v1.1.1 / chapter 46 of 93 / 01 sep 07 / greg goebel / public domain
* Union General Ulysses Grant had seemingly thrown caution to the winds in his attack on Vicksburg by jumping deep into enemy territory with little thought of support. Success depended on moving fast and hitting hard. To the south, Nathaniel Banks moved against Port Hudson. The Union was now chopping hard at the last obstacles to complete Federal control of the Mississippi.
* The 23,000 men that Ulysses Grant had moved east across the Mississippi on 30 April 1863 didn't match the numbers of Confederates in the region, but they were all Grant had available for the moment. Union reinforcements were on the way but Grant couldn't wait for them: Pemberton's men were confused and disoriented by Grant's raids and diversions, and Grant wanted to keep them off balance.
The first item of business for the Federals was to take out the Confederate garrison at Grand Gulf, and McClernand moved out with his corps that afternoon to deal with them. The Confederate commander at Grand Gulf, 32-year-old General John S. Bowen, who had once been a neighbor of Grant's in Saint Louis, sent a brigade down the road to the far side of a town named Port Gibson to confront the Yankees.
The two forces made tentative contact as darkness was falling and so serious fighting had to wait until morning, 1 May. Bowen was completely outnumbered and was forced to fall back that afternoon. He managed to inflict 900 casualties on the Federals at the cost of 800 of his own men. Bowen evacuated Grand Gulf a few days later, giving Grant a little breathing space while he waited for Sherman to arrive.
Grant also had to think of what to do with his 12-year-old son Fred, who had talked his way on board the second group of ships that had run past Vicksburg. Fred had since been demonstrating considerable resourcefulness in catching up with his father. The boy arrived with Charles Dana shortly after the fighting around Port Gibson, with the two of them mounted on a pair of big old plow horses. Since telling Fred to go back home was clearly not going to work, Grant simply shrugged and let him tag along.
* Grant's original plan was to link up with Nathaniel Banks, and then their combined forces would fall on Vicksburg and Port Hudson in sequence. However, as discussed earlier, Banks replied that though he was sympathetic to the idea of a combined operation, he didn't have the transport to move his men to Grant in a useful period of time. In reality, though the lack of transport may have been a factor, Banks was worried that Confederate forces would move on New Orleans once his army had gone north to help Grant.
To Grant, Banks' refusal was just as well in some ways. Banks outranked Grant and would be in charge if the two generals joined forces, and though Banks had been doing well on the Teche he was certainly not the best general the Yankees had. Grant later wrote: "I therefore determined to move independently of Banks, cut loose from my base, destroy the rebel force in the rear of Vicksburg and invest or capture the city." Grant sent off a message to Halleck describing his plans, even though he knew Halleck would disapprove, since if Pemberton and Joe Johnston joined forces the rebels would substantially outnumber Grant's force. The message was no more than a formality, since the nearest Federal telegraph station was in Cairo, Illinois, about 400 miles (645 kilometers) upriver. By the time Halleck's response came back, Grant would be in the thick of it.
The plan did seem to have holes in it. While Grant had his men seize every farm wagon, buggy, cart, or other vehicle they could get their hands on, there was only one road leading from Grand Gulf. Sherman, having just arrived with his corps, warned Grant that it would be impossible to supply 50,000 men over a single road. Grant replied: "I do not calculate upon the possibility of supplying the army with full rations from Grand Gulf. I know it will be impossible without constructing additional roads. What I do expect, however, is to get up what rations of hard bread, coffee and salt we can, and make the country furnish the balance." Sherman was uneasy with the idea, but decided to do what he could to make it work.
Grant's men were already expert foragers. All Grant's supply strategy meant was that they didn't have to conceal their looting, and they were energetic in their thievery. A farmer rode up to a division commander on a mule and complained that Yankee soldiers had stolen all he owned; the general replied deadpan: "Well, those men didn't belong to by division at all, because if they were my men wouldn't have left you that mule."
