett was too smitten to care and continued his night-time excursions, even attempting to get fellow officers to cover for him.
Good or bad, things come to an end, and at the end of the month Longstreet received word from Lee that Joe Hooker was on the move. It was time to go play a bigger game. Longstreet pulled his men out quietly through the first week of May, burning bridges and felling trees to keep the Federals from pursuing. The entire operation had obtained badly-needed provisions for the Army of Northern Virginia, but for Longstreet his ten-week stint as an independent commander had granted him little distinction.
* As spring arrived in central Tennessee, Bragg's cavalry generals continued their attempts to harass Rosecrans' army, once more with mixed results. On 10 April, Van Dorn arrived the Federal outpost at Franklin, halfway between Nashville and his own base of operations at Columbia. The Federals were present in Franklin in strength and Van Dorn withdrew after a tentative probe. The Yankees claimed Van Dorn had failed in an all-out attack, but since there were no more than a hundred casualties on each side it seems clear that Van Dorn was being uncharacteristically prudent.
Joe Wheeler's luck was improving. Also on 10 April, his men ambushed two Union trains, capturing 20 officers, including three of Rosecrans' staff; seizing $30,000 in Federal greenbacks; and liberating 40 Confederate prisoners. Wheeler dodged Union attempts to capture him and returned to base with only one man wounded.
By this time Rosecrans was thoroughly fed up with being harassed, and when a Colonel Abel D. Streight, in command of an Indiana regiment, proposed a Federal cavalry raid behind Bragg's lines, Rosecrans was enthusiastic. Streight planned to cut the Western & Atlantic Railroad, which ran from Atlanta to Chattanooga and constituted Bragg's supply line. The Western & Atlantic was the same target over which Andrews and his train raiders had come to grief a year earlier.
Streight was given four regiments of Midwestern infantry to press into service as cavalry, along with two companies of north Alabama Unionists who were to act as guides, giving him a total of 2,000 men. Pressing footsoldiers into service as cavalrymen was not very promising, nor was the fact that, since Rosecrans was low on horses, Streight would make do with mules. However, Streight reasoned that mules were smarter than horses and were more sure-footed, an asset in rugged terrain.
Unfortunately, while Streight tried to organize his force in Eastport, Mississippi, nestled in the corner of the state joining Tennessee and Alabama, he began to find the mules very troublesome. Many of his mules turned out to be infected with distemper, and a few hundred of them were unbroken two-year-olds who took greatly enjoyed throwing Streight's novice cavalrymen into the dirt. Mules are indeed intelligent, but those more familiar with the beasts could have told Streight that along with such intelligence comes a degree of infuriating independent-mindedness and downright cussedness. To add to these troubles, at the last moment several hundred of the mules escaped into the countryside, braying loudly and obnoxiously to mock the Union soldiers who tried to chase them down.
In any case, on 22 April, five days behind schedule, Streight's men moved out, screened from rebel scouts by a 7,500-man force under Brigadier General Grenville M. Dodge that had marched from Corinth. The raiders made reasonable progress at first, though on the 26th 500 men deemed physically unfit to continue on the raid were sent back to Eastport, reducing Streight's numbers to 1,500.
By 30 April, Streight's column was at the foothills of the Appalachians, halfway across northern Alabama, when the rear of his column came under attack. It was Bedford Forrest, commanding a thousand men. Forrest had been riding to intercept Streight for the better part of a week and had finally caught up with him. Streight didn't know he outnumbered the rebels but he was at least shrewd enough to set an ambush, establishing a defensive line while his Unionist Alabamans kept Forrest's men busy. When the Alabamans broke to the rear, the rebels followed and ran into massed volleys of rifle fire and canister. The Confederates were badly bloodied and thrown back.
Another commander might have been discouraged by such a setback, but Forrest just got mad; the Yankees had taken two artillery pieces and had wounded his brother, Captain William Forrest. He threw his own cavalry after Streight, pursuing the Yankees relentlessly and giving them no rest. And so it went, for the rest of that day into the moonlight, through the next day, and into the next day. Streight laid ambushes to halt his pursuers momentarily, but the rebels would quickly rally and come on. Forrest managed to keep his own men effective by giving some of them rest while the others kept up the pressure. The rested men would then catch up with the main body, while another group got a chance to rest.
