Champion Hill: Decisive Battle for Vicksburg

Also by Timothy B. Smith

This Great Battlefield of Shiloh: History, Memory, and the

Establishment of a Civil War National Military Park

© 2006 by Timothy B. Smith

© Maps 2006 by Theodore P. Savas

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Printed in the United States of America.

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First Savas Beatie paperback edition 2006

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9—07 06 05 04 03

To my mother and father

Contents

Foreword

Preface / Acknowledgments

Chapter 1: Trial and Error

Chapter 2: Port Gibson

Chapter 3: Raymond

Chapter 4: Jackson

Chapter 5: Prelude

Chapter 6: Commencement

Chapter 7: Trapped

Chapter 8: Collapse

Chapter 9: Counterattack

Chapter 10: Procrastination

Chapter 11: Retreat

Chapter 12: Tally

Chapter 13: Aftermath

Postscript: Thereafter

Appendix: Order of Battle

Notes

Photographic Gallery

Bibliography

Index

Maps and Photographs

Maps and photographs are located throughout for the convenience of the reader. A gallery of modern photographs begins on page 462.

Foreword

ON MAY 16, 1863, JOHN A. LEAVY, A CONFEDERATE SURGEON IN THE Army of Vicksburg, took pen in hand to write in the pages of his diary critical observations of Lt. Gen. John C. Pemberton and the battle of Champion Hill. To-day proved to the nation the value of a general, he began. Pemberton is either a traitor, or the most incompetent officer in the Confederacy. Indecision, Indecision, Indecision. He lamented, We have been badly defeated where we might have given the enemy a severe repulse. We have been defeated in detail, and have lost, O God! how many brave and gallant soldiers. Leavy’s sentiments were echoed by hundreds of soldiers clad in butternut and gray who on that day and into the next streamed toward the Confederate Gibraltar on the Mississippi River cursing their commanding general stating, It’s all Pem’s fault.

News of Confederate defeat spread as wildfire throughout the city. Mrs. Emma Balfour, a Vicksburg socialite, wrote with trembling hand, My pen almost refuses to tell of our terrible disaster of yesterday…. We are defeated—our army in confusion and the carnage, awful! Whole batteries and brigades taken prisoners—awful! Awful!

Details of the engagement at Champion Hill were slowly pieced together by the shocked citizenry of Vicksburg. To those who listened to the woeful details of battle, one fact became apparent. The incisive Mrs. Balfour, sensitive of the discontentment with General Pemberton being freely expressed by soldiers and officers alike, recorded the essence of failure with these words: I knew from all I saw and heard that it was want of confidence in the General commanding that was the cause of our disaster. Late that night, overcome by emotion, she confided her fears to the pages of her diary as she wrote, What is to become of all the living things in this place…shut up as in a trap…God only knows. Mrs. Balfour’s perception of affairs proved both accurate and ominous, for less than two months later, the Stars and Bars atop the courthouse in Vicksburg was replaced by the Stars and Stripes.

The momentous events that transpired in Mississippi in the late spring and early summer of 1863 were largely ignored by the Northern press. Overshadowed by the bloodier, but less significant actions in the Eastern Theater at Chancellorsville and Gettysburg, the campaign for control of the Mississippi River failed to gain the national attention merited by such a large scale and complex operation. A century would pass before British military historian J. F. C. Fuller, in writing of the Vicksburg campaign, declared, The drums of Champion’s Hill sounded the doom of Richmond.

Despite General Fuller’s observation, only a few stalwart historians, most notable of whom are Edwin C. Bearss (author of the monumental three-volume work The Vicksburg Campaign) and Warren Grabau (whose work Ninety-eight Days: A Geographer’s View of the Vicksburg Campaign stands as the most analytical volume on the military operations that focused on Vicksburg) have ventured to analyze the impact of Champion Hill on the Vicksburg campaign and the fate of the Confederate nation. Perhaps more significant than any larger or bloodier action of the Civil War, the Battle of Champion Hill was the decisive action of the campaign for Vicksburg, led directly to the fall of the Confederate bastion on the Mississippi River and, truly, sealed the fate of Richmond. Thus the battle that raged on the heights of Champion Hill on May 16, 1863, warrants further investigation.

Tim Smith has risen to the challenge to help fill this void in the vast field of literature on the Civil War and adds a desperately needed volume to the scholarly works available on the Vicksburg campaign. With a talented pen, he has produced the first ever full-length study on the Battle of Champion Hill. Tapping on scores of previously untouched sources, the author has woven a tapestry worthy of this action, and the delightful mix of detail and human interest will thrill the general reader and intrigue the serious student of the Civil War.

This volume appears at an important point in time as attention to the battlefield is at its height from competing interests. Long undisturbed, the pastoral setting of Champion Hill is now being dotted with residential development that threatens this hallowed ground and will serve to deprive future generations of a site where events crucial to the history of this nation occurred. The level of development now threatening Champion Hill has led to its listing among the Ten Most Endangered Battlefields by the Civil War Preservation Trust and a similar listing among state-wide endangered historic sites by the Mississippi Heritage Trust.

