TUESDAY, MAY 12, 1863

General Johnston sends yet another, firmer, warning to Pemberton. He tells the commander at Vicksburg that Grant is moving toward Jackson and pleads with Pemberton to attack the Union rear. Pemberton replies that he is still not certain which way Grant is going to turn.

General Gregg in Raymond receives word that the main Federal force is approaching Edwards, Mississippi. But he also knows, finally, that there are Federal troops approaching his own position. He logically assumes this latter group must be a mere raiding party. Just after dawn he parades his men through town and conceals them in fields at the edge of Fourteen Mile creek, with 35 men picketed on the bridge over the creek itself. When the Federal raiding party charges across the bridge Gregg intends to pin them against the river with a furious and overwhelming charge of his own.

Just as Gregg expects, about 10AM, Federal skirmishers appear at the tree line South of Fourteen mile creek. But to his surprise they are supported by Union artillery, which begins to shell his picket guard with canister. Clearly this is more than a mere raiding party. But Gregg now assumes it is merely a brigade. So he moves his 3,000 men out of canister range behind some low hills, where they can remain hidden, ready to fall upon the Union Brigade after it crosses the bridge. Gregg also moves two regiments into woods to his left where they can quickly slip across the creek and capture the Union artillery.

What Gregg does not know it that he is facing General John Alexander “Black Jack” Logan’s entire Third Division, advance guard for McPherson’s 17th. Corps of 16,000 men. Logan may look like a wild man with his intense jet black eyes and tosseled hair but he is a surprisingly good soldier - even if he is yet another of those Stephen Douglas Democratic generals. But the difference between the political generals Logan and McClernand, is that Logan is a charismatic leader of men with no dreams of higher command. And he smells Gregg’s trap to his front. Logan allows his men to take a meal break while he posts cavalry on his flanks.

It is after noon before Logan orders his men to advance. But what follows would be a comedy of errors if men were not dieing. On the Union right the 23rd Indiana regiment crosses Fourteen Mile Creek above the bridge, and stumbles sideways into a Texas Regiment that punishes the Hoosiers and sends their survivors scampering into retreat back the way they came. Then the Texans charge across the creek and are caught in a cross fire between an Ohio and an Illinois regiments. They also fall back in retreat. On the opposite flank, the two Confederate regiments step out of concealment to discover what looks like the entire Federal Army in line of battle in front of them, with another two full Union Regiments outflanking the rebel position at that very moment. In a flash the tables have been turned, and suddenly it is the Confederates who had been suckered into attacking a far superior force. The best that Gregg can now do is to fight a series of desperate delaying actions while he withdraws, covered by the Third Kentucky Mounted Infantry which has just arrived from Jackson. Raymond is abandoned as Gregg falls back on the Mississippi capital.

The Union casualties at this "Battle of Raymond" are 68 killed, 341 wounded, and 37 missing. Rebel losses are reported as 100 killed, 305 wounded, and 415 captured. But the Union Army reports burying many more Rebel dead than the 100 officially listed, indicating the almost haphazard nature of the force that was quickly thrown together at Raymond. McPherson senses this and notifies Grant.

By courier and telegraph Grant notifies Washington of his intention to attack the state capital of Jackson, Mississippi on the 14th. The pace of events around Vicksburg are suddenly picking up.

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MONDAY, MAY 11, 1963

Union General McClernand’s Corp, out of the lead of the Union Army for the first time since leaving Milliken’s Bend, Louisiana in mid-April, reaches Five Mile Creek in Mississippi. Meanwhile, General Sherman reaches Auburn, Mississippi. But because the roads out of Raymond have not been picketed, travelers from there can come and go as they please. Thus McPherson, advancing out of Utica, is well aware of the presence of Confederate troops in Raymond, but the Confederates are not yet aware of his presence, just half a day’s march South of Raymond. Not wanting to alert the Confederates, the Federals are marching under strict drum and bugle silence. Still, General McPherson’s biggest concern this day is finding water for his men. It is an amazing turn of events considering that for weeks his men have been waist deep in swamps and bayous. It has been the driest Mississippi spring in decades.

