May
of 1863 was a dry month. In California it was the second spring of a
4 year drought, which killed half a million cattle and sheep. It was
so dry that spring in Kansas, the Junction City Union reported “If
this continues another week, this section, at least, will be 'blowed'
away.” In Nebraska hot dry winds converted the muddy South Platte
river into “...clouds of dust and sand...”. Farmer Sam Clark
wrote from southern Iowa, “Unless we have rain and that very soon
the corn crop in this state will be almost a complete failure… “
In
Saint Paul, Minnesota, the Mississippi River fell so low that May,
riverboats were unable to navigate. During the first three weeks of
the month, Milwaukee, Wisconsin receive just six-tenths of an inch of
rain. In Kentucky, the dry weather sped up the hay and grain
harvesting, but also “shriveled the rivers (to) fordable in many
places”. But the dry weather made marching easy for the long
columns of blue clad locusts as they spread across the interior of
the state of Mississippi, consuming everything within reach.
But
all good - and bad - things must come to an end, and in the early
morning darkness of Thursday, 14 May, 1863, a cold front slipped
across the American south. Clouds suddenly appeared. and dropped a
brief downpour on the dirt roads and the 55,000 sleeping Yankee
soldiers.
When 33 year old Hoosier, Brigadier General Marcellus
Montroe Crocker (above), saw the Clinton – Jackson road that morning, the
water was pooling a foot deep in low spots on the sun hardened
pavement. Over night General McPherson and, 9 miles to the south,
General Sherman and agreed to coordination their assaults, so Crocker
found himself burdened with a schedule.
General
Crocker, also known as "The Black-Bearded Cossack", for his behavior under fire, was
another example of the way the war had reshaped men’s lives. He had
been forced to leave West Point in 1849 when his father’s death
required him to return to Indiana. In 1851 Marcellus had moved to
Iowa, where he passed the bar in 1852. But when the war broke he
immediately raised a company of volunteers. Over the winter of
1861-62 Marcellus was promoted 4 times, eventually to Brigadier
General. He commanded a brigade at the battle of Shiloh (above) - where he
was wounded in the arm, the neck and the shoulder. He also led a
brigade at the Battle of Corinth, throwing the rebels back with a
desperate charge. He had now risen to command the 17th division, 13
regiments from Iowa, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio.
On
the other side of the war, just about dawn that Thursday, General
Gregg led the about 900 men - 24th South Carolina, 46th Georgia, and
14th Mississippi Regiments – past the deaf and dumb asylum, 2
miles out the muddy Jackson - Clinton road. Their goal was the
hilltop farm of 51 year old Oliver Perry Wright.
Oliver
had been born in North Carolina, married Katherine “Kate” Barrett
and moved to Mississippi in 1852. Over the next eight years the
couple raised six children, 1 boy and 5 girls, supporting them by
using slaves to cultivate 400 acres of not cotton but fruit and
foodstuffs for the citizens of Jackson. Like all white males in
Mississippi, Oliver was a member of the anti-slave militia. And
despite his age Oliver was a member of the 23rd
Mississippi Volunteer Infantry, but probably as a staff officer. He
was not listed as captured when the 23rd surrendered at
Fort Donaldson in February of 1862. But he was a loyal southerner.
And now, General Gregg had decided to turn the Perry “farm” into
a battlefield.
It
took the rebels about an hour on slick, muddy roads to reach the farm,
and they immediately began laying out a defensive line, with
skirmishers out front in the fields. The 24th was
stationed behind the fence line in front of the house and barns, the
Georgia 46th cleared some some fields of fire in an
orchard by chopping down a few trees, and the 14th
Mississippi was held back in reserve. By about 10:00am the rebels
were as ready as they were ever going to be, when the lead elements
of General Crocker's 2nd Brigade arrived from Clinton. The
rebel skirmishers were pushed back into their lines by the advance of
5 regiments under 32 year old Colonel Green Berry Raum, a fiercely
anti-slavery Democrat from Illinois. And Raum had just gotten his men
into a line of battle for the uphill assault when the skies opened up
again.
The
down pour forced a full hour's delay. Frustrated by the rain, General
Crocker ordered Colonel Raum to quickly clear the road to Jackson.
So, about 11:00am, with bayonets fixed, the 17th Iowa, the 10th
Missouri, and the 80th Ohio regiments (above) surged forward toward the fence
line. The rebels had time to fire a single volley before they were
swamped by the blue coats.
For a few long moments the entire war was
reduced to twenty-five hundred men in hand to hand combat, struggling
for personal survival. The 80th
Ohio suffered 90 men killed or wounded. The Missouri and Iowa
regiments probably matched that loss. The 24th
South Carolina Volunteers lost over a 100 men, and the Georgia boys
almost as many.
Realizing
he had already bought the city of Jackson an addition 2 hours,
General Gregg (above) sounded the recall. And covered by the 14th
Mississippi, Gregg's bloodied little force of now less than 700 men,
arrived back in the Jackson trench lines about 1:00pm. But by
2:00pm, “Crocker's Grayhounds” had been reorganized and were
following the rebels back up the road to Jackson.