Thankfully, that same development has ignited efforts to preserve the field of action that have thus far achieved significant results. The Conservation Fund, utilizing a generous grant from the Richard King Mellon Foundation, has secured more than 800 acres of the battlefield. This acreage has been generously given to the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, and could someday become the nucleus of a national military park. The Jackson Civil War Round Table, which expended its limited financial resources to save the Coker House (one of only two historic structures on the battlefield today), has turned the once-proud home over to the state of Mississippi. And the legislature in Jackson has appropriated sizeable funds for restoration of the Coker House and for battlefield preservation efforts statewide. Thus the preservation community is now locked in a struggle with developers, the outcome of which is of equal importance to posterity as the bloody conflict that was waged by Americans in blue and gray almost a century and a half ago.

Dr. Smith’s work, which places Champion Hill within the broader and complex context of the Vicksburg campaign, serves to deepen our understanding of the significance of the battle and will enhance public awareness of our nation’s rich Civil War heritage. May it also fuel preservation initiatives and help crown those efforts with success, so that Americans for generations ahead are heart-drawn to see where and by whom great things were suffered and done for them, shall come to this deathless field, to ponder and dream.

Terrence J. Winschel

May 2004

Preface

FEW HISTORIANS DISPUTE THE PREMISE THAT THE VICKSBURG campaign was one of the most important operations of the Civil War. Ulysses S. Grant’s victory opened the Mississippi River for the Union, captured an entire enemy army, propelled Grant and several of his top subordinates into national prominence, led Grant to his victories at Chattanooga and eventually east against Robert E. Lee, and devastated Southern morale. During the researching and writing phase of this book, several people asked me why I was not writing about the entire campaign instead of a detailed battle history of its largest and most important engagement. The answer is a simple one. Many more qualified historians than I have spent entire careers exploring and writing on the campaign. Chief among them are Edwin Bearss, Terrence Winschel, Warren Grabau, and Michael Ballard.

Ed Bearss served as Vicksburg’s park historian for many years and thereafter as National Park Service’s chief historian. Ed has probably studied the campaign more deeply and longer than anyone else, and has written extensively about it. Indeed, his crowning achievement is The Vicksburg Campaign, a massive three-volume work published by Morningside in 1985-1986. Terry Winschel serves as the current Vicksburg park historian. Terry has made a career of Vicksburg and has produced fine monographs on the subject, including Triumph & Defeat: The Vicksburg Campaign(Savas Publishing, 1999, reissued in paper in 2004), and Vicksburg is the Key: The Struggle for the Mississippi River, with William Shea (University of Nebraska Press, 2003). Many more fine studies await Terry’s pen. Warren Grabau’s Ninety-Eight Days: A Geographer’s View of the Vicksburg Campaign(University of Tennessee Press, 2000) is a definitive geographical study of the campaign. Mike’s outstanding treatment of the Confederate commander in Pemberton: A Biography(University Press of Mississippi, 1991), is available, and he is nearing completion of what may become the campaign’s definitive single volume account. The Vicksburg campaign is in good hands, and I am not in a position to improve upon any of this work.

However, the important battles that made up this complex and important campaign have not yet found their way into print. And at the top of that list is Champion Hill. Without a thorough understanding of the marching and fighting that led the respective armies to Champion Hill, together with an appreciation of the tactical aspects of what transpired on May 16, 1863, it is impossible to fully understand the campaign itself. Champion Hill was the key to the entire operation, and as such it deserves a book of its own. My objective was to evaluate the original sources, walk the ground, and write the history of the battle. As one might expect, many of my conclusions agree with what others have written in broader studies about the Champion Hill combat; some of my interpretations and conclusions, however, differ from what others have written.

As noted above, many fine historians have written about the Vicksburg campaign and have placed it in its proper military, political, economic, and social context. Anyone searching for social, economic, or political history in this volume will, for the most part, be disappointed. I am in general agreement with the new wave of historiography that stresses factors other than purely military movements and actions, but I support them on a case-by-case basis. When there is need for such studies, they should be written. When there is a need for focused military history, that need should be filled. Fine historians such as Gordon Rhea in Cold Harbor and Earl Hess in Pickett’s Chargehave recently written tremendously helpful works without incorporating copious amounts of social, political, and economic history. Champion Hill: Decisive Battle for Vicksburg is a history of a battle that, on its own, had very little impact on social and political events. Seven sizeable battles were fought within twenty-two days. Collectively, the Vicksburg campaign’s battles had a tremendous effect on the nation, but as individual combats they did not. Therefore, the individual effect of each of these battles on American society, politics, and economics cannot be weighed. But it is a simple task to select the campaign’s single engagement that, more than all the others combined, was the key to the entire operation. Therefore, what you are about to read is a battle study molded out of the old school.

My first recollection of anything having to do with Champion Hill was from family lore about my great-great-great grandfather. Private James Franklin Pierce, Company D, 3rd Mississippi Infantry, Featherston’s Brigade, fought in and survived the battle of Bakers Creek. The stories about his service were fascinating. I grew up and became seriously interested in Civil War history and traveled to many battlefields, but Champion Hill was not on the top of my list to visit. This had more to do with the fact that the field is largely inaccessible and unmarked than with its importance to the course of the war. During my formative years our family drove past the battlefield on Interstate 20 many times on the way to Vicksburg National Military Park. As we passed by, someone would inevitably mention Grandfather Pierce, but we never stopped to visit Mississippi’s most important battlefield.