In fact it is a year for freakish weather. On January 21, 1863 the Army of the Potomac suffered through the infamous “Mud March”. Days of heavy rain, followed by vicious winds and temperatures in the 30’s, turned yet another attempt to sidestep Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, into a freezing march into hell. Defeated by the weather the Union troops returned to their winter camps and the bumbling General Ambrose Burnside was replaced by the over confident Hooker. A month later, on February 25, a foot of snow and mild temperatures allow 10,000 rebel soldiers of the Army of Northern Virginia to engage in what might have been the largest snowball fight in history.

Early that spring farmers in the upper Midwest sensed a good crop ahead, but May brought drought from Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico. St. Paul recorded less than an inch of rain over the first 21 days of May, and then on the 22 \23 the city was flooded with a 2 inch downpour – followed by a return to drought conditions and cool temperatures. The Mississippi River is so low that barge and boat traffic through the twin cities is heavily restricted.

The droughts in Southern California that year and the next were so severe they killed a quarter of a million cattle in Santa Barbara County, and even more in Los Angeles and San Diego counties, reducing all of the Southern California Rancheros, the foundation of the local economy, to financial ruin. It also opens the way for the introduction of the Valencia Oranges from South America. The record of tree rings says that the drought of 1863-64 across the Great Plains and the South Western United States was even more severe than the Dust Bowl years of the 1930’s.

Confederate General Johnston telegraphs Pemberton in Vicksburg, urging him to abandon the city and withdraw to Jackson. Pemberton refuses. Jefferson Davis has ordered him to hold Vicksburg at all costs. Pemberton replies instead to Johnston that he has placed strong forces along the Big Black River and is attempting to build a force “of maneuver” at Raymond. Pemberton’s “plan” is simple; either way Grant turns there will then be a Confederate army in his rear. It is a brilliant “Napoleonic” plan on paper and totally impractical in reality. It depends upon rapid communication between two widely separated forces, divided by a powerful and active enemy force. Johnston knows that by the time the forces at Raymond could intervene, Grant could defeat Pemberton’s army on the Big Black. And Grant is about to prove the absurdity of Pemberton’s plan, should the Union troops instead fall on Jackson. Besides, whichever way Grant turns, Pemberton’s strategy has left the Vicksburg & Jackson Railroad unprotected. With so much as a singe mile of that track destroyed, Vicksburg becomes an albatross around Pemberton’s neck. But Pemberton seems unwilling to accept this reality.

General Gregg’s troops arrive in Raymond late in the afternoon, dust covered and exhausted yet again. One soldier writes, “…when the brigade filed into a field near Raymond to camp, the men were too tired to stand in line long enough to ‘right dress,’ and everyone dropped to rest as soon as we halted.” To his surprise Gregg does not find Wirt Adam’s cavalry in town as he had been told they would be, (Adams has galloped ahead to Edwards), leaving behind on guard only a force of 40 state cavalry militia. Gregg is forced to rouse his own men to finally picket the Utica road.

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SUNDAY, MAY 10, 1863

In Virginia General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson dies of pneumonia, brought on by bed rest demanded by his wounds at Chancellorsville. When told of his death, Lee, who admits he did not know Jackson very well, still cries out, “I have lost my right arm.”

In Mississippi, Union General McPherson’s Corps cautiously approaches Utica, while Sherman’s Corps advances to the Big Sandy River. McClernand’s Corps, out the lead for the first time since leaving Miliken's Bend, has been ordered to slowly fall back Clinton. Grant has now dropped all his “lines of communication” with Grand Gulf. His men are making do with the rations they carry and what they can forage from the countryside. It is a massive gamble.