Grant's army was still poorly equipped in many ways, with men lacking blankets, tents, or sometimes even shoes. Whatever their condition, it was important to move quickly. Joe Johnston, still in Tullahoma, Tennessee, was already sending messages to Pemberton, suggesting that he consolidate his forces and crush the Federals before they isolated Vicksburg. Confederate reinforcements were in fact already building up in Jackson, Mississippi, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) due east of Vicksburg. Grant decided to march on Jackson and drive off those reinforcements.
Pemberton remained befuddled. The Big Black river flowed southwest between Vicksburg and Jackson to empty into the Mississippi. Pemberton assumed incorrectly that Grant intended to move directly on Vicksburg, and so began to set up fortifications west of the river to block such an advance. Pemberton moved out of Vicksburg with 20,000 men, leaving 10,000 behind for the defense of the city, and organized them behind the Big Black to wait for Grant's attack. He also ordered a brigade of 2,500 men under General John Gregg to move from Port Hudson to Jackson, pick up the reinforcements there, and then march west to strike Grant's expected attack from the rear.
Gregg's men had reached the town of Raymond, 15 miles (24 kilometers) west of Jackson, when they made contact with McPherson's 10,000-man XVII Corps to the west of the town early on 12 May. Gregg assumed that the Federals in front of him were merely a feint and threw his men forward. The rebels hit McPherson's men hard and threw them into confusion, almost sending them fleeing in panic. Then Black Jack Logan showed up.
36-year-old Major General John A. Logan was in command of McPherson's 3rd Division. He was a "political general", an Illinois lawyer who had become a Congressman and had swung a military appointment. While many political generals were inept, Logan was a natural leader. He was fearless, powerfully built, and had a long black moustache and long black hair that gave him his nickname. Black Jack galloped into the middle of the crumbling line, and with "the shriek of an eagle" rallied his men for a counterattack. The fighting was fierce, with the muzzles of the rifles of the two sides crossing at points of contact. The Union men were now aroused, and their superior numbers quickly began to roll over the rebels. By mid-afternoon Gregg's men had been forced back to Raymond.
The Federals had suffered almost 450 casualties, the Confederates over 500. Gregg had lost a fifth of his men and knew he faced complete annihilation. He ordered his men to pull back to Jackson. The citizens of Raymond had prepared a great picnic for Gregg's men. McPherson's men found it waiting for them when they swept into town, and had a quick feast before they continued in pursuit of their defeated enemy.
* The next morning Joe Johnston arrived in Jackson, after four days of roundabout railroad travel, only to find Gregg's demoralized soldiers straggling into town, with the Federals not far behind them. With reinforcements arriving Johnston would soon have 12,000 men in Jackson, but McPherson's and Sherman's corps numbered about 20,000. The Federals had already successfully cut all communications between Pemberton and Johnston. Johnston wired Richmond: I AM TOO LATE.
On the morning of 14 May, as a drenching rain fell from the sky, Johnston began to pull his troops north out of Jackson. He left General Gregg behind with two brigades and a regiment as a rear-guard. McPherson made contact at about noon. Gregg's men managed to put up effective resistance until they were finally overrun by a howling bayonet charge. The American flag was soon flying from the dome of the state capitol building in the town. The fight for Jackson had cost the Federals about 300 men, the Confederates about 200. The town fell so rapidly that the citizens didn't realize things were going badly until they saw Union soldiers in the streets.
The Yankees sacked the place. Jackson was a Confederate manufacturing center and had to be eliminated. A Northern reporter with the penny-dreadful name of Sylvanus Cadwallader wrote: "Foundries, machine shops, warehouses, factories, arsenals, and public stores were fired as fast as flames could be kindled." Sherman's men paid special attention to ruining the rail lines through the town. They tore up the tracks, lit bonfires with the ties, and softened the rails enough to wrap them around trees. The twisted rails would become a trademark of Sherman's men, being named "Sherman bowties". That night, Grant slept in the same hotel room that had been occupied by Joe Johnston the night before.
* Grant's speed and decisiveness had driven a wedge between Johnston and Pemberton. It was brilliant generalship, with an inferior force falling on a component of a superior one and dealing it a blow. However, Johnston's force was still essentially intact, and the success at Jackson had to be followed up swiftly.