By 3 May, Streight's men had been driven through the hills to Gaylesville, almost at the Georgia border, and were so exhausted they could go no further. Forrest sent a courier to Streight to demand his surrender. The two commanders met in a parley, with Streight by no means ready to give up, until he noticed a seemingly endless stream of rebel artillery moving up behind Forrest. It was really the same two guns over and over again, going in a circle. It was a dumb trick but Streight, likely too tired to think clearly, fell for it, saying: "Name of God! How many guns have you got? There's 15 I've counted already!"
Forrest answered, deadpan: "I reckon that's all that's kept up." Streight went back to confer with his officers. When he heard a report that the bridge that offered his only apparent hope of escape was heavily guarded by rebel troops, he went back to Forrest and surrendered. The Confederates took their captives into Rome, Georgia, across the state border, where all, rebel and Yankee alike, were kindly treated to an enormous feast by the local citizens.
* On the evening of 5 May, Forrest received word that another column of Yankee raiders was on the move and led his men out in a hurry. It turned out to be a false alarm. On 10 May he received other news: orders to report to Braxton Bragg for promotion to major general and assignment to the command left vacant three days previously by the death of Earl Van Dorn.
On 7 May, a Columbia physician named Dr. George B. Peters had ridden his buggy to Van Dorn's headquarters, walked in, shot Van Dorn in the back of the head with a pistol, returned to his buggy, and then rode to Union lines. Van Dorn lingered until the afternoon. He was 42 years old. While some thought the murder was politically motivated, it was generally believed the general had been showing an inappropriate amount of attention to the doctor's pretty young wife. Van Dorn always had a streak of rashness, and it had, it seemed, finally cost him his life.
* At the beginning of April 1863, Ulysses Grant was in a difficult position. The failure of his experiments to isolate or outflank Vicksburg made him the butt of criticism. One Cincinnati editor called him in a correspondence to Secretary of the Treasury Chase "a jackass in the original package" and "a poor drunken imbecile", and indeed the stories of his drunkenness were making the rounds back in Washington. Lincoln said: "I think Grant has hardly a friend left, except myself." The President had assessed Grant as a general who, unlike most of the others, really wanted to inflict pain and injury on the rebels. Loud and loose complaints about such a valuable man could be disregarded.
Actual reports from those in Grant's vicinity on the subject of the general's sobriety tended to be wildly conflicting, some claiming he was always drunk, others saying he never touched a drop. The truth appears to be that he would go on binges every rare now and then, generally when he had been away from his wife and family for a long period of time. Secretary of War Stanton was suspicious, as he always was, and so he sent a spy to keep an eye on Grant. Charles Dana, who had been a reporter for Horace Greeley, was sent west under the cover of an inspector for the pay service, though he was really a personal informant for Stanton. Dana arrived in early April and was instantly recognized as a spy. Some hotheads wanted to throw him in the river, but Grant took a relaxed view of the situation and did everything he could to make Dana feel at home.
It proved that Stanton could not have done Grant a bigger favor. Dana quickly took a strong liking to Grant, writing that Grant was "the most modest, the most [politically] disinterested and the most honest man I ever knew, with a temper that nothing could disturb." Dana also thought highly of Sherman and MacPherson, and could not say enough good about them, while he could not speak enough ill of McClernand.
Most of Grant's men liked their commander as well. Grant was undistinguished in appearance, reserved, common-sensible, with no "superfluous flummery". He was no stickler for military formality, nor did he court favor with the soldiers like McClellan. Rather than cheers, most of the soldiers greeted him with a simple: "Pleasant day, General." -- or: "Good morning, General." -- and he would give them a simple nod in return.
Grant was spending nearly all his time holed up in his room on board the headquarters boat, the MAGNOLIA, puffing on cigars and studying maps. MacPherson grew concerned about Grant's obsessive labors and tried to draw him out of the room for a drink or two one night, but Grant gently suggested that if MacPherson really wanted to help, he should leave a dozen cigars and leave him alone. MacPherson did so and Grant returned to his work.