William T. Sherman will later calculate that each Union soldier in the field requires three pounds of food stuffs each day, in addition to the 13 pounds of “re-supply” required to keep him “effective”. All of this had to be carried in horse or mule drawn wagons that accompanied each regiment and which tailed behind the army in long supply trains. In addition, each regiment was expected to carry 25% additional supplies for their teamsters - for even though the Civil War has been labeled as “the first railroad war”, its armies were always carried on the backs of horses and mules.

To support each 1,000 men in the field required 40 – 50 wagons (drawn by about 300 mules), to carry foodstuffs (for humans and animals), tents, blankets, cooking gear, ammunition, tack, horse and human shoes, and one or two ambulances. Each of the horses required 26 pounds of fodder per day and each mule required 24 pounds, half of which the army was required to carry and half of which the animals were expected to find for themselves. When Grant proposed “living of the land” after leaving Port Gibson it was a literal proposal for the animals. Each 2-3,000 pound wagon load of supplies could cover about 20 miles in an eight hour day of marching. As the army marched the supplies would be used up, which would lighten the load a little, but the humans and the animals still had to eat.

On average a Civil War army required one horse for every three men - 20 horses to pull each artillery piece, and six mules to pull each wagon. And that was in addition to the mounts for cavalry and officers – which meant that Grant’s army of 42,000 men required 14,000 horses and mules. And the vast majority of animals in a civil war army (and all the mules) were merely beasts of burden. Each horse and mule lived a short, brutal life, even more so than the humans who controlled them.

Following Pemberton’s orders, Gregg’s brigade begins another forced march from their positions North of Jackson to Raymond, 25 miles to the West.

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SATURDAY, MAY 9, 1863

Confederate President Jefferson Davis has repeatedly ordered General Pemberton to defend Vicksburg, while Confederate General Jonston, his immediate superior, has urged Pemberton to take the field against Grant. But with his South Carolina history fresh in his mind Pemberton is inclined to obey Davis, first. Besides he does not feel he has enough strength to secure Vicksburg and Haynes Bluff and engage Grant as far away from Vicksburg as possible. Davis has also attempted to get Robert E. Lee to release Longstreet’s Corps for the Vicksburg defense. But Lee is in the middle of planning his invasion of Pennsylvania and knows that without Longstreet there can be no such invasion. So, as it becomes clear that Pemberton is losing control of events, Davis is forced to finally turn to a man for whom he has no respect. Finally, on this late date, Davis authorizes his Secretary of War (as Davis will not even communicate with the man directly) to order General Joseph E. Johnston to “…proceed at once to Mississippi and take chief command of the forces in the field.” He also issues a public call for state militias to defend Vicksburg. It is all he can do to save the situation in Mississippi.

Meanwhile Brigadier General John Gregg’s over strength 3,000 man Brigade, dispatched from Port Hudson, finally arrives in Jackson after a forced march of 80 parched miles up the damaged rail lines from Brookhaven. He posts his men on the Pearl River, just North of town, where they can enjoy some desperately needed water.

Although he is now a Texan, this is familiar territory for Gregg. He was born in Alabama and attended La Grange College, just across the border in Tennessee (where Grierson began his cavalry raid). Gregg graduated with a law degree, and in 1847 he moved to Fairfield, Texas, where he was elected a County Judge. In 1858 Gregg married the lovely and extraordinary Mary Garth, daughter of one of the wealthiest plantation owners in Alabama and a direct descendant of Patrick Henry, of “give me liberty or give me death” fame. And while, in 1861, John Gregg helped organize the Texas convention on secession and served in the Confederate Provincial Congress in Montgomery, Alabama, his father-in-law was a firm Union man who tried to sell his slaves, in a vain hope of helping to avoid the coming war. Resigning his office, Gregg formed the 7th Texas Infantry regiment and was almost immediately captured. He was exchanged almost as quickly and in September 1862 was commissioned a brigadier General and sent to Mississippi, where he fought at Shiloh.