Grant was greatly helped in his own plans by the fact that he knew what Joe Johnston was thinking. Some time before, a citizen of Memphis had been branded a rebel sympathizer and thrown out of that city by Federal authorities, and the man had quickly been recruited as a Confederate courier. However, the expulsion had been staged and the man was a Yankee spy. Johnston had given him a message to carry to Pemberton, but the message ended up in Grant's hands instead. In the message, Johnston ordered Pemberton to link up with him and smash Sherman and his corps, which he believed, wrongly, was in the town of Clinton. Grant was perfectly happy to let them try. He sent the message on its way to Pemberton, then ordered McClernand to march north with his XIII Corps and get between the two rebel forces. McPherson was ordered to take XVII Corps and reinforce McClernand.
In the meanwhile, Pemberton was still confused. He first ordered his men to march south and cut Grant's supply line; then, on prodding from Johnston, he reconsidered and sent them north to link up with Johnston's forces. Pemberton's troops collided with McClernand's and McPherson's men on the morning of 16 May, at a hill on a farm owned by a local named Sid Champion.
* Pemberton had 23,000 men, the Federals 32,000. Although the rebels had little warning they managed to set up a good defensive line, making skillful use of the terrain. The Confederate defense stretched over 6 miles (10 kilometers), in the form of a vee roughly centered Champion's Hill, with a commanding view of the terrain below. The northern side of the vee was held by Major General Carter L. Stevenson; the center around Champion's Hill by General John Bowen; and the southeast side of the vee by Major General William W. "Old Blizzards" Loring.
The fighting began in earnest when a Union division under Major General Andrew Jackson Smith made contact with Loring's men. The two sides quickly became tied up in a hot firefight. However, the decisive action was to the north: Grant sent Logan's division of McPherson's corps against the Champion's Hill strongpoint from the north, while most of McClernand's XIII Corps attacked it from the east. In fact, only one of McClernand's divisions managed to get into the fight, but it was led by the aggressive Brigadier General Alvin P. Hovey. The two Federal divisions went into action at about 10:30 AM. The rebels were stretched thin and quickly gave way.
On coming to the crest of Champion's Hill, a Federal brigade under Brigadier General George F. McGinnis found themselves confronted with six rebel batteries, loaded and ready to fire. Thinking quickly, McGinnis ordered his men to fall to the ground. The guns fired a cloud of canister over their heads, and then the Union men got up and rushed them. A Mississippi battery managed to get off another load of canister before the batteries were all overrun and captured.
With his defense caving in, at about 1:00 PM Pemberton called on Bowen and Loring to send reinforcements to the center. Both generals protested that they were heavily threatened themselves, but Pemberton repeated the order, and at 1:30 PM Bowen moved north with his troops. Loring stayed where he was. Bowen's men counterattacked, screaming the rebel yell, rushing the Federals with what one Union man called "terrific fierceness". They hit the Yankees hard and the Union attack began to fall back. They gave ground reluctantly: Lieutenant Colonel R.F. Barter of the 24th Indiana took the regimental colors himself to rally his men and was shot down, badly wounded. 201 of the 500 men in his regiment fell in a matter of minutes.
Grant threw in reinforcements, consisting of two brigades from McPherson's XVII Corps. One regiment among them, the 5th Iowa, threw off everything they carried except for guns and cartridge boxes and charged up the hill, shouting like madmen. As they were going up the hill, they met scores of wounded coming back down. The wounded were still excited and enthusiastic, shouting at the reinforcements to "wade in and give them hell!"
Both sides were eager for the fight and blasted away at each other for an hour. An Iowa sergeant wrote later of the combat delirium that seized the men: "Every human instinct is carried away by a torrent of passion, kill, kill, KILL, seems to fill your heart and be written all over the face of nature." Rebel and Yankee soldiers fired until they had used up their ammunition and then stole more from the dead to keep on fighting.
On the northern side of the battle, Federal soldiers were starting to waver when Black Jack Logan showed up on his horse like a "cyclone" and rallied them with language that "savored a little of brimstone." An officer protested: "The Rebels are awful thick up there!" Logan replied: "Dammit, that's the place to kill them -- where they are thick!"