* Grant wasn't the sort of general to leave an army idle when the weather was improving enough for campaigning: not only was the upkeep of an army expensive, but the longer Grant waited the deeper the Confederates would dig in, and the Lincoln Administration's impatience with delay was by this time obvious. Unfortunately, Grant's options were limited.
The straightforward thing to do was to pull back to Memphis and try to advance south along the Mississippi Central Railroad, as he had done in December. However, that would be politically unwise. Falling back to Memphis would be clearly seen as another Union defeat, and besides rebel cavalry would likely descend on his rear, just as they had before, once he advanced. He considered a frontal attack, but decided it would be suicidal. Pemberton's defenses were simply too strong.
Grant finally came up with a solution. Instead of moving north again, he would move his army south, down the west bank of the Mississippi, then run steamships past Vicksburg to shuttle them across the river. The army could live off the land as they advanced on the rebel fortress from the south.
Sherman and MacPherson protested bitterly. Pemberton had 60,000 men under his command, while Grant could only provide 33,000 of his own men for the offensive. Although Grant had over 100,000 men in total, most of them were committed elsewhere. Furthermore, the attackers would be fighting with an uncertain supply line, and with no safe escape route should things go wrong. Ironically, McClernand was wildly enthusiastic about the idea since it matched his own inclinations toward the dramatic. Grant didn't much care if anyone liked it or not; he'd made up his mind. Sherman and MacPherson swallowed their misgivings out of loyalty to their commander.
* The first problem was to move the army 40 miles (64 kilometers) downstream from Milliken's Bend to New Carthage, on the west bank of the Mississippi 20 miles (32 kilometers) south of Vicksburg. Unfortunately, as if to confirm Sherman and MacPherson's fears, the rains continued and the soldiers made slow progress on the muddy roads. Grant was in a hurry, and that meant that at least part of his army would have to be shipped downstream on the river, right under the guns of the Confederates.
Grant had no authority to give Rear Admiral Porter orders, but Porter was enthusiastic, though he told Grant that once the vessels went downstream they would not be able to go back up again as long as the rebels held Vicksburg. They would be sitting ducks, struggling against the current while rebel gunners took careful aim at them.
The first convoy consisted of seven armored gunboats; a captured rebel steam ram; and three transports. It made the run under the guns on the night of 16 April 1863, while Grant, in the company of his wife Julia and two of his sons, watched the action from upstream, just out of range of rebel guns.
Porter had ordered all pets and poultry kept by the crews to be left behind, lest they make noise and alert the rebels. The steam-engine exhausts were also rerouted to vent into the paddle-wheel housings to muffle them, and the vessels were to move as slowly and quietly as possible. Bales of hay and cotton, grain sacks, and logs were piled up on decks as improvised armor, while teams stood by under decks with cotton wads and gunny sacks to plug leaks.
A grand ball was being held that night in Vicksburg. In fact spies had told Porter of the event, and he hoped it would distract the Confederates from his convoy. However, rebel pickets, who were patrolling on the river in skiffs, detected the steamships immediately. The ball was broken up and the soldiers ran to their guns to immediately begin pouring fire on the Union vessels. The Confederates lit barrels of pitch pine on the east side of the river, while some rebels threaded their way across the river in skiffs under the storm of metal to set piles of wood and buildings on the west bank on fire. The steamships were lit up "as if by sunlight", as Grant's son Fred put it, reducing the scene to a vision of Hell.
It took two and a half hours to run the gauntlet. The Confederates fired over 500 shots at the fleet, but casualties were minimal. Only one transport and a few barges failed to make it downstream to New Carthage, and all those on board were saved. No one was killed and only 13 had been wounded. The fleet was greeted enthusiastically by Sherman, who went aboard the gunboat BENTON to greet his friend Porter: "You are more at home here than you were in the ditches grounding on willow trees."