Today he commands the 1st Tennessee Battalion, made up of the 3rd Tennessee Regiment, 10th/30th Tennessee Regiment (Consolidated), 41st and 50th Tennessee regiments , Captain Hiram W. Bledsoe’s Missouri Battery and Gregg’s old 7th Texas Regiment. With this force, Gregg expects to fall on the rear of Grant’s army when the Union General tries to cross the Big Black River on his way to Vicksburg.

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FRIDAY, MAY 8, 1863

Sherman’s Corp, at last on the Mississippi side of the river, force marches from Grand Gulf all the way to Harkinson’s Ferry, almost 20 miles in a single day. General McClernand’s Corps advances to the Big Sandy Creek. And General McPherson’s Corps is edging toward Utica, Mississippi.

James Birdseye McPherson was a life long soldier, a superb engineer, and universally liked and admired by his peers. He graduated from West Point in 1853, (his roommate was John Bell Hood) and he then designed defenses for New York City and Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay. His civil war service began at Forts Henry and Donelson, and after the Battle of Shiloh he was promoted to major General, all under General Grant. He was loved by his troops, and asked no more from them than he himself was willing to risk. A fierce unionist and patriot, McPherson would later answer those who criticized his compassion for suffering Southerners in Vicksburg by saying, “When the time comes that to be a soldier, a man must forget…the claims of humanity, I do not want to be a soldier.”

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THURSDAY, MAY 7, 1863

Over night on the 6/7 of May Sherman’s Corps is fully transported across the Mississippi. Grant now has 42,000 men in Mississippi and is ready to begin offensive operations. McPherson pushes his corps toward Jackson, and, as always, Grant moves with McClernand’s 13th Corps, which advances to within 10 miles of Harkinson’s Ferry. The movements are designed to confuse Pemberton as to which target Grant is after, either Jackson or Vicksburg. But whichever way he turns, Grant's job would be far easier if he did not have to deal with McClernand.

Major General John Alexander McClernand has been described by one biographer as “brash, energetic, assertive, confident, and patriotic”, but also as ”ever the politician.” As such he was given to frequent communications with his fellow politicians (in particular with the President), something that infuriated his fellow military officers who had to take orders from those same politicians. In a way John McClernand was Lincoln's dopplganger, and would end his life not far from where Lincoln himself would rest.

Raised in Illinois - like Lincoln - and a lawyer - like Lincoln - in 1835 McClernand founded the “Shawneetown Democrat Newspaper” and used it as a springboard to first the Illinois statehouse in Springfield - like Lincoln - and later the U.S. House of Representative - like Lincoln. But where Lincoln came to believe in his own vision, McClernand was a more politically astute and even more ambitious. He was a Stephen Douglas Democrat, a strong union man and, as such, politically valuable to Lincoln...if he could be controled.

In 1860 McClernand resigned from congress and raised a brigade of men in Illinois to fight for the Union. He was commissioned a brigadier General of Volunteers in May of 1861. At Fort Donelson and at Shiloh (both times under Grant) he displayed at best moderate skills in command, but extraordinary ambition, campaigning even while campaigning to replace both Grant and George McClellan, then commander of the Army of the Potomac. In October 1862 he convinced Lincoln to let him raise troops for an independent command against Vicksburg, and in January of 1863 he managed to use not only his own 13th Corp but to also commandeer Sherman’s and McPherson’s corps and Admiral Andrew Footes’s River squadron for operations against Arkansas Post, an outpost of the Vicksburg defenses. The operation was a success but all three officers warned Grant that they considered McClernand unfit for command. The problem was, thanks to Lincoln’s political need for McClernand, no in the theatre outranked McClernand – except Grant. So, from this point forward Grant’s headquarters stayed as close to McClernand as possible. Which is why McClernand's Corp is always in the lead, during this campaign.

Still, the letters continued to flow out of McClernand’s tent, spreading rumors of Grant’s drinking and criticizing his handling of the army. Grant was fully aware of this and was merely biding his time. McClernand was just one more difficulty Grant would have to overcome if he was going to capture Vicksburg.