At about 2:30 PM McClernand sent another division under Brigadier General Peter J. Osterhaus from the east to attack Bowen's flank. Pemberton went to Loring to personally order him to come to Bowen's aid, but by this time the rebel defense was crumbling and Confederate soldiers were fleeing the battlefield. There was nothing for Pemberton to do but pull out fast. The Federals were moving to cut off Pemberton's line of retreat, but he managed to find an opening. He left a brigade under Brigadier General Lloyd Tilghman, who had surrendered Fort Henry 15 months earlier and later been returned to the Confederacy on a prisoner exchange, as a rear guard. Pemberton's forces managed to make good their escape, since the Yankees were unable to organize for an attack on Tilghman and his men. However, Tilghman was killed by a shell fragment, making him one of the last men to die in the battle.
Loring's division was separated in the fight but finally managed to make their way to link up with Joe Johnston's force near Jackson. Pemberton blamed Loring for the defeat, but Johnston defended Loring and no action was ever taken against him.
It had been a terrible battle. The Confederates took over 3,800 casualties, while Grant reported over 2,400. As General Alvin Hovey was inspecting his badly-injured division, he found a group of soldiers carrying the colors of his old regiment, the 24th Indiana. "Where are the rest of my boys?" he asked. One pointed to the dead men littering the hill and replied: "They are lying over there." Hovey turned his horse away and wept. He would say: "I cannot think of this bloody hill without sadness and pride."
* Pemberton fled over the Big Black River near the town of Bovina, about 10 miles (16 kilometers) west of Champion's hill. He took pains to build defenses on the east bank of the river and manned them with a fresh Tennessee brigade, while the rest of his badly-beaten troops went across over a bridge and on a small steamer.
The Confederate position was a strong one and should have been formidable, but Pemberton's men were demoralized and the Yankees were on a roll. McClernand's men encountered the rebel defenses on the morning of 17 May and did not hesitate to attack. The assault was led by an oversized Irish brigadier general named Mike Lawler, who was a brawler all through. Charles Dana said of him: "He is as brave as a lion, and has as much brains." Boldness was all that was needed, however, and Lawler sent his men in on a furious bayonet charge that simply swept over the Confederate rearguard. They quickly surrendered.
There were only about 200 rebel casualties, but over 1,750 were captured. There were a little less than 300 Federal casualties. One of the wounded was young Fred Grant, who had been nicked in the leg by a bullet. When an officer asked him what was wrong, he replied: "I am killed."
* All Pemberton could do then was fall back towards Vicksburg, 12 miles (19 kilometers) away, with the beaten men retreating in pain and humiliation. Grant and Sherman, who had just followed up the rest of the army from Jackson, were exhuberant. Sherman had no more doubts about his leader. The two rode well ahead of the body of their men to the north of Vicksburg, where they planned to set up a base.
They soon found themselves overlooking the bluffs where Sherman had come to frustration back in December. Sherman told Grant that he had felt grave doubts about the wisdom of Grant's strategy, but now he felt that he had just been through "one of the greatest campaigns in history."
That afternoon, the defeated rebels began to flood back into Vicksburg, to the dismay of the citizenry. A distressed woman asked a soldier: "Where are you going?" He replied: "We are whipped." replied. The weary men, along with civilians fleeing the advancing Federals, continued to march into town in a state of confusion and disorganization until late that night. The soldiers and the townspeople all blamed Pemberton for the defeat.
Pemberton was discouraged but nowhere near giving up. Joe Johnston had urged him to abandon Vicksburg, writing to Pemberton: "Instead of losing both troops and place, we must save the troops." However, Pemberton called a council of war, and his officers all voted to stay. They would hold Vicksburg as long as possible.
Seven miles (eleven kilometers) of defenses had been built around the city. Pemberton put his men to work bringing them to the highest readiness. Encouraged by the increasingly strong fortifications, Pemberton's men began to recover their morale. Pemberton had a total of 30,000 men, providing him with plenty of manpower to hold out against Grant.