Grant arrived in New Carthage by horse the next day. A week later, six more transports made the run. One, the TIGRESS, was sunk, but there were no men killed and only a few wounded. The campaign was getting off to a promising start. The TIGRESS had also carried three reporters. Sherman hated reporters, one paper saying he "foamed at the mouth" on the subject -- an attitude he had acquired in his Kentucky days when the newspapers had written that he was crazy. Sherman assumed the men had been drowned and was pleased that there were three less "dirty newspaper scribblers" walking the Earth, proclaiming: "We'll have dispatches now from Hell before breakfast!" The reporters had actually been captured. One got away immediately, the other two were imprisoned for 19 months before they managed to escape.
* In any case, Grant was where he wanted to be. He selected a place named Grand Gulf, on the east bank of the river 20 miles (32 kilometers) downstream from New Carthage, as the beachhead for his river crossing and prepared his men for the move. In the meantime, Pemberton, who had reacted quickly to all of Grant's other experiments, was now bewildered.
On 11 April, Pemberton had reported to Richmond that Grant appeared to have given up and gone back to Memphis. Pemberton had been considering the transfer of forces to central Tennessee to reinforce Braxton Bragg on the assumption that Grant was shifting troops to help Rosecrans. Porter's run past Vicksburg on the 16 April didn't fit Pemberton's preconceptions, and he couldn't make any sense of it. Grant had taken a page out of Stonewall Jackson's book to mystify, mislead, and surprise Pemberton.
The outnumbered Grant was taking every measure to make sure Pemberton stayed bamboozled. Grant's futile probes through the Yazoo Delta had at least one positive result: Pemberton had been forced to disperse troops through the region to defend against Yankee incursions, and early in the month Grant had dispatched a division under General Fred Steele to Greenville, 100 miles (160 kilometers) north of Vicksburg on the east bank, to thrash about for a week and keep the rebels in an uproar. Steele's effort was successful, but was overshadowed by a second diversionary effort, one that would prove to be among the most spectacular adventures of the war.
* Federal cavalry had never got much respect; they had certainly never performed the spectacular raids that had so distinguished rebel cavalry commanders like Jeb Stuart and Bedford Forrest. To be sure, the Union troopers were narrowing the gap, as Averell's men had proven at Kelly's Ford in Virginia the month before, but they had never pulled off one of the daring excursions through enemy territory that had made Confederate cavalry a source of pride to the South.
It was time to give the rebels a taste of their own medicine, and the cavalry troopers of Grant's army thought they could do it. Unlike their counterparts back East, Western troopers often had extensive experience as horsemen from growing up on the frontier, and were a match in such skills for the best the Confederate cavalry had to offer. On the morning of 17 April 1863, 1,700 cavalrymen of the 2nd Iowa, 6th Illinois, and 7th Illinois, plus a six-gun battery of 2 pounder artillery left La Grange, Tennessee, just above the Mississippi border, and moved south across the state line, carrying five day's rations. Their mission and objectives were a mystery to all but their commanding officer and his lieutenants.
The commander was 36-year-old Colonel Benjamin H. Grierson, whose background would not have suggested any comparison with Stuart or Forrest. Only a year and a half previously, Grierson had been a musician squeaking out a living as a music teacher in Illinois. He had protested loudly to General Halleck when he was assigned to the 6th Illinois Cavalry in 1861, since Grierson hated horses. He'd been kicked in the face by a pony when he was 8 years old and scarred for life. Yet Grierson seemed to have a natural aptitude for cavalry warfare, and Sherman recommended him in the highest terms to Grant.
Two railroads ran north-south through Mississippi: the Mobile & Ohio, which skirted the Alabama border, and the Mississippi Central, which ran roughly down the middle of the state. They were crossed by the Southern Mississippi Railroad line, which ran east to west, forming a dividing line between the lower third and upper two-thirds of the state. Grierson was to cut these rail lines, tear down telegraph wires and poles, destroy rebel supplies, confuse the enemy, and generally raise hell in the enemy's rear.
