VICKSBURG Chapter Three

The horsemen of the 6^th Illinois cavalry arrived in LaGrange Tennessee on Friday, 7 November, 1862. The rebel pickets fired a few shots as a formality, but their real task was observe and then to retreat and  report the Federal advance of “thirty regiments of infantry and four of cavalry” occupying  the little Tennessee vacation town. 

Poet, teacher and farmer, 40 year old Captain Henry Clinton Forbes (above), saw  LaGrange,  Tennessee as a...

“...neat little place of about a thousand people. The yards were beautifully improved, filled with evergreens and rare shrubberies. A fine college building crowned a gentle eminence to the east of the town and a Seminary for Ladies (above)  looked across it from the North.”

As a military objective LaGrange had but one asset. It stood at the edge of a 300 foot high bluff (above, lower center)  over looking the Coldwater River valley. 

The headwaters of the Coldwater (above) meandered southward...

... combining with first the Tallahatche River (above)....

, and then at Greenwood, Mississippi, the Coldwater combined with the Yalobusha River...

...to form the meandering Yazoo,  The low lands between the Yazoo and the Mississippi, formed the Mississippi Delta, AKA the Great Yazoo Swamp.... 

...which emptied into the Mississippi River just above Vicksburg. Invading the state here placed a federal army directly astride the head of all the rivers which controlled region. But even more importantly, the northern out post of the 24,000 man rebel Army of Mississippi, still recovering from the disaster at Corinth, was visible just  23 miles away at Holly Springs. 

The real prize of this avenue of attack was 220 miles to the south in the state capital and industrial and communication hub of Jackson (above), Mississippi.  It was here that the east/west Southern Railroad (blue) from Vicksburg, touched the north/south Central Mississippi railroad. The Southern RR then crossed the Pearl River bridge before connecting with Alabama and points east. Once Jackson was occupied and it's industry and rail lines and the Pearl River bridge were all destroyed, the wealth of the trans-Mississippi Confederacy might as well be on the moon for all the good it would do the rebellious government in  Richmond, Virginia. 

This is what Grant as a West Point graduate and a military professional knew - and what Abraham Lincoln and John McClernand as amateurs did not: occupying Jackson, Mississippi and destroying it's contents would accomplish everything the amateurs believed capturing Vicksburg would.  And Jackson was a lot easier to approach, and the approach would be easier to supply, via the Central Mississippi railroad.  And that is why Grant was concentrating his 42,000 man Army of the Tennessee against central Mississippi in  November of 1862. 

But the destruction of that railroad was not Grant's only objective, of course. Of at least equal importance was the destruction of Pemberton's army. The primary object of the entire war was stamping out the rebellion, and that meant imposing the will of the majority of Americans on those who sought to destroy by violence the means by which the will of the majority was peacefully expressed - the constitution. 

And then there was the need to actually clear the Mississippi river for commerce, to allow it to run "unvexed  to the sea". So, yes, Vicksburg would eventually have to be occupied, as well as it's mate at the river check point further south, Port Hudson. And the Army of the Cumberland under Grant's command, was the way that was going to happen, beginning here, in central Mississippi.

Coming south from Bolivar, Tennessee were two divisions - about 10,000 men - under a Grant favorite, the young and smart Major General James McPherson. (above) 

Advancing west from Corinth, Mississippi were three divisions - about 15,000 men -  under the combative Major General Charles Hamilton (above). His column was led by the 2^nd Iowa Volunteer Cavalry, which occupied Grand Junction, just 3 miles east of LaGrange, thus joining the right  and center wings of the Army of the Tennessee 

The left wing was nominally commanded by the sour but combative Major General William Tecumseh Sherman (above), But his three infantry divisions of about 15,000 men,  were tasked with defending  Memphis, with only the additional assignment of backing up Colonel Benjamin H. Grierson's  6^th Illinois Cavalry,  in their capture of LaGrange.

