John Gregg (above) did not get along well with his father-in-law. Gregg was a successful lawyer, with a practice in the east Texas flat lands of Fairfield County and a personal wealth of over a quarter of a million in today's dollars. Still it would have been odd if John had not felt a little self conscious about comparing what he had to offer his 1858 bride, Mary Francis Garth, to what she giving up – her father's large plantation in north central Alabama, with almost 200 slaves toiling daily to provide for her care and comfort.
The Garth's were cousins to Patrick Henry, and , Jessie Winston Garth (above) himself had spent time with Thomas Jefferson at Monticello, and was a long time friend of the 10th President of the United States, General John Tyler. Jessie himself had been a general in the Virginia Militia during the War of 1812. After moving south to share in the lands bullied from native peoples, Jessie Garth had helped found the town of Decatur, helped write the Alabama state constitution, was the first President of the state senate and had served in the state house as well.
He was the first President of First National Bank (above) in Decatur, and owned enough stock in the Memphis and Charleston Railroad, that the first steam engine to pull a train into Decatur was named after him. John would never measure up to Jessie Garth's social accomplishment. But there was an even more fundamental matter dividing John Gregg from his father-in-law.
Seventy year old slave owner Jessie Winston Garth was emphatic about the union. He would willing give up his slaves, he insisted, in order to save the union of the United States of America . But having never fought beside northerners, 34 year old John Gregg (above) felt no need to compromise or learn from the free labor of the north. Lincoln observed before he took the oath of office that secessionist demanded Republicans not only promise to not touch slavery, they must somehow convince men like John Gregg they would not touch slavery. And in 1861, that was no longer possible.
These were violent, ambitious men, frontiersmen who were unwilling to admit their "peculiar institution" was both economically and morally bankrupt. A civil war could only hasten the death of slavery, and yet men like John Gregg were driven to bring on the cataclysm.
As was observed at the time, secession was a logical discordance which had gripped one third of the nation. Such periodic bouts of insanity seem to be the the price humans have to pay for the Code of Hammurabi, the Magna Carta, the Declaration of Independence and the Emancipation Proclamation.
In the name of defending slavery, John Gregg became colonel of the 746 men from 9 east Texas counties who formed the 7th Volunteer infantry regiment. In the summer of 1861, after Mary Francis had been sent to the Garth's Alabama estates for safety, John had joined his regiment at Hopkinsville, Tennessee, on the border with neutral Kentucky. There, over six months, disease buried 130 of the men before they fired a shot in anger.
Then, in February of 1862 another 20 were killed and 40 wounded at the battle at Fort Donelson. Almost all of the remainder, including John, were forced to surrender.
The 7th Regiment was paroled and exchanged at Vicksburg in the fall of that year. By 1863 John was promoted to the rank of Brigadier General, and the Texas 7th joined with the 3rd, 10th,, 41st and 50th Tennessee regiments into the 4,500 man 10th Battalion or Gregg's Brigade. They were supported by Bledsoe's Missouri Battery, a smooth bore 6 pound bronze cannon called “Old Sacramento” and a pair of iron 6 pound cannon, all under Captain Hiram Bledsoe.
For the first 4 months of 1863, Gregg's Battalion was stationed 80 feet above the Mississippi river at Port Hudson (above), some 20 miles north of Federal lines at Natchez, Mississippi. Until Sunday, 3 May, 1863, that is - when a telegram arrived from Lieutenant General Pemberton in Vicksburg. Grant's breakout at Port Gibson had forced a desperate reshuffling of battle lines. Pemberton ordered Gregg and his men to move with all dispatch to Jackson, Mississippi, 200 miles away.
GSo on Monday, 4 May, at Port Hudson (above) General Gregg loaded his men onto the 7 cars of the Port Hudson and Clinton Railroad, for the 20 mile trip inland to the seat of East Feliciana Parish.
Their top speed over the corroded line was no more than 5 miles an hour. And after a seemingly endless series of shuttles back and forth the brigade's trip terminated in Clinton, a town of 1,500 white souls. Gregg's 4,500 Tennesseans and Texans then began a 37 mile forced march in the heat and dust of a suddenly dry Mississippi spring. Fifteen miles east of town they crossed the almost empty Amite river and then camped beside the trickle of the Tickfaw creek. Private W.J. Davidson of the 41st Tennessee remembered, ", Our rations gave out and the heat and dust was almost insufferable." The next day they reached Kent's Mills. Here Gregg's Battalion boarded cars of the New Orleans and Jackson railroad, to continue their journey north.