Grierson's raiders quickly encountered small detachments of Confederate troops, getting into small clashes. Word got back to the local Confederate cavalry commander, 29-year-old Clark R. Barteau, left in command after Van Dorn was sent off to assist Braxton Bragg in February. Barteau immediately set out after Grierson's troopers. Barteau only had 500 men, but Grierson had no reason to stand and fight; his mission was to cause damage and create confusion, and a clash would slow the Union men down behind enemy lines, only drawing more trouble on to them. On 20 April, Grierson weeded out about 150 of his men who had been injured or become ill and sent them back to La Grange, with orders to cover the tracks of the main force as best they could and lure the Confederates along with them. The "Quinine Brigade" managed to confuse Barteau for the better part of a day.
Grierson wasn't done with the trickery, either. On the next day, 21 April, he ordered the 2nd Iowa Cavalry under Colonel Edward Hatch to split off and make a wide loop towards the rebel base at Columbus, Mississippi, and then back to La Grange. Barteau took up the trail behind Hatch and caught up with him near the town of Palo Alto. A skirmish followed. Hatch outnumbered Barteau by 200 men but decided to retreat; the longer he kept the rebels tied up chasing him, the less trouble they would make for Grierson. Hatch circled back north, drawing Barteau's cavalry into fights and leading them further and further away from Grierson's column. Hatch and his men would return to La Grange on the morning of 26 April, having successfully managed to draw rebel forces away, while Grierson continued south, leaving destruction in his path.
* Grierson's column was preceded by a group of scouts who were dressed as Confederate soldiers, which meant they would have been hanged if captured. The "Butternut Guerrillas", as they were known from their tan-colored uniforms -- not all Confederates wore gray -- scouted out towns ahead of the advance, seized bridges before they could be burned, captured telegraph offices to ensure that no warnings were sent, and located food and forage.
On 22 April, Grierson detached another unit for independent operations. The 35 men of Company B of the 7th Illinois Cavalry under Captain Henry C. Forbes were sent east to the town of Macon, Mississippi, to cut telegraph lines and sow confusion. On 24 April, Grierson's brigade reached the town of Newton Station, on the Southern Mississippi Railroad. Low on supplies by this time, the raiders were happy to capture two trains full of supplies and munitions. They celebrated for a short time, but Grierson ordered them to get to work, trashing the rail junction and burning whatever they couldn't carry off. Pemberton was in Jackson, Mississippi, at this time, and was so fixated on catching Grierson and his men that he had effectively forgotten that Grant was downstream from Vicksburg and up to no good. Pemberton ordered tens of thousands of men into the field to trap the raiders.
Meanwhile, Captain Forbes and Company B were busy on their own. They entered Newton Station 15 hours behind Grierson, but fell for one of Grierson's deceptions themselves and rode east when in fact Grierson had ridden west. Forbes ended riding into the town of Enterprise, southeast of Newton Station, the next day. He had been told there were no Confederates there but found it full of enemy soldiers. Forbes coolly pulled out a white handkerchief, rode up to Confederate headquarters, and demanded in Grierson's name that they surrender. The rebels, confused, asked for an hour to consider it. Forbes agreed and casually rode out of town with his company, shifting to a gallop when they got out of sight. He later wrote: "We never knew officially what the Confederates' reply was, as for reasons best known to themselves they failed to make it reach us. Perhaps it was lack of speed." Company B stopped to eat, but continued their retreat all through the night.
In the meantime, Pemberton had been told that Grierson was east of Newton Station, further confusing him. By this time, after a half day of rest at a plantation, Grierson was in fact moving west in hopes of linking up with Grant at Grand Gulf. He began torching bridges to slow down Confederate pursuit. Captain Forbes and Company B, who were now on Grierson's trail, were in grave danger of being trapped. On 26 April, he sent three men, including his brother Sergeant Stephen Forbes, to ride ahead on fresh horses and try to make contact with the main column.
They rode hard. Night fell and they continued their ride, until they were challenged out of the darkness by a voice with a Northern accent: "Halt! Who goes there?!" The three shouted back: "Company B!" After a moment, the pickets shouted out: "Company B has come back!" A cheer rippled down the column in the darkness. Sergeant Forbes rode up to Colonel Grierson and said: "Captain Forbes presents his compliments and begs to be allowed to burn his bridges for himself." Captain Forbes caught up with a rear guard left by Grierson at a nearby bridge the next day, the 27th. They crossed together, burned the bridge, and then galloped off to rejoin the main column.