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WEDNESDAY MAY 6, 1863

General William Tecumseh Sherman arrives at the head of his Corp at Hard Times Landing and begins the process of transporting his men across the Mississippi to Grand Gulf. When word of his arrival on the Eastern shore reaches Grant he gives the go ahead to McPherson and McClernand to begin moving their men across the Bayou Pierre, to regaind contact with the rebel army. Grant has now decided what his initial target will be, but to keep Pemberton in the dark for as long as possible.

Sherman’s road to Vicksburg really began ten years earlier when he floated into San Francisco Bay on the overturned hulk of a sinking lumber schooner. It was the beginning of a decade of failure. Sherman’s father had died when he was nine, and the boy known as Tecumseh had been adopted by Thomas Ewing, a powerful Whig senator from Ohio. Sherman had graduated from West Point in 1840 and attained the rank of Captain, but he resigned from the army in 1853 when he was offered the presidency of a San Francisco bank. On his way around the horn Sherman was shipwrecked twice, and that voyage proved to be an omen. In the panic if 1857 Sherman’s bank failed, leaving him broke and far from home. He then moved to Leavenworth, Kansas and failed as a lawyer. And then, in 1859, he secured the appointment as the Superintendent of the Louisiana State Military Academy. Just a year later, as secession spread, Sherman famously wrote a Southern friend, “You are rushing to war with one of the most powerful, ingeniously mechanical, and determined people on earth – right at your doors. You are bound to fail.” On resigning his post he told the governor, “On no account will I do any act or think any thought hostile…to the…United States.”

The coming of war seemed to offer Sherman opportunities. But they all seemed to lead to failure. He served as a colonel at First Bull Run where he was wounded in the knee and shoulder. In May of 1861 he was promoted to Brigadier General of Volunteers and placed in command of the Department of the Cumberland. But all he could see were shadows of threats and in the fall of 1861 Sherman was relieved of duty, suffering a nervous collapse. While contemplating suicide at home in Ohio, General Halleck offered Sherman the command of Grant’s army. Instead Sherman offered to serve under Grant.

At Shiloh, on April 6, 1862, Sherman was commanding a division when his unprepared men were overrun by Confederate troops. Sherman managed to just prevent his divison from being driven into the Tennessee River. It seemed yet another confirmation of his failure. But that night, when he reported to Grant’s command post, half expecting to be relieved, and confessed “Well, Grant, we’ve had the devil’s own day, haven’t we”, Grant calmly replied, “Yes. Lick ‘em tomorrow, though.” And with that stoic exchange Sherman’s luck had changed, and he knew it. He might disagree with Grant on some specific approach, but he would always “...co-operate with zeal”.

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TUESDAY MAY 5, 1863

Lt. General John C. Pemberton has been ordered by Jefferson Davis to defend Vicksburg, Mississippi “at all costs”. His immediate superior, General Joe E.Johnston, has reminded Pemberton that his army is more valuable than the town. But Pemberton has learned his lesson from South Carolina too well. In the end, Davis had appointed a man much like himself – a man without much imagination. And in the commander of an independent, distant and vital outpost, that is a recipe for disaster.

After misjudging Grant’s move downstream, Pemberton now compounds his failure by underrating Grant’s audacity and tendency to strike for the jugular. The jugular of Vicksburg, its reason de arte as a military objective, is the Vicksburg, Jackson & Brandon Railroad that runs west to Jackson, Mississippi. There it crosses the Central Mississippi Railroad, which connects the wharehouse of the Vicksburg docks with the rest of the Confederacy. A Federal army across the tracks of the Vicksburg, Jackson line, even for a few days, could cut that supply line permanently. And if that happened Vicksburg’s value to the Confederacy would be reduced by half: cut that railroad and supplies from Arkansas and Texas and Western Missouri, carried to the Western banks of the Mississippi River on the Vicksburg & Shreveport Railroad, and ferried across the river to Vicksburg, would then have to be loaded onto wagons and transported the painful, tortuous 44 miles by road to the state capital at Jackson, Mississippi and reloaded on the Central Mississippi Railroad. What can be traversed today by automobile in less than an hour, in 1863 required five long exhausting days to cover; it required horses and men and, after two years of war, the Confederacy was running short of both. So it was vital not that Vicksburg be held, but that the Vicksburg, Jackson & Brandon Railroad be held. And the only way that can be done, now that Grant is on the East shore of the River, is to defeat Grant’s army and force it to retreat.