Eventually, however, when my passion for the Civil War began to nudge aside other interests, the combat at Champion Hill attracted my attention. But the idea of writing a book about the battle did not occur to me until I met one of my mentors in the history profession. Dr. David Sansing’s passion for the serious study of history led me into this profession. I was a dawdling sophomore at Ole Miss when I took his course on the Old South—his last offering, as it turned out, before he retired. His lectures captivated me. I remember thinking at the time, I want to do what he does for the rest of my life. I declared my major, took the requisite courses, and graduated two years later with a degree in American history. My path carried me into graduate school and I received a Master’s Degree in history from Ole Miss. Although Dr. Sansing had retired, the department head allowed him to oversee special topics classes for me. I wrote papers on several Civil War subjects for him and he served on my thesis committee. Something during this time must have impressed him, because he approached me about working on Champion Hill. He had contemplated writing a book about the battle, but for one reason or another had never gotten around to doing it. Because he was then actively engaged in researching and writing what would become his monumental history of the University of Mississippi, Professor Sansing asked if I would like to write the history of Champion Hill.

I jumped at the chance and began digging through manuscript material, but the demands of daily life slowed the project to a crawl for years. I transferred to Mississippi State University, earned a Ph.D., and began working for the National Park Service. In the interim I published a history of Shiloh National Military Park. Still, the Champion Hill story was never far from my mind and I continued working on the battle.

Several years ago historian Terrence Winschel and I spoke at a conference in Louisiana. He convinced me it was time to make Champion Hill a priority and finish it! After many years of work and manuscript revisions (many brought about by Terry’s helpful prodding), I sought out a publisher. Terry recommended Theodore P. Savas, an independent publisher, editor, and all around good guy, who had published Terry’s Triumph & Defeat: The Vicksburg Campaign. I knew Ted and had conversed with him on other issues. He expressed immediate interest in the project. The result of our collaboration is what you are now holding in your hands.

As I quickly learned, authors do not write books by themselves. Each must of necessity lean on many other people for help and encouragement along the way. Thankfully, I learned how to keep a list of all those who have helped me. It is a long list, and I cannot mention everyone, and will probably forget to mention someone who really deserves public thanks. I cannot begin to repay their kindness. Errors of judgment, fact, or analysis that ended up in this study are, of course, strictly of my own making.

David Sansing deserves special thanks for handing the topic off to a young and inexperienced historian. He has built an unmatched reputation in Mississippi, and almost everyone I spoke with knew Champion Hill was his project. When I explained he had passed the topic on to me, I was welcomed into the fold simply because they knew I had his backing. Without his guidance and help, this book would not have been possible.

Terry Winschel also deserves more thanks than I can provide. Edwin C. Bearss will always be Mr. Vicksburg, but Terry is every bit as knowledgeable, friendly, and helpful. Terry has become the new Ed Bearss around Vicksburg, and many now mention both men in the same breath when referring to the campaign. He has been supportive throughout the entire process. He read the manuscript not once, not twice, but three times, and was gracious enough to pen the Foreword. He facilitated my research at the park and spent time with me touring the battlefield. He always made time to answer my endless questions and guide me in the right direction. Terry is one of the nicest people in the world and is absolutely a class act. His insight and help made this a much better book.

Theodore P. Ted Savas also deserves special mention. His interest in the book propelled me forward, and his abundant editorial skills made the book much better than it otherwise would have been. I am sure at times he wanted to kill me as he plowed through the manuscript. I am probably still alive only because I live in Tennessee and he lives in northern California. He often peppered me with questions when he saw a need for additional material in this or that place, and his keen eye caught many potentially embarrassing errors. We enjoyed many late night conversations about the ebb and flow of this confusing battle. Ted also produced the great maps that grace this book, and I truly appreciate them.

Many others deserve special mention. Several read parts or all of the manuscript and offered valuable advice. John Marszalek, Michael Ballard, Kenneth Noe, and Benjamin Cooling offered helpful comments, as did my brother Danny Smith; Ed Bearss cleared up several matters of varying import, and we are all in his debt for the years of work he put into writing his monumental history of the campaign; Ben Wynne at Florida State helped clarify the role played by the 15th Mississippi at Champion Hill; Bob Jenkins of Dalton, Georgia, pointed me toward important material on the 31st Mississippi; Jim Martin, Kevin Lindsey, and Craig Dunn all generously helped make this a better book. So did many others, too numerous to mention: you know who you are, and I thank you.

I have been privileged to spend many hours on the battlefield with numerous historians, gaining insight and familiarity with the area. In addition to Terry Winschel, I also walked the battlefield with Parker Hills and Ron Graves, both of whom are very knowledgeable about the battle. Jim Woodrick of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History spent a day on the field with me, as did Sid Champion V, who still owns much of the land upon which the combat raged. The Champion family’s assistance and encouragement has been very helpful. Sid was kind enough to show me family mementoes such as letters, photos, and even a bloodstained table from the Champion house. He and his late father were also kind enough to allow me to wander their property on many occasions. The family is understandably protective of their land and work hard to preserve it from relic hunters, many of whom do not ask permission before digging up their land. Some even sneak onto the land after permission has been denied. The elder Champion, Sid IV, once shot the head off a relic hunter’s metal detector after he discovered the man trespassing on his land—which was after he had denied the fellow permission to relic hunt.