On 29 April, Grierson was forced to reconsider his plans. There was no evidence that Grant had made a landing, and captured couriers and dispatches made it clear the rebels were closing in. The only way to escape was to keep on moving south towards Union-controlled Baton Rouge.
By this time the men were exhausted and their horses were failing. They took replacement horses from plantations and farms, but the pace was a killing one, with man and beast strained to the limits of their endurance. They moved as fast as they could and made good progress, only to find on 1 May their way blocked by three companies of Louisiana horse soldiers. A short fight resulted. Grierson brought up artillery and drove the Confederates off, but now the rebels were completely alert and knew where the raiders were. Grierson drove his men all night long, detailing Captain Forbes and his men to bring up the rear and make sure no sleep-drugged stragglers were left behind.
They were only six miles (10 kilometers) out of Baton Rouge when Grierson relented and allowed them to fall out to rest at a nearby plantation. Grierson went into the house and began to play a piano, and then was interrupted by a report that Confederate troops were approaching. Grierson didn't believe it, and went out to meet two companies of Union cavalry cautiously advancing up the road. One of Grierson's men had been carried by his horse into their camp, asleep in the saddle, and they had been sent to confirm the man's story.
The Federal commander in Baton Rouge, Major General Christopher C. Augur, was so impressed that he insisted that Grierson and his men parade through the town. Grierson tried to beg off but General Augur wouldn't take no for an answer, and so the exhausted and dirty men were forced to spend two more hours on horseback. Some things about the military never change.
Grierson and his men had accomplished a remarkable feat, pulling off a highly effective raid that would have done justice to Bedford Forrest -- even scoring one up on him, since Forrest operated in areas where the locals were friendly to the Confederacy, while Grierson's troopers had been surrounded by hostiles. The Federals had ridden over 600 miles (960 kilometers) in 16 days, losing only 26 men while inflicting a hundred casualties on the enemy, and paroling hundreds more prisoners. They destroyed over 50 miles (80 kilometers) of rail and telegraph lines, as well as large quantities of enemy supplies. Most importantly, they kept John Pemberton completely distracted from the actions of Grant, by then rapidly on the move himself. Grierson became famous in the Northern press, and less than two months later he would be promoted to brigadier general.
* Grant's push began early in the morning on 29 April, when Porter's gunboats engaged the Confederate batteries sited on the bluffs above the Mississippi at Grand Gulf. Although appearing enthusiastic to Grant, Porter had been writing his superiors with his misgivings about taking on these batteries, giving himself some cover in case something went wrong, and after a half-day exchange of fire with the rebels had reason to believe he had been proved right. The gunboats took a severe pounding with 75 men were killed or wounded, while the Confederates remained essentially unharmed.
Grant was as usual undisturbed. Since it wasn't safe to cross at Grand Gulf, then he would simply cross someplace else, though Grand Gulf would have to be dealt with soon afterwards since the rebel forces there were a threat to his rear. He organized his men for a crossing and had the steamships run downriver past the rebel batteries at Grand Gulf during the night. Lacking any intelligence on a good place to perform the crossing, he took the simple step of sending men across the river in a small boat to kidnap a local slave.
The slave proved to be intelligent and very cooperative, giving excellent advice on the best place for a landing. He recommended the town of Bruinsburg, observing there was high ground all the way from there to the town of Port Gibson, 10 miles (16 kilometers) inland, where Grant's men could then advance on solid ground to attack Grand Gulf or take whatever other actions their commander considered wise. The next morning, 30 April 1863, one of MacPherson's divisions and all four of McClernand's, a total of 23,000 men, crossed the Mississippi.
* By this time, Pemberton was completely awake to the fact that he had serious trouble on his hands, but was still very much in a fog as to precisely where it was coming from. Grant had followed up Steele's feints and Grierson's raid with a third deception.