Grant understands that and expects Pemberton to come out of Vicksburg for the fight, and to do so before Sherman can make the long march from Milliken’s Bend to Hard Times Landings, be ferried across the Mississippi, and then march up to the Bayou Pierre line to reinforce him. And before Grant's perilously long supply line could be cut. At the moment Grant has only two corps with him, perhaps 28,000 men. Pemberton has, in Vicksburg, 5 divisions – perhaps 35,000 men. In effect Grant has gambled everything on one big battle somewhere along the Big Black Creek or Bayou Pierre, (and soon!) where his experienced and confident veterans of Shiloh and Fort Donaldson can defeat Pemberton’s men in a one-on-one fight.

But Pemberton will not come out to fight Grant. Instead Pemberton sends three of his five divisions forward to guard the line of the Big Black Creek, about half way between Vicksburg and Grant’s position behind Bayou Pierre, as if daring Grant to attack him . And he instructs all reinforcements (which had finally begun hurrying to his aid) to disembark at Jackson and advance to Raymond, Mississippi, about 20 miles West of Jackson – just under half way between the two cities.

But it was here that the April Federal cavalry raid by Col. Grierson re-enters the story. Late in his raid, Grierson's troopers had cut the Central Mississippi Railroad at several places around Brookhaven. Because of that the Confederate infantry moving from Port Hudson to Jackson, (a total travel distance of 200 miles) have to march 85 miles of that. A one or two day trip by rail has been turned into a week long, exhausting odyessy. One overstrength brigade of 3,000 men (Gregg’s ) from Port Hudson would not arrive in Jackson on until May 9. Two others would not arrive in time.

In the mean time the only offensive force that Pemberton commands in Jackson is a regiment of cavalry under Daniel Weisiger ("Wirt") Adams, a combative Kentucky lawyer. Adams now takes his entire brigade, not to Raymond as Pemberton has ordered, but all the way to the watering station at Edwards –almost 2/3 of the way to Vicksburg. Perhaps he is attempting to cover the Vicksburg & Jackson Railroad, but more likely Adams is just looking for a fight. But because "Wirt" Adams makes this advance without notifying Pemberton (or anyone else) he is also fatally wounding the defense of Jackson, Mississippi.

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MONDAY MAY 4, 1863

As the Union Army retreats once more from the Rapidan River crossings in Northern Virginia the final death toll is counted; 17,000 Union and 13,000 Confederate causalities. And this day the last brigades of John Longstreet’s corps, which Lee had been forced to disperse to the tidewater areas of Southern Virginia and North Carolina to forage during the winter, cross the Blackwater River to rejoin the Army of Northern Virginia. Lee is gathering his strength for an invasion of Pennsylvania.

In Mississippi Grant orders a reconnaissance in force toward Vicksburg, intending to convince Pemberton that the “Gibraltar of the South” is his immediate target. In truth he is still not certain which way he will turn. Sherman, meanwhile, is guiding his men down the tortuous road to Hard Times, opposite Grand Gulf. Grant orders him to hold one of his divisions back to defend the road from Milliken’s Bend to Hard Times Landing. Now, when Sherman finally rejoins the main body with his two remaining divisions, Grant will have 42,000 men in Mississippi; still not a clear majority over Pemberton's total force, but enough of an advantage to make Grant confident he can outmaneuver the rigid Pemberton.