Instead the effective right wing of the Army of the Tennessee would be a single infantry division and a cavalry detachment under Hoosier General Alvin Peterson Hovey (above), commanding the Eastern District of Arkansas. Steaming from the port of Helena on the Mississippi River, he was to advance overland to the Coldwater River and destroy railroad bridges around Grenada – thus unflanking the  rebel defensive line along the Yalobusha, the last river line before Jackson.  

In planning his advance Grant had secreted himself and his staff in Nashville's City Hotel (above). With maps and reports scattered about his rooms, Grant familiarized himself with the terrain of Mississippi, until he had committed every inch of it to memory.

And doing this, Grant noticed a three mile stretch of 90 foot high bluffs, 23 miles above Vicksburg rising above the lethargic and meandering Yazoo River.

Eventually he could name most of the features of these otherwise obscure Walnut Hills (above)  - Drumgould's Bluff, Snyder's Mill and Snyder's bluff, Haine's Landing and Haine's Bluff, the Johnson Plantation and Chickasaw Bayou.  And as Grant began his advance down the center of Mississippi, he kept those bluffs in mind. It was that attention to detail which was to make Ulysses Grant the greatest general of his generation. 

So, on Sunday, 2 November, 1862 Grant informed Washington, "I have commenced a movement on Grand Junction with three divisions from Corinth and two from Bolivar [Tennessee]. Will leave here to-morrow evening and take command in person. If found practical, I will go on to Holly Springs, and maybe Grenada...",.

Grant sounded confident, but besides fighting the rebel army under General Earl Van Dorn and chasing off rebel cavalry raids against his supply lines - all under the shadow of the approaching winter - Grant was also engaged in combat with Washington. His immediate boss, newly promoted General-in-Chief Henry "the Brain" Halleck (above) had long harbored doubts about Grant's sobriety. And Lincoln, who had never met Grant, had just appointed McClernand to compete with him for supplies and reinforcements in Tennessee. So Grant decided to ask for clarification. In official channels, meaning publicly, he asked Halleck directly. What was McClernand's authority to be? Did the Illinious doppleganger answer to Grant, or did Grant answer to him?

The request made Lincoln painfully aware of the error he had made in allowing his old friend to have access to him . And it forced Halleck to do something he hated to do: make a decision. On 11 November, 1862, "The Brain" was forced to telegraph Grant a single, simple clear sentence. "You have command of all troops in your department, and have permission to fight the enemy where you please." So his authority was now unambiguous. Lots of people in Washington might not like having to trust Grant, but they now were publicly committed to supporting him, But Halleck's approval of Grant's advance had just a whiff of reserve. He approved the invasion of Mississippi, "...as soon as you are strong enough for that purpose." So if he faced a reversal that would be taken to show he had not been strong enough..

When the 2nd Iowa Cavalry occupied Holly Springs (above) without a major fight on Saturday, 15 November, Grant faced yet another problem. He commanded some 30,000 infantrymen available for front line duty, backed up with only some 5,000 cavalry troopers. That was far too few horsemen to preform reconnaissance and picket duty over an 80 mile wide front. And that yawning shortage would increase with ever step the army took southward. Grant needed to use infantry to substitute for his lack of cavalry. 

Referring to the gauntlets worn by the troopers, Grant telegraphed Sherman, back in Memphis, "I cannot move...with a force sufficient to handle that number without gloves." And while he waited for what reinforcements Sherman could send,  Grant established his first major supply depot at Holly Springs. 

Back in Memphis (above), Sherman now had options.  Thanks to Major General John McClernand's recruiting, 15,000 fresh men had or were about to arrive. And while they took over guarding the forts surrounding the Mississippi River port, and were drilled until they became soldiers, Sherman could now fulfill Grant's request,  advancing two divisions via the Central Mississippi Railroad to Holly Springs.

It appeared to Grant that by the time McClenrand had finished his honeymoon, Jackson Mississippi would be in burnt to the ground, and any attack on Vicksburg would be rendered redundant. His mistake, like the error in judgement made by so many general officers on both sides, was that Grant had underestimated Rebel Major General Earl Van Dorn (below).

    

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