On the same morning of 31 April, Sherman performed a major demonstration near Haines' Bluff, not far from Chicksaw Bayou, where he had come to grief in December. Grant had instructed Sherman to decide for himself whether to conduct the feint. Grant had been concerned that it would not only deceive the rebels but the Northern public as well, who might consider it another defeat. Sherman had angrily replied that he cared nothing for what the papers might say. Sherman took a small fleet and the better part of a division up the Yazoo, with the men given orders to "look as numerous as possible." They marched back and forth, went around in circles, crowded the decks of steamships, repeatedly got on and off the vessels, set large numbers of campfires, played their regimental bands for all they were worth, and in general had great fun trying to excite the Confederates.
The Confederates became very excited and hammered the fleet with cannon fire. They inflicted some damage on the riverboats, but all the Yankee vessels and soldiers were pulled out without incident on the evening of 1 May, having suffered few casualties. By the time Pemberton sorted all this out, Grant's men were on the eastern shore of the Mississippi and moving rapidly.
* Farther to the south, Nathaniel Banks was engaged in an adventure of his own, and for once was enjoying considerable success. After Farragut's run upstream on 14 March, Banks had learned that Confederate strength inside Port Hudson was roughly equal to the forces he had available to bring against it.
That would have given better soldiers than Banks reason to consider their options. There was a complication in his calculations as well. Almost half of the 35,000 men in his entire command were nine-month volunteers whose enlistments would expire that summer. Banks had to use them or lose them.
Banks decided to try to bypass Port Hudson. He took his men downstream and in April led them back north along the Bayou Teche, which ran roughly parallel to the Mississippi about 20 miles (32 kilometers) to the west, with the two rivers bracketing the large Grand Lake. Banks wanted to see if he could open a route around Port Hudson, and also hopefully capture Richard Taylor's force of rebels that operated in that area.
Taylor had about 4,000 men in that area, supported by the captured gunboats DIANA and QUEEN OF THE WEST. Banks had 15,000 men in three divisions, supported by four Gulf Squadron gunboats. Banks' men made contact with Taylor's Confederates at the town of Berwick on 11 April, with intermittent skirmishes leading to a full battle on the 13th. Banks failed to capture Taylor and his men, but the rebels were forced to fall back. Banks, for once, had scored a victory that was made more complete when he learned that the Confederates had been forced to abandon and burn the DIANA, and that his gunboats had blown the QUEEN OF THE WEST out of the water on Grand Lake.
The Grand Lake was fed by a river named the Atchafalaya. Two of the Union gunboats were able to navigate the Atchafalaya all the way up to the Red River, giving Banks an alternate connection to the Mississippi around Port Hudson. This feat was of minor importance as long as Vicksburg stood, but the Teche country was fertile, and blessed with resources of timber and salt. As Grierson was raiding Mississippi and Porter was running past Vicksburg, Banks was moving his army up the Teche. Taylor performed a series of rearguard actions but could not seriously harm or even delay the advance. By 20 April, Banks had occupied the town of Opelousas, chasing out the Confederate state government that had taken up residence there.
Banks halted for a few days to rest and refit, as well as recruit more soldiers from the slaves liberated as the Yankees moved up the Teche. Two regiments of these ex-slaves were formed up as the 1st and 3rd Louisiana Guards, with white officers providing command and discipline. Many of their white counterparts wondered how well these newly-minted citizens would hold up in battle, but Banks was content to see for himself when the time came.
During this lull in the fighting, Taylor had moved back to the Red River and occupied a strongpoint named Fort De Russy. On 4 May, the fort was attacked by two of Banks' gunboats and one of Farragut's ships, the ALBATROSS. The Yankees got the worst of it and had to withdraw. The next morning, 5 May, the shot-up vessels met up with several gunboats under the command of Porter, who had come down the Mississippi after helping Grant get his men across the river. That afternoon, the combined fleet went back upstream, only to find Fort De Russy abandoned. Banks had gone on the offensive again and Taylor, faced with being surrounded, had been forced to pull out. The fleet continued upstream on the Red river to Alexandria on 6 May to find that Taylor had continued his withdrawal west. There was no one there to fight. Banks led his men into town a few hours later.