But they had barely resumed their progress when, shortly after crossing the Mississippi state border they had to disembark again. Two weeks earlier Grierson's Yankee raiders had destroyed many of the rails between Osyka and Brookhaven, Mississippi. So it was another 47 mile forced march, before Gregg's Battalion could board a third train for the 56 final miles into the state capital of Jackson, Mississippi. The Battalion had marched over 100 miles and traveled 100 miles by rail in 5 long exhausting days. They arrived in Jackson early on Saturday 9 May, 1863. That evening the weary rebels drank their fill from the cool waters of the upper Pearl River.
But the next day General Gregg received new orders from General Pemberton. And before dawn on Monday, 11 May, John Gregg would lead his weary battalion on yet another forced march of 27 miles to the southwest. That afternoon they were greeted by cheering crowds at the town of Raymond, happy to see so many Confederate soldiers after a week of apparent abandonment. Their joy was mitigated somewhat when after filing into a field just south of town, “…the brigade...were too tired to stand in line...and everyone dropped...as soon as we halted.”
General Gregg, meanwhile was quickly seething with anger. The cavalry he expected to find guarding the roads south of Raymond (above) , were nowhere to be seen.
Pemberton was trying to form a ring to contain Grant's army, behind the Big Black River to the west, and its tributaries Fourteen Mile and Baker's creeks to the north and east. And the force he chose to stake out the positions south of Raymond until Gregg's men arrived, were the 500 troopers of Colonel Willaim “Wirt" Adams 1st Mississippi cavalry regiment. And the reason they were not where they were supposed to be had to do with their hot headed commander.
Both 49 year old William "Wirt" Adams (above) and his younger brother Daniel were violent southern gentlemen prone to spontaneous duels -slash -brawls to defend their “honor”. Younger brother Daniel had even been tried for the murder of a journalist, but the jury generously found he had been acting in self defense. Colonel Adams would eventually die in a similar encounter on a street corner. But that was 20 years in the future. On Friday, 8 May, the 1st Mississippi cavalry were in Jackson, resting men and horses after futile and frustrating week spent chasing Gerierson's raiders across central Mississippi, with only a brief encounter at cannon range to slate their hunger.
Pemberton now ordered Colonel Adams to “picket” his men on the roads south of Raymond. But he also ordered Adams to ride to Edward's Depot, to assess the situation there.
Two weeks earlier Pemberton had been so desperate for cavalry to stop Colonel Gierson's raid, he had ordered 3 companies of the 20th Mississippi Infantry at Jackson, Mississippi – about 400 men - to be put on horseback, and sent to Edward's Depot to guard the 300 muskets and 10,000 rounds of ammunition stored in Edward's Produce and Grocery. These guns were one of dozens of such arsenals through out Mississippi, kept to deal with a feared uprising by the victims of the allegedly “benign” institution of slavery.
On 6 May, 1863 a 100 man scouting detachment of the 20th Mississippi horse-slash- infantry, out of Edwards Depot, was surprised along Bakers Creek by union cavalry. And it was their capture which had so frightened editor and publisher George William Harper at Raymond, that he had inspired Pemberton's concern about the capabilities of the metamorphosed 20th Mississippi.
And that was why Pemberton had asked Colonel Adams to ride the 25 miles from Jackson, through Bolton, and across Bakers Creek to Edward's Depot. Once there he was to coolly observe and calmly report about the condition and combat readiness of the 20th regiment. But cool and calm were not words usually associated with either of the Adams boys.
If Colonel Adams had caught up with Grierson's raiders, even for a brief struggle, he might have reacted differently to Pemberton's orders. But the insult of burned box cars and warehouses along the Grierson's route was seared into his mind. He had breathed in the stench of blackened wooden cross ties and bridges, felt the humiliating heat of smoldering and twisted bow tied iron rails. His honor demanded revenge. Revenge was something William Wirt Adams understood.
So on Saturday morning 10 May, even though ordered to picket his men on the roads between Raymond and Forty-mile Creek, Brigadier General William Wirt Adams had mounted his entire command and ridden the 25 miles to Edward's Depot. Here, behind Confederate lines, all was confusion. Adams spent the next 48 hours in Edward's Depot, looking for a fight, unaware he had just missed the most important one in his life.
Because, on the evening of 11 May, Brigadier General John Gregg's 4,500 infantrymen were left defending the three roads leading into the town of Raymond without the eyes and ears of cavalry to warn them of any approaching Yankee army. And the Yankees were approaching, In great numbers.
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