My family has been extremely supportive of my work, not just with Champion Hill but with my entire history career. My parents deserve special mention for raising me to love history and honor those who came before us, and for supporting me in my chosen field (not to mention their monetary, emotional, and parental support through all the years). My dad is my best friend and deserves special mention. A lover of history himself, he often went with me on research trips and to the battlefield. In fact, he has spent just about as much time on the Champion Hill battlefield as I have. It is for all their love and help that I dedicate this book to my parents.

My princess, Kelly, came into my life on the tail end of this effort, but she has supported my odd fascination and livelihood with history without question and supports, loves, and encourages me in everything I do.

Finally, I must thank the men who fought at Champion Hill and all the other places during our Civil War. They settled issues in our country’s history that could have doomed us as a nation. Their efforts long before any of us were born secured for future generations of Americans an incredibly strong nation and a haven of freedom and democracy for the world. The soldiers of Champion Hill were some of the best the nation had to offer. It is my sincere wish that this book will serve as a memorial to those brave men of blue and gray who fought the decisive battle of the Vicksburg campaign—and perhaps the Civil War.

Timothy B. Smith

Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee

Chapter 1

Trial and Error

The great Battle of Vicksburg has commenced.

—Confederate Soldier

VICKSBURG, MISSISSIPPI, IS DEFINED BY ITS PAST. LIKE A QUEEN surveying her realm, she sits atop tall bluffs overlooking a great bend in the Mississippi River. The land beneath and surrounding it was once called Walnut Hills, after the tall trees of the same name and beautiful rolling and lush landscape. High and mighty, the proud river city has served for centuries as a crossroads for trade and political discourse. Its colorful history also includes more than its share of bloodshed.

For all the obvious reasons, Indians utilized the strong defensive position, as did the Europeans who arrived in the area in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries. The flags of England, France, and Spain have all flown over Walnut Hills. The Spaniards were the first to seriously fortify the site with the erection of Fort Nogales, a foreshadowing what was to come at Vicksburg.¹

By the late 18th century a new flag rippled over the bluffs in the stiff river breezes. The Spanish moved out and abandoned Fort Nogales, which fell into decay. The recently established United States now owned Walnut Hills. American explorers and entrepreneurs moved into the area, intent on making homes and fortunes. A large swath of land was carved out of the wilderness, designated Mississippi, and organized as a territory in 1798.²

The newcomers to the region included the Rev. Newet Vick and his family, who moved to the northern part of what would become Warren County in 1814. Most of the sprawling settlements had taken hold south and southeast of Walnut Hills. The northern region was as agriculturally desirable as the south, but adjacent to the Choctaw Indians and bounded on the east and north by what was called the great Indian Wilderness. Vick and others cleared land about seven miles from where Vicksburg would eventually take root. Others followed over the ensuing years, and the town of Vicksburg was born. The new town was chartered in 1825, eight years after Mississippi was admitted as the country’s 20th state. The development of the steamboat and railroad connected the fledgling river town with other centers of population and trade.

By the late 1830s, Vicksburg was a bustling commercial center boasting banks, newspapers, churches, stores of all kinds, and industry. A steady influx of farmers, laborers, and merchants arrived to help turn the rich Mississippi soil surrounding Vicksburg into land capable of producing cash crops. Everyone in that part of the state, from the smallest of farmers to the largest of plantation owners, sold their crops in Vicksburg. Cotton and grain had become the lifeblood of the city.³

Vicksburg’s position of prominence as the state’s most important logistical hub was inextricably linked with the Mississippi River. Unfortunately, its connection to and dependence upon that waterway gave her a new-found importance when the United States began breaking apart in 1860. Vicksburg’s leading citizens knew that if war came, control of the river would be essential to both sides. They also appreciated that Vicksburg was the key to the river’s unfettered navigation. A war would be disastrous to the city and the economic prosperity enjoyed by its nearly 5,000 citizens. Pro-Union delegates attended Mississippi’s secession convention on the city’s behalf.⁴ Vicksburg’s efforts to sway other delegates notwithstanding, Mississippi left the Union on January 9, 1861. A fifth national flag fluttered over the Walnut Hills area. Vicksburg was now one of the salient points of the new Confederacy.

Other than two small foundries that cast cannon and munitions for the Confederacy, the city held little of military value. Nor was Vicksburg a major rail hub. The only line that served the city was a small though important railroad running east to the state capital at Jackson and points beyond. A ferry was required to haul supplies across the river to a railroad west of the Mississippi. These logistical lines, however, did not make Vicksburg any more of a key connection to the vast Trans-Mississippi Theater than many other points along the wide river, including Columbus, Kentucky, Memphis, Tennessee, and the Louisiana cities of Baton Rouge and New Orleans. What made Vicksburg so important was its defensibility. Sitting as it did high above the great elbow of the river on 200-foot high bluffs, the city was well positioned as a citadel and dominated the control of the Mississippi.

As soon as war began, the Confederacy erected earthen fortifications at several points along the river, including Vicksburg. The Mississippi city was roughly midway between New Orleans and Memphis, which meant the latter cities would almost certainly be targets before any major Federal offensive locked on Vicksburg as an objective.

Vicksburg also boasted a defensible river front. Powerful artillery mounted on the bluffs could shell any Union gunboat or transport on the river below with a plunging fire. Even the vaunted enemy ironclads would be susceptible from above with their wooden decks and grated skylights, unable to elevate their guns high enough to return fire. Other guns were positioned on the river bank itself. The geography of the Mississippi also aided the defenders. After running generally south and southeast for several miles, the river made a sharp turn northeast, followed by a sudden and narrowing twist almost 180 degrees to the southwest past the city. Negotiating the tight loop was tricky enough in peace time; doing so under deadly plunging cannon fire would make it doubly difficult.