Banks was in high spirits and put on a good appearance for Porter, who described him as: "A handsome, soldierly-looking man, though rather theatrical in his style of dress." Banks may have been nowhere near the general that Grant was, but at least he more looked the part than the shabby Grant. However, Banks had still accomplished something of substance: seizing the Teche for the Union and opening up the door to the Red river. The Red would have to wait, though. Opening up the Mississippi was the first priority.
Grant was sending urgent messages to Banks, calling for a joint drive on Vicksburg. Banks replied, agreeing with Grant in sentiment, but honestly pleaded that due to lack of both land and water transport he didn't have a "shadow of a chance" of making it happen. The most he would promise was a supporting drive on Port Hudson, and he diligently set himself to the task.
* The Navy Department had continued to feed new ironclads to Rear Admiral Samuel DuPont in the expectation that he would use the warships to deal with Charleston, South Carolina, once and for all. DuPont was not so enthusiastic. The test attacks on Fort McAllister had been entirely inconclusive. While the monitors had proven they could take a pounding, so had the fort.
In the case of Charleston harbor, the ironclads would have to take a much heavier pounding than they could deliver. The prewar defenses had been fairly well-developed, and under Pemberton and then Beauregard they had been greatly and deviously strengthened until the harbor was, in the words of one Union naval officer, a "circle of fire ... a porcupine's quills turned outside in." The monitors in particular had low rates of fire and only two guns, if admittedly big ones; they would easily take a dozen hits for every shot they fired themselves.
The Navy Department still demanded action, and so on 6 April 1863 DuPont led his fleet into Charleston harbor. He had nine ironclads: his flagship, the big NEW IRONSIDES, which was a regular broadside warship built of iron and likely the most powerful fighting vessel in the world at the time; seven monitors; and a oddity named the KEOKUCK, which was something like a monitor on the cheap. It was lightly armored, with twin towers each containing an 11 inch (28 centimeter) gun that was pivoted internally to fire out shuttered ports.
The attack didn't get off to a good start. Bad weather forced the fleet back outside the bar for a day, and due to tides it wasn't until noon on 9 April that the ships finally made it inside the harbor, dogged by various small mishaps. The ironclads focused their fire on Fort Sumter, or at least tried to. They only got off 139 shots while the Confederates hammered them with more than 2,200 in return. After an hour of firing, Du Pont called for a withdrawal and the ships pulled out.
It had been a perfect fiasco. The NEW IRONSIDES, with the heaviest broadside of all the Union vessels, had suffered from steering problems and hadn't fired a shot, and the KEOKUCK had been pounded full of holes. Du Pont wanted to renew the attack in the morning, but after talking with his captains found out that all the ironclads had taken a terrible beating. Many of the ships were incapable of action, and if one were crippled inside Charleston harbor the rebels would certainly get their hands on it and use it to challenge the blockade. DuPont called it off, with the total support of all the captains.
The KEOKUK did sink in shallow water the next day, but it wasn't much of warship and it was no great loss. Only one Union man was killed in the entire fight, with 22 others injured; rebel casualties were four killed, 10 wounded. It could have been worse. The stalled NEW IRONSIDES had ended up floating directly over a 3,000 pound (1,360 kilogram) electrically-detonated torpedo that the Confederates, to their frustration, could not set off.
Du Pont's failure to press the attack and the light casualties did not improve his standing in the Navy Department. He was further embarrassed when the rebels managed to salvage the two 11 inch (28 centimeter) guns on board the sunken KEOKUCK under the noses of the Yankee fleet. The Confederates worked quietly at nights for two weeks, and though some Federal officers became aware of the operation, they were too lazy to put a stop to it.
Navy Secretary Gideon Welles sent Du Pont a scathing letter. Du Pont, realizing that he was in a no-win game, replied with his resignation. Beauregard, in contrast, was in prime form, basking in praise. Taking heed of criticism over his tendency towards bombast, he presented his report on the fight in a matter-of-fact fashion, but he still could not resist trumpeting his victory over the "iron-mailed, terribly armed armada".