* Grant launched his first attack on the city's defenses on the morning of 19 May and got a nasty reception. McClernand's corps was sent in from the east while McPherson and Sherman sent their men in from the north. The terrain was rough, covered with thick underbrush, cut by deep ravines, and littered with trees cut down by the Confederates as obstructions. Only Sherman's corps was able to make any progress, and not very much at that in the face of heavy fire. By nightfall, it was obvious the attack was a failure. The Federals had lost almost a thousand men, while Pemberton only lost about 250. Still, neither Grant nor in general his men were discouraged. They had beaten the rebels in the field and felt they could beat them in Vicksburg.
For two days Grant's men consolidated their positions around Vicksburg in preparation for an assault, clearing away obstacles and bridging ditches. A road was also built to the steamboat landing at Chicksaw Bluffs. Grant's men had been living off the countryside, but a big army eats a lot and the pickings were getting slim. A more predictable source of food and other supplies was an absolute necessity. In fact, the Union soldiers were getting hungry, or possibly just sick of the rich food they had been stealing from Mississippi farmers. When Grant was inspecting the lines, the men set up a chant of: "Hardtack! Hardtack!" Grant told them that once the road was completed, there would be plenty of bread and coffee. The soldiers cheered.
Grant scheduled his second attack on Vicksburg for the morning of Friday, 22 May. After sunrise, Federal batteries and gunboats began a steady shelling of Confederate defenses that lasted four hours. At 10:00 AM, the firing faded out, and masses of Union soldiers rose from their trenches, bayonets fixed, running toward the rebel defenses with loud hurrahs. The Confederates held their fire until Grant's men were well in range and then poured rifle fire and canister into their ranks. The Federals didn't have a chance. Though some of them actually made it to the edge of the city's defenses, they were too weak to hang on and were quickly dislodged by counterattacks.
Under such brutal conditions, there were remarkable incidents of heroism. A regiment of Texans holding the Vicksburg lines mowed down the Yankees in front of them, strewing the ground with dead and wounded. Then, out of the smoke, a lone Union private, Thomas H. Higgins of the 99th Illinois, marched forward carrying the Stars & Stripes. The stress of battle had somehow overcome Higgins' instinct for self-preservation, for he marched forward over the bodies of his comrades straight toward the rebels as if he were on parade. The Texans were astounded. Some called out: "Don't shoot that man!" Others cried: "Come on, you brave Yank!"
Higgins, having gone forward with every reasonable expectation of death, could not turn around and go back. They captured him, and he became a hero even among the Confederates, who brought him before Pemberton to receive the general's regards. Higgins would be later awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor, with the citation based partly on testimony by Confederates.
Even if many more Yankees had been as bold as Higgins, the attack was hopeless. Experienced soldiers recognized the futility of the attack and refused to advance. Those who had advanced into range of enemy fire were dead, wounded, or pinned down in the hot Mississippi sun. By early afternoon, Grant himself had to admit that the battle was hopeless. McClernand was more optimistic, reporting success and asking for reinforcements. Grant told Sherman: "I don't believe a word of it." McClernand insisted, and Grant ordered another push. It was another session of futile bloodletting, and after that nobody had any illusions that the door to Vicksburg was going to swing open easily.
Grant lost almost 3,200 men, with over 500 killed. Pemberton lost less than 500. Grant was furious at McClernand, though to an extent McClernand was a convenient scapegoat for the day's failures. In fact, in a staggering demonstration of thoughtlessness, Grant did not even bother to ask Pemberton for a cease-fire so that the Union dead and wounded could be picked up. They remained on the field for three days and Pemberton, appalled by the stench and misery in front of his lines, had to propose a ceasefire to Grant. Grant had a strong callous streak, and the suffering of his men was not high on his list of concerns. All he wanted was to take Vicksburg: "We'll have to dig our way in."
* While David Dixon Porter had not been able to contribute directly to Grant's whirlwind advance through Mississippi, he was thoroughly prepared to assist once the general returned.