The land approaches to the city were also easily defensible. There was no good way to approach Vicksburg. A river assault up the steep bluffs from the west was out of the question. Like a shield, the vast Mississippi Delta, a morass choked with streams, bayous, swamps, snakes, and vermin of all types, covered the city’s northern approaches. The Delta would not fully prevent any serious large-scale movements against the city from that direction, but it would hinder them significantly. An approach from the east posed other thorny issues in addition to difficult terrain. In order to get around the Delta, an army would have to move southward from northern Mississippi and capture the state’s capital at Jackson. Only then would a movement against the fortified river city be possible. Making a deep and successful penetration to Jackson, however, would be very difficult. As the capital of Mississippi and an important rail center, it was bound to be vigorously defended (though no fortifications of note had been constructed, and no sizeable garrison was posted there). Geography also favored the Southerners on this front. Several broad rivers cut across the northern and central parts of the state. These would provide the Confederates with several good defensive lines—and the invader with vexing obstructions. An invading army could count on meeting stiff resistance during any move south, and would require a long and vulnerable supply line that would siphon off thousands of troops for its defense.

The best avenue to reach Vicksburg (something not readily discernable from a map) was from the south, where rolling hills and several passable roads allowed for an advance. However, the Federals would have to figure out how to bypass the Vicksburg batteries in order to effect a crossing of the wide Mississippi River before moving deep into Confederate territory, where a single battlefield reverse could result in the loss of an entire field army. Every approach posed its own unique problems. Even if the city could be reached—and that was a big if—enormous fortifications had been thrown up around it during the fall of 1862. The Confederates had an ideal defensive position on the most important river in North America, and this was recognized by both Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis. Capturing Vicksburg would be a difficult, lengthy, and costly effort under the best of circumstances.

General Winfield Scott, the commander of the Union armies at the outbreak of the war, developed an early strategy for victory that hinged on the opening of the river. His Anaconda Plan called for wrapping the North’s military coils around the Southern Confederacy and constricting it, squeezing off supplies and choking off everything it needed to wage war. At the heart of the ambitious scheme was control of the Mississippi River, which would cut the Confederacy in half. But this could only come about if Vicksburg and her sister strongholds fell.⁵

Although most politicians and soldiers scoffed at Scott’s plan, the war implemented by the Union eventually achieved much of what the hero of the Mexican War proposed. A blockade initiated at the beginning of the war, though at first ineffective, slowly but steadily made it more difficult to shuttle goods in and out of Southern ports. Land and sea operations closed these ports one by one. The initial fighting in Virginia focused on capturing Richmond while a drive down the Mississippi River governed early movements in the Western Theater. Using the Mississippi River valley and its contiguous river systems, the Federals effectively drove the Confederates from one position after another. The twin Union victories at Forts Henry and Donelson (which included the capture of Fort Heiman across the Tennessee River from Henry) flanked the stronghold at Columbus, Kentucky, which fell in early 1862. With it crumbled Gen. Albert S. Johnston’s tissue-thin Southern line across the Blue Grass State. The victorious Union army, led by a little-known general named Ulysses S. Grant, moved south intent on capturing Corinth, a vital railroad crossroads in northern Mississippi just below the Tennessee line. A Southern surprise attack at Shiloh against Grant’s scattered army on April 6, followed by a second day of fighting on the 7th, killed Johnston, drove away a crippled Confederate army, and sealed the fate of Corinth. The city fell the following month under a Federal force led by Maj. Gen. Henry W. Halleck, who had superceded Grant after the near-disaster at Shiloh.⁶

While these major operations were underway, smaller Federal armies took key positions on the Mississippi River. New Madrid and Island No. 10 fell in March and April, respectively. Horrified Confederate authorities in Richmond read the gloomy reports pouring in from beyond the Appalachian range as Fort Pillow, Memphis, and several smaller fortifications fell in early June, outflanked by the Confederate loss of Corinth and Union naval victories along the sprawling river system.⁷

While Federal armies pushed to open the Mississippi from the north, other forces moved against the opposite end of the river. On April 24, Forts Jackson and St. Philip, two massive bastions protecting the mouths to the river below New Orleans, were unable to stop David Farragut’s fleet. The next day the South’s largest city and most important seaport was in Union hands. Baton Rouge, Louisiana, another important river town, fell without a fight in early May. By early August 1862, following the Battle of Baton Rouge, the Confederacy’s grip on the Mississippi River had been reduced to the narrow stretch of water running from Vicksburg south to Port Hudson, Louisiana. Vicksburg was now the only real impediment to controlling the river.⁸

After taking Corinth in north Mississippi, Halleck’s Federals were poised to make a move south against Vicksburg. As early as June 1862, messages concerning operations against the river city ticked off telegraphs. Instead of making a concentrated push against the river citadel, however, Halleck set his sights on lesser objectives and divided the forces under his command hither and yon. His decision killed the momentum for an immediate Union advance.⁹

