VICKSBURG Chapter Forty

The first manifestation of Grant's shift in strategy came shortly after 4:30am on Wednesday, 13 May, 1863, when the bloodied troops of General Logan's 3^rd division marched through the village of Raymond, and surprisingly took the right hand fork in the road. They were heading not toward the capital of Jackson, just 25 miles to the east, but north. At an average pace of 3 miles an hour, on a relatively good road, by noon they had reached the railroad town of Clinton. Before the war 20,000 bales of cotton a year had been shipped through this little village, but destroying this profit making center of the Confederacy was not why Grant was so eager to capture the place.

After the bloodletting of 12 May, General John Gregg (above) withdrew his battalion north of Raymond to a line along Snake Creek. But he could not stay there. His little force was now reduced to less than 3,000 effectives - healthy men still in organized units with ammunition and the spirit to do battle. But this was the only force available to defend the state capital. Allowing his men a few hours of rest, Gregg pulled them back further to Mississippi Springs. But in the process, because the Texas General had no cavalry, he lost contact with the Yankees. The afternoon of 13 May, 1863, Gregg returned to Jackson, to push every additional man he could westward, to defend the city.

The small, almost insignificant village of Clinton, Mississippi fell without a shot fired in its defense. In effect, Grant merely extended his arm, that appendage being Logan's division (above), and the great prize the Federal armies had striven for the past 5 months, dropped into the palm of his hand like a ripe fruit. He now had only to close his fist and the Gibraltar of the Confederacy, the western post supporting the thousand mile long jugular that pumped life's blood from the bounty of the trans-Mississippi across the continent to Richmond, Virginia would be sliced in two. The instant Yankee soldiers picked up the first ten foot long iron rail from its bed or set fire to the first bridge over a dry creek along the Southern Railroad, the 45,000 rebel soldiers 40 miles to the east defending Vicksburg were cut off.

The Yankees spent the afternoon tearing up rails for a mile or more to the west of Clinton Station. Anything in town they could not eat or wear or use to rearm themselves, they burned. And while they did, McPherson pushed the 13 regiments of 33 year old Brigadier General Marcellus Monroe Crocker's 14^th Division out the Jackson road. And before the tail of McPherson's XVII Corps had even reached the fork in the road, the 17,000 men of William Tecumseh Sherman's XV Corps marched into Raymond on the Utica road. The next day, 14 May they were to strike at the capital of the state of Mississippi.

The first effect of the war on the 3,000 residents of Jackson was that it unleashed inflation. Within a year a pair of boots cost as much as $125.00, a pound of sugar was going for $3.50, Tea cost $7.00 a pound and locally grown watermelons cost up to $25.00 apiece. Still, the war remained a distant abstraction until April of 1862, when trains delivered a small portion of the the 8,000 wounded from the bloody fields around Shiloh Church, Tennessee, to the homes and hospitals of Jackson.

That winter, when Grant first invaded the state,  Jackson was encircled by a single “mild” trench dug by slaves.  By then the population had almost doubled, consisting mostly of families of state workers, and those employed by the Southern and the New Orleans and Ohio Railroads, and the cities' textile and war industries, which turned out leather shoes and cotton uniforms and tents for Mississippi's regiments.

And there was also the Jackson Arsenal, in the College Green neighborhood, 2 blocks east and a block south of the state capital building (above). 

In the 2 story brick North School building in College Green – an antebellum boy's school - some 80 men, women and children assembled ammunition -  small arms' cartridges up stairs and artillery shells on the ground floor. 

The work was hard, the pay was low, the conditions abysmal, and the outcome inevitable. At about 3:00pm on Wednesday, 5 November, 1862 there was an horrific explosion, which blew apart the school. This was followed by fires which set off many of the stored munitions.

The Weekly Mississippian reported 2 days later, “ All the men and women employed in the building...had been hurled to instantaneous destruction...One man had a leg torn off and his brains literally blown out. The body of a poor girl was hanging by one foot to the limb of a tree...her clothes were still burning. Other bodies were blown to the distance of from fifty to one hundred and fifty yards, and presented a mutilated and most shocking appearance. The packages of powder and the shells were yet continually exploding...The fire engine was promptly on the ground, but could not do much owing to the want of water.”

It would appear that several people in authority knew full well the unsafe conditions in the arsenal, since, as the Mississippian newspaper pointed out, “The officers in charge of the Arsenal...save one superintendent, were not on duty at the site.” One was, in fact, “in his sick room.” Those who died did so because they needed the money, and because they were dedicated to the cause.

Then, at about 10:30pm that very night “...a fire broke out in (a South State Street)...jewelry and dry-goods establishment...The fire raged northward...and destroyed the house occupied by Mrs. Evans as a millinery establishment and continued its ravages to Mr. Weirs, next to John Martz, next to Mr. John Robinson's where the progress of the flames was arrested. Also destroyed was the depot of the Southern Railroad with several surrounding buildings. Several bales of cotton and a considerable quantity of goods were also destroyed..." One resident noted that before dawn, many of the goods saved from the burning homes and stores were then stolen by looters. Now it felt as if the war was  truly coming to Jackson.

Six months of dread followed, and it began to weigh upon the citizens. As soon as Grant had crossed the Mississippi river, General Pemberton had advised the governor to send the state archives into the interior. People took note of that. Less than a week later, civilians were looking for safety. The Mobile Alabama Register and Advertiser newspaper noted that in Jackson, “The trains for the interior are crowded with non-combatants, and the sidewalks blocked up with cases, barrels, old fashioned trunks and chests,..."  Civilians were getting out, and soldiers, like General Gregg, were coming in.

And the night of Wednesday, 13 May, 1863, General Gregg was startled to discover yet another arrival in the capital of Mississippi, Lieutenant General Joseph Eggleston Johnson. No one had been told to expect the old man. But Gregg welcomed him, particularly because he was closely followed by 3,000 reinforcements.

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