Ten
miles to the south the 16,000 men of Major General William Tecumseh
Sherman's XVth Corps had spent the evening camped around an old
health spa called “Mississippi Springs” - half way between
Raymond and Jackson.
In a rough circle, 7 sulfur springs fed pools,
each with a distinctive taste, smell and laxative effect, and with their adjacent hotels or rooming houses. The Federal
soldiers, road grit grinding between their teeth, would have
understood the words offered 20 years earlier by the drill operator
to the Reverend Cooper. When he hit water south of Raymond, he told
the Reverend, “It is water, but it stinketh mightily. It stinketh
so bad you can never use it." So, like the Reverend Cooper, the
owners of the Mississippi Springs labeled their source a “health
spring” and charged more for bathing in and drinking it. But all
these dusty Yankee visitors wanted was a long drink of cool untainted
water, and after midnight the cloud burst gave them that, and more.
Come
the dawn, the Federal advance was led by the 5,000 men of the 3rd
division under 39 year old Brigadier General James Madison Tuttle (above).
In
the front was Brigadier General Joseph “Fighting Joe” Anthony
Mower (above)'s brigade. Immediately behind them was the 6 gun 2nd
Iowa Battery, and 6 guns of Battery E of the 1st Illinois
Artillery. Clearly Sherman expected some delaying action by the
Confederates to try and stop his corps from getting into Jackson. The rest
of the division's infantry, Brigadier General Charles Matthies and
Brigadier General Ralph Buckland's brigades, followed.
General
Gregg had just dispatched 900 men up the Clinton road when his few
cavalry pickets reported Yankees out the Raymond Road. Quickly
Gregg threw what he had at the new problem, the 1st
Georgia “Sharpshooter” Battalion and the 3rd Kentucky Mounted
Infantry, both under the 34 year old Kentucky lawyer, Colonel Albert
Petty Thompson (above).
His orders to Thompson were to hold the enemy at the
Lynch Creek bridge. And to provide the defense some punch he also
dispatched a precious 4 gun battery – a pair of six pound
Napoleons and two 3 inch rifles – the Brookhaven Light Artillery -
commanded by Captain James S. Hoskin. Gregg made it clear to the
Captain those guns had to hold the Yankees until relieved.
Two
miles from the trenches of Jackson, and at about 9:30am, Thursday, 14
May, 1863, the 5th
Minnesota Infantry crossed the crest of a ridge above Lynch Creek.
Hoskin's artillery immediately laid down harassing fire on the
approaching Yankees So 27 year old Colonel Lucius Frederick Hubbard
got his Minnesota men spread out into a skirmish line, and Captain
Nelson Spoor deployed all 12 federal guns on both sides of the
Raymond road and started laying down a counter-battery fire.
One
of the rebel crewmen in Hoskin's battery, the unit's bugler, Isaac
Herman, remembered that counter fire as very personal. “One of
their shots passed over my gun,” he wrote later, “and knocked off
its sight. passed between the detachment, striking the caisson lid in
the rear and staving it in.” Herman stuck to his gun, until he,
“... saw a ball rolling on the ground, about six feet to my right.
It seemed to be about the same caliber as ours. It rolled up a stump,
bouncing about fifteen feet in the air. I thought it was a solid shot
and wanting to send it back to them through the muzzle of our gun, I
ran after it. It proved to be a shell, as it exploded, and a piece of
it struck my arm...Another ball struck a tree about eight inches in
diameter, knocked out a chip, which struck my face and caused me to
see the seven stars in plain day light...”.
In
the meantime, General Tuttle started looking for a way around the
bridge. The overnight rain had converted the usually lazy Lynch Creek
into a full river, but after half an hour the Hoosier found a ford to
the south, and started pushing the rest of the 2nd
battalion across. As they did, Colonel Thompson realized his
position had been turned. So he sent his Georgia foot soldiers
streaming back toward the Jackson trenches, relying on his mounted
Kentuckians to cover the withdraw of the cannon. They were not in
time, and the battery was captured.
By
2:00pm, General Tuttle had advanced up to the Jackson defenses, and
seeing the trench line filled with men and cannon, he again moved to
outflank the rebels. But the enemy to his front were now mostly
Mississippi militia. Johnston had declared the evacuation complete,
and Thompson's men were retreating through the city. Only Gregg's 700
were still in the western trench line. But they were ready to follow.
When
Tuttle's latest flanking movement found empty trenches, Sherman
ordered his corps to move into the city, sweeping up the militia in
the process. By 4:00pm the stars and stripes was flying again from
atop the Mississippi statehouse (above). The Battle of Jackson – such as
it was – had cost General Grant 42 dead, 25 wounded and 7 missing
in both corps. Rebel losses were about double that The second
Confederate state capital – after Nashville – had fallen to
federal forces. Immediately Grant issued orders to first gut the
place and then to abandon it.
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