Ulysses Grant believed Halleck’s decision was a mistake. When Halleck was called to Washington in July so President Lincoln could tap his administrative abilities, Grant resumed command of the armies in north Mississippi and prepared to move south. Before he could advance, however, the Confederates struck again. At Iuka in September and Corinth in October, the Southerners sought to regain control of north Mississippi and even carry the war back into Tennessee and Kentucky. A Confederate victory followed by a drive north would quell any threats against Vicksburg or other important points in the Deep South.¹⁰

Unfortunately for the Southerners, the twin battlefield failures at Iuka and Corinth erased these dreams and the battered forces withdrew to Holly Springs, Mississippi. Unperturbed by the attacks, Grant reorganized and supplied his army and prepared to follow them. By November of 1862, Vicksburg had again become the chief target of Union efforts in the Mississippi valley.¹¹

The relentless campaigns Grant and his officers launched against Vicksburg were later described by a Confederate soldier as the storm…in the West. It was an apt description. The months-long tempest would eventually draw in tens of thousands of men from all points of the compass and trigger dozens of engagements large and small. The titanic effort was a necessary step in the quest for final victory. Grant realized fully what both Lincoln and Davis had seen from the beginning—that Vicksburg was the key to unlocking the river and splitting the South in two. It was not a closely-held secret. Many, even in the rank and file, grasped for some time that the fighting must inevitably focus on the river city. When Grant’s target became clear, one Southern soldier wrote his relative, the great Battle of Vicksburg has commenced. No one thought the endeavor would be easy. It is the best fortified place I ever saw, wrote home one Confederate. Six months later Grant believed the same thing. His six different efforts encompassing millions of acres across several states had each ended in failure. The Confederates had a fortress surrounded by near-perfect defensible geography. Little wonder the city became known as the Gibraltar of the Confederacy.¹²

Grant’s first effort, undertaken in the late fall of 1862, consisted of a movement down the Mississippi Central Railroad from La Grange, Tennessee, through Holly Springs and Oxford, toward Grenada, Mississippi. It was an obvious overland approach. Grant believed a movement south to Jackson could isolate Vicksburg from the rest of the South. Between Holly Springs and Jackson, however, lay two hundred miles of country swarming with state troops, unfriendly citizens—and the main Confederate army commanded by Lt. Gen. John C. Pemberton. The Mississippi army had taken up a position along the Tallahatchie River in north Mississippi to block Grant’s advance. Grant knew dislodging Pemberton and keeping his own army supplied at the same time would be a very difficult proposition.

Grant set out in several columns from La Grange, Germantown, and across The Delta. The advance covered a wide swath of the state, but Grant quickly discovered its downside: every step south required the detachment of troops to guard his ever-lengthening line of supply. Consequently, he decided to simply draw Confederate forces responsible for the defense of the Vicksburg-Jackson enclave into north Mississippi and keep them pinned there. William T. Sherman’s men were sent back to Memphis, where his command would board transports and, by taking advantage of Union naval superiority on the inland waters, scoot around Pemberton’s left flank, race to Vicksburg, and capture a lightly defended city. Flanking opportunities created by converging columns, coupled with a raid from Arkansas toward Grenada, levered Pemberton from his Tallahatchie River line. The Federals followed and took the university town of Oxford ten miles farther south in early December. Pemberton fell back some 25 miles to a position below the Yalobusha River just north of Grenada, where he awaited Grant’s next move.¹³

Federal units cautiously followed the Southern withdrawal, triggering skirmishes at Water Valley and Coffeeville. When they reached the Yalobusha, the Federals discovered a strong line of Confederate fortifications spread out along the river protecting Grenada (where Confederate President Davis happened to be visiting during his trip to Mississippi to confer with Gen. Joseph E. Johnston). Most of Grant’s army did not pass below Oxford, however, and those units that did soon withdrew. It was not Pemberton’s army that directly forced Grant’s evacuation, however, but a pair of brilliantly conceived and executed cavalry raids. The first was carried out by Brig. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, who struck Grant’s thin supply lines in western Tennessee during the latter half of December 1862. Major General Earl Van Dorn, who had been transferred to the mounted arm following his defeat at Corinth in October, led the other raid against Grant’s advance supply base at Holly Springs. Van Dorn entered the town at the head of 3, 500 cavalry on December 20 and destroyed Grant’s advance supply depot. With Forrest tearing up track on the Mobile & Ohio Railroad in Tennessee (which fed supplies to the Federals from Paducah, Kentucky) and his logistics base at Holly Springs smoldering, Grant reported, Farther advance by this route is perfectly impracticable. His first attempt at Vicksburg had reached an anti-climactic finish.¹⁴

Grant was already mulling other options. This time he would employ naval power to outflank the Confederates. His plan was to dispossess Maj. Gen. John A. McClernand of thousands of troops he was recruiting with Lincoln’s blessing in the Midwest and have William Sherman use them for the effort against Vicksburg by way of the Yazoo River and an overland attack. Though very successful in his effort to raise troops, McClernand did not move to Memphis quickly. He decided to get married instead, which allowed Sherman time to assume command of McClernand’s men in Memphis while the political general was tending to his personal affairs. When he had enough soldiers and transports, Sherman left Memphis on December 20 in conjunction with Rear Adm. David D. Porter’s gunboats. Counting the contingents he gathered along the way, Sherman ultimately amassed some 32,000 men. The transports entered the Yazoo River a few miles above Vicksburg on December 26 and the troops disembarked at Johnson’s plantation, intent on moving up the bluffs forming the southern border of the Delta. At the southern end of the bluffs was Vicksburg. The idea was for Sherman to thrust hard and fast, occupy the high dry ground, and either capture the town directly or at least establish a foothold for attacking Vicksburg.¹⁵

The Confederates had been alerted to the effort. Soldiers under the command of Brig. Gen. Stephen Dill Lee (including reinforcements from Pemberton’s army from northern Mississippi) poured into rifle pits and entrenchments covering the approaches to Walnut Hills. Sherman faced an important choice. With his way clearly blocked, he could withdraw without a fight and concede a bloodless defeat or attack up the steep slopes and suffer it in actuality. Unwilling to endure the psychological trouncing a trip back upriver would inflict, Sherman went over to the offensive.

