VICKSBURG Chapter Forty-One

 

I can only imagine the shock felt by Major General John Gregg when an officer walked into the capital building (above)  just after seven on Wednesday evening of 13, May 1863, to announce the arrival of  General Joseph Eggleston Johnston at the Alabama and Ohio railroad depot, just down the street. 

Gregg was conferring with the commander of the city, the fearless Brigadier General John Adams. Together they were trying desperately to cobble together a defense for the city. What they needed was more cavalry, more infantry and more guns, not another general - lest of all one who outranked them both.  Neither man had received so much as a hint that Johnston was coming to Mississippi. The flabbergasted generals had just minutes to adjust to the new reality before the slight thin gray haired Johnston made his appearance.

They had all met the previous December, when Confederate President Jefferson Davis dragged Johnston (above) with him on an inspection of the new Mississippi theater of operations. But now the 34 year Gregg was meeting his 56 year old commander in the midst of a full blown crises. The punctilious Virginian, always a stickler for formalities, calmly exchanged salutes and with no small talk, asked for a full tactical update. Johnston sat and closed his eyes as he received it, having spent the last 4 days and nights bouncing across three states via five separate railroad lines.

Gregg began by sharing his last message from Lieutenant General John C. Pemberton, now in Vicksburg.  “The enemy is apparently moving in heavy force toward Edward’s Depot...With my limited force, I will do all I can to meet him.” Gregg explained that Pemberton had 2 divisions, 40 miles to the west at Bovina, along the Southern railroad. General Loring's division was 10 miles closer at Edward's Depot, along with Wirt Adam's cavalry regiment. All together Pemberton had immediate command over 17,000 men. He had 2 more division in Vicksburg itself,  But President Davis's order to hold that city at all cost meant those men would remain behind their fortifications. In any case, Pemberton had ordered Loring to probe south, to find out exactly where Grant's army was.

The day before, Tuesday, 12 May, 1863, Gregg's 4,000 man brigade had been mauled by a 7,000 man division of Yankee General James Birdseye McPherson's Corps, 21 miles to the south west at Raymond. Gregg had been forced to retreat to Mississippi Springs, but the Federals did not seem to be following him up, and Gregg assumed the Yankees had been hurt and were regrouping. But this afternoon  had come reports from Clinton, 10 miles due west of Jackson, of what seemed to be a brand new Federal division, which Gregg could only assume was part of Sherman's Corps. Obviously Grant had turned on Jackson, and obviously the greatest threat was what Gregg assumed to be Sherman's Corps at Clinton, just 10 miles from the city trench lines. Before Johnston's arrival, Gregg and Adams had been rearranging their available men to defend against that new threat.

General Adams did have some good news to share with Johnston. In the city were a recently arrived Georgia brigade under the competent Brigadier General William Henry Talbot Walker, as well as a regiment from Charleston, South Carolina, under 31 year old Brigadier General States Rights Gist - in total another 3,000 men. In addition at any time Adams expected 38 year old Brigadier General Samuel Bell Maxey to arrive at the head of another 3,000 man brigade. Within 24 hours, there would be 9 or 10,000 men to defend Jackson. Having made their report, Gregg and Adams watched the frail old man remain sitting, eyes closed. They thought for a moment he might have fallen asleep.

But Johnston was thinking. He was thinking that behind him on the same rickety and broken rail lines he had just spent 4 days traversing, were another 3,000 infantry and artillery from Braxton Bragg's Army of the Tennessee.  Once they arrived, and with the units he had just learned of, he could take on a full Yankee Corps.  But Bragg's men would not arrive in Jackson for several days. And when they did, they would be exhausted.  And recent experience taught Johnston to expect similar delays in Maxey's arrival. So, for the next 48 hours, if not longer, Old Joe had only the 3,000 bloodied troops of Gregg's brigade, and the fresh 3,000 men of Walker and Gist, with which to defend Jackson.

After a long and uneasy silence, Johnston opened his eyes, and now leaning over the map table, he said simply, “I am too late.” Unwilling to sacrifice 6,000 men to slow 30,000 Yankees attacking from 2 directions, Johnston ordered that the capital of Mississippi would have to be abandoned. It would be  the second Confederate state capital to fall to the Yankees. The undercurrent of doom, which had motivated the flurry of defense preparations, now fully descended on the two men and their staffs. There was no argument with Johnston's assessment. Only a dark chill.

In the morning, Johnston ordered Gregg to take 2 brigades out the Clinton road to delay Sherman's men. Meanwhile General Adams would collect as many supplies and as much ammunition as possible, load it on trains or wagons, and dispatch it all 20 miles northeast to the town of Canton, Mississippi. Johnston ordered that the capital must be evacuated no later than 3:00pm the next day, Thursday, 14 May, 1863.

The the only practicable line of retreat was to the north. So after the fall of Jackson, all reinforcements coming by rail would have to find their around the city to Canton by foot. Having issued his orders, at 8:40pm Johnston composed a message for General Pemberton. “I have lately arrived, and learn that Major-General Sherman is between us, with four divisions, at Clinton. It is important to reestablish communications, that you may be re-enforced. If practicable, come up on his rear at once. To beat such a detachment, would be of immense value. The troops here could co-operate. All the strength you can quickly assemble should be brought. Time is all-important."

And then, because the telegraph lines had been cut, Johnston asked for a volunteer to carry his message across Yankee controlled territory to Bovina. Captain James Rucks Yeager stepped forward. He was a New Jersey native, who after graduating Princeton in 1859 had moved to Mississippi to become a planter and slave owner.  With the coming of war Yeager had sided with the south, and Johnston recognized him from the 1862 Peninsula campaign. The General accepted Yeager's offer. Recognizing the importance of the message, Yeager picked two more men to carry copies, to ensure the message got through.

Johnston then sent a telegram to the Secretary of War Seddon in Richmond, knowing that President Davis would be reading it as well. It began, “I arrived this evening finding the enemy's force between this place and General Pemberton, cutting off the communication. I am too late." And then he walked across the street to the Bowman House hotel (above) to catch a little sleep. 

There are deep basements in parts of modern day Richmond Virginia, where you can still hear echoes of Jefferson Davis's response to that telegram. Although, what Joe Johnston was supposed to do with the steaming mess Jeff Davis handed him, was never made clear. Like Jesus or Mohammad or even Buddha, if all you ever ask of your heroes is the impossible, they are often going to fail you. And that is not their fault.  Jefferson Davis never learned that.

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