On 20 May, Porter had sent four of his river gunboats upstream to the Yazoo to ensure that the Confederates were not preparing another nasty surprise like the ARKANSAS. They were, but when the Yankee gunboats returned on the 23rd, they reported that the rebels had burned their naval yard at Yazoo City on the approach of the Federals, destroying three warships under construction. This was satisfying, but Porter wasn't inclined to let the pressure off the rebels and sent the gunboats back upstream to destroy steamships, sawmills, and anything else of value. When the gunboats returned, the Confederates had no means of resupplying Vicksburg by water even if the way had been cleared.
With the siege of the city under way, Porter set his sailors to assisting in the bombardment, but matters did not go quite as easily. On 27 May, Porter sent the CINCINNATI to investigate a suspected rebel artillery battery near the Vicksburg landings, and found that artillery battery to be only too alive and well. The CINCINNATI took several hits and sank. 20 of her crew were killed and 14 were wounded. Porter took the sinking of the gunboat casually: war involved losses. He kept other gunboats pounding the besieged rebels in Vicksburg.
* Downstream at Port Hudson, Nathaniel Banks was engaged in a fight of his own that echoed the battle upriver. On 14 May, he put the forces he had taken up the Teche to the Red river on the move, marching from Alexandria on the Red east towards the Mississippi, where they would move south down the west bank of the river and cross a few miles north of Port Hudson.
Banks did not accompany them. He took a train to New Orleans, intending to take Union forces in Baton Rouge up the Mississippi to catch Port Hudson in a pincher movement between troops marching north and south. Although coordinating the movements of two widely-separated forces is notoriously difficult, Banks' new-found military luster seemed to be staying as shiny as his boots. The two forces met up on schedule on 25 May and encircled the town. On 27 May 1863, Banks launched a full-scale assault.
The rebel garrison at Port Hudson was under the command of General Franklin Gardner, a Northerner from Iowa who had married a Louisiana woman and sided with the South. His command had been reduced by desperate calls for manpower to fight Grant to less than 6,000 men. In fact, Gardner had all but abandoned Port Hudson on 4 May, only to be told to return. Joe Johnston had then written an order on 19 May to instruct Gardner to pull out, but by the time the order reached Port Hudson Gardner was surrounded.
Banks was in a hurry to take Port Hudson. He believed that the rebels might be taken off balance by a fast and furious assault, and besides he had only left a skeleton force behind to hold New Orleans; if the rebels decided to move against the city, they could cut him off at the rear. The attack began with a bombardment by 90 guns, assisted by the fire of Farragut's fleet. Farragut had been at Port Hudson since 8 May, when he had bombarded the place for three days, to very little effect. Despite the poor results of the earlier bombardment, Farragut rarely turned down a fight and his sailors did all they could to help.
The bombardment went well, but when the Union soldiers went forward they found themselves in a tangled maze of ravines choked with fallen timber and tangled magnolia groves, pounded by heavy grape and canister fire from the defenders. The Confederate defenses were skillfully laid out and murderously strong. One of the Federals later called it a "gigantic bush-whack". By noon, the attack was clearly fizzling, but Banks was determined to press on even as his chances were fading. The attacks were futile, though his two black regiments, the 1st and 3rd Louisiana Native Guards, in the first trial of black Union troops in a major battle, acquitted themselves well under miserable circumstances, losing a quarter of their number.
At the end of the day, the Federals had suffered 1,995 casualties, in contrast to 235 Confederates. One of the Union wounded was General Thomas Sherman, whose division had somehow not been informed of the attack plans. After a blistering dressing-down by Banks, Sherman led his men into battle on his horse, and quickly lost his leg. Riding tall in front of his men was grand and courageous, but as most officers still among the living had learned by then, it wasn't very practical. Banks quickly called a truce with Gardner so that the Union wounded could be collected off the battlefield, and asked for and was granted an extension when the ugly job of picking up the dead and wounded proved more difficult than expected.
The losses convinced Banks that the defense of Port Hudson were almost "impregnable", as he wrote Grant, and he added that his men had "done all that could be expected or required of any similar force." He asked Grant for a brigade of reinforcements if it could be spared, though Banks knew that was unlikely. He remained determined to take Port Hudson, and like Grant upriver settled in for a siege, putting his men to digging siegeworks and pounding the Confederate fortress with shot and shell.