Between December 27 and 29, he ordered several assaults against the Confederate infantry, which was entrenched at the base of the ridges with supporting artillery deployed at the top. Federal artillery was ineffective, as the infantry discovered to their dismay when they assaulted and found the approaches swept by Confederate guns. The flooded and muddy terrain constricted Federal assaults into small areas, against which the Confederates concentrated their fire. By the evening of December 29, Sherman realized the assaults were useless and ordered his men to fall back. The rebuff had been sharp and, at more than 1, 700 casualties, bloody. Southern losses were approximately 200. The fiasco at Chickasaw Bayou ignited a firestorm of bad press for Sherman, with many Northern papers reviving the issue of his alleged insanity.¹⁶

To his credit Sherman did not shirk from his responsibility: I reached Vicksburg at the time appointed, landed, assaulted, and failed. Re-embarked my command unopposed. He and his men left the Yazoo on January 2, 1863. The second of Grant’s attempts at Vicksburg was over, but this time it ended in a dramatic battlefield reverse. It was time to devise another way to reach the Gibraltar of the Confederacy.¹⁷

During January, Grant organized his army into four corps: XIII under McClernand; XV under Sherman; XVI under Maj. Gen. Stephen Hurlbut; and XVII under Maj. Gen. James B. McPherson. His new objective was to isolate Vicksburg from the capital at Jackson—its sole rail link to the outside world. The question was how to accomplish this feat. Advancing south using railroad communications was untenable, so Grant decided to substitute the Mississippi River as his line of operations. Porter’s gunboats protected the waterway from attack. Good terrain for army operations was south and east of Vicksburg, but the only way to get there was to expose his boats and transports to the powerful river batteries, an option even the audacious Grant did not favor. Beginning in early February, the general put into motion several simultaneous and unorthodox maneuvers. Whether he actually had much faith in these efforts is debatable; in all likelihood he intended to keep his army busy and its morale up and the enemy guessing as to his objectives until the winter months passed. If he was wagering any bets on his bayou operations, however, he was soon to be sorely disappointed.

Grant moved three of his corps (XIII, XV, and XVII) southward along the river. One of his early ideas to bypass the Vicksburg artillery was to utilize a small and little known pass from the Mississippi River opposite Helena, Arkansas, to the Coldwater River in the Mississippi Delta. Grant sent an engineer to look into blowing the levee across Yazoo Pass to flood the passage and allow access into the Coldwater. From there the Federals could move southward into the Tallahatchie River, which combined with the Yalobusha at Greenwood to form the Yazoo. If successful, Grant’s army could steam down the Yazoo and arrive north of Vicksburg above the point where Sherman had failed in December at Chickasaw Bayou. Confederate river batteries had stopped his transports during the earlier effort, but nothing would stop the Federals if they managed to arrive from the north by this means.¹⁸

Engineer and Lt. Col. James Harrison Wilson cut the levee 325 miles north of Vicksburg. By February 24, Union workers had cleared Yazoo Pass of felled trees and stumps, assuring Federal access to the Coldwater. Brigadier General Leonard F. Ross led his division southward aboard transports through the narrow, winding, and complex waterways. One Union soldier described this path as a kind of overland steamboat, mud paddle route unheard of but in the philosophy of modern warfare. When his transport left Moon Lake, another soldier simply lamented, went into the woods again. Ross steamed south for several days but stalled before Fort Pemberton. The Confederate fortification was erected near Greenwood by Maj. Gen. William W. Loring, who had been dispatched by General Pemberton with his division to interrupt the expedition. Loring threw up the fort 90 miles north of Vicksburg on a narrow neck of land between the Tallahatchie and a bend in the Yazoo River. It was well sited and effectively blocked movement south. For days the belligerents eyed one another. Minor skirmishing between Rebel land batteries and Union gunboats sent to protect the transports did nothing to alter the balance of power. The Federals could not figure out a means of reducing the fort, which was defended almost entirely by flooded or swampy ground. Ross gave up and began withdrawing only to discover reinforcements moving toward him. Brigadier General Issac F. Quinby assumed command and the expedition tried again to capture or silence the fort, with similar results. Fort Pemberton controlled this water route. Grant’s third attempt to reach Vicksburg was over.¹⁹

While some of his Federal divisions were slogging through boggy terrain and being rebuffed by a strong Confederate fort in the Yazoo Pass Expedition, Grant was offered a plan devised by Admiral Porter to reach the Yazoo above the Confederate fortifications. There was a dangerous and complicated route through the Delta that emerged into the Yazoo River south of Yazoo City. Sherman’s infantry, in cooperation with Porter’s gunboats, began the operation on March 14. Five of Porter’s gunboats successfully navigated Steele’s Bayou and reached Deer Creek through Black Bayou while the infantry slogged along as best they could. Porter hoped to enter the Big Sunflower River, which flowed into the Yazoo. As his boats reached Deer Creek, however, they met trouble. Not only was the enemy aware of their effort, but nature herself also conspired against them. The Confederates had blocked the route at Rolling Fork by cutting down trees. Large willows growing in the bed of the creek entangled the vessels. Forward progress ground to a halt. The gunboats…plo[u]ghed their way through without other damage than to their appearance, wrote a chagrined Grant. The maddening situation, however, deteriorated quickly when the Southerners cut down timber behind the stalled gunboats. For a time it looked as if the Confederates might capture Porter and his entire flotilla. Sherman, however, dispatched infantry in a daring night march (complete with lighted candles in the rifle barrels) to protect the boats until they could back out safely. The entire pathetic affair was over by March 25, leaving no doubt the Steele’s Bayou campaign was a failure. And so Grant’s fourth stab at Vicksburg came to an end.²⁰

Yet another effort undertaken earlier by Union troops involved the completion of a canal across De Soto Point, the neck of land directly across from Vicksburg. Grant decided to renew the operation (dubbed the Williams canal) hoping the river would break through, change course, and bypass Vicksburg’s artillery. The men worked tirelessly to excavate the mile-long channel across the peninsula, but high water and bad weather forced frequent delays. Soldiers built levees and dams to hold water back, but these soon began to leak into the work site. Acting Rear Admiral Porter called the venture simply ridiculous…improperly located, in the first place, and…not properly cut, in the second. By January 26 three feet of water was in the canal, but the river never changed course. Confederate shells from Vicksburg’s defenses also hampered the effort. In late March Grant ordered the work stopped. The fifth effort to get at Vicksburg was now history.²¹

Before the end of the canal fiasco Grant looked into another canal venture, or what Sherman called the Lake Providence scheme. The large lake was formed by an earlier change in the river’s course. Several bayous meandered into and out of the lake, and some of them connected with the Black, Tensas, and Red rivers well below Vicksburg. The determined Grant intended to dig a canal large enough to allow transports into Lake Providence and send his men and vessels down river, bypassing Vicksburg’s batteries. If successful, he would finally be in a position to land his army on the high (and dry) ground south of Vicksburg.²²

It was not successful. Once again high water and difficult terrain hampered operations from the outset. After tampering with the river system, water even flowed in reverse through the canal, seriously confounding Grant’s plans. The Federals finally tried to cut the Mississippi River levee to allow the canal and bayous to flood, but this produced no appreciable results. By the end of March Grant deemed this option wholly impracticable. His sixth attempt to reach Vicksburg had failed.²³

For the six months of November 1862 through April 1863, Grant had relentlessly tried to reach Vicksburg. Six attempts went forward, each with its own bit of ingenuity and recklessness. Pemberton and his Confederates, with no little help from Mother Nature, successfully repelled each effort. The campaign had degenerated into a stalemate, with the two forces warily watching one another across the river, battling body bugs and the itch more often than each other. Disillusioned but still determined, Grant refused to give up. His efforts eventually led him to yet another plan—one he had hoped to avoid. The new strategy involved a direct confrontation with the Confederate water batteries at Vicksburg. By late March, however, he had no other viable choice. If he was going to put his army below Vicksburg, he would have to test the effectiveness of Pemberton’s river batteries.²⁴

While it was clear to Grant he could not reach Vicksburg from the west, east, or north, the approach from the south also presented enormous problems. First, Grant would have to pass the big guns trained on the waterway. That meant risking Porter’s ironclads and the army’s transports in a bold move directly past the batteries. If Porter reached safety south of Vicksburg, Grant could march his infantry down the west side of the river and cross below the city to the eastern shore—and Mississippi. The Confederates, however, held the river south of Vicksburg at select points all the way to Port Hudson, Louisiana. If Pemberton’s earlier defensive efforts were an indication of what he could expect, any crossing to the eastern side where the Confederates were present would be vigorously contested. But if Grant could somehow land by force or surprise, the Union army would be on dry land on the same side of the river as his objective, a feat he had unsuccessfully attempted for months on end. The entire plan hinged on Porter being able to slip past Vicksburg.

David Dixon Porter had been at sea since the age of ten. He served as an officer in the Mexican Navy, was held prisoner for a time by the Spanish, and had been a member of the United States Navy since 1829. His firm hand had commanded the mortar flotilla during the bombardment of Forts Jackson and St. Philip, and as acting rear admiral his boats had helped capture Arkansas Post in January 1863. Never one to shy away from a challenge—indeed he actually sought them out—Porter moved south with a dozen boats on the moonless night of April 16 in an effort to slip past the guns. His effort was greeted with barrels of tar, cotton soaked in turpentine, and buildings on De Soto Point set ablaze to back light the river so Confederate gunners on the opposite side could take aim at the brightly silhouetted gunboats. One Union veteran described the bombardment as disagreeable music. To everyone’s surprise the event itself was almost anti-climactic. The Southerners poured everything they had at the vessels, all but one of which arrived south of Vicksburg. Some boats drifted helplessly out of control, but the strong river current saved most of them as they bobbed out of range down the river. The Federal high command was elated at the success and what it meant. Six days later