VICKSBURG Chapter Fifty-Seven

The Confederate guns fired first, barking out just after 8:30 a.m. that Sunday morning, 17 May, 1863. They could see the Yankee infantry impudently marching toward the right flank of their cotton fortifications. The gunfire drove the blue bellies to ground in the plowed fields. In response, more Yankees from Carr's division approached, and began to unlimber four big cannon, The battle was shaping up just as John Bowen anticipated it would.

In command of the rebel bridgehead, Brigadier General John Stevens Bowen, (above) the 32 year old profession soldier from Georgia, was not happy. His 5,000 men were low on ammunition and bone tired when they stumbled into their positions after midnight, Once again, as the day before at Champion Hill, he was being forced to fight with a river at his back. He would have preferred to defend the west bank of the Big Black River, but his commander, Lieutenant General John C. Pemberton, held out hope that General Loring's 6,000 man division would reach their lines before the Yankee army.

So Bowen did the best he could. He sited 2 big cannon throwing 24 pound shells next to the makeshift boat/bridge over the river, to protect his men's line of retreat. And he stacked 18 more cannon on his left flank, south of the Edward's Depot road, to support Colonel Francis Cockrell's brigade, where the Yankees were most likely to attack. Major General Martin Green's brigade was defending the other end of the river bend, a mile to the north.

Holding the center were 3 regiments, the 60^th, 61^st and 62^nd Tennessee, under 39 year old Brigadier General John Crawford Vaughn (above). Vaughn was far more ardent than able. He was an enthusiastic and brutal supporter of slavery and the Confederacy. Well know in his home state, his reputation helped recruit these volunteers from the “hollers” of east Tennessee - a region riddled by divided loyalties.

The volunteers were told they were signing up to protect their homes. But the Confederacy could not afford to keep that promise. And while Vaughn's Tennessee brigade helped repulse Sherman's assault on the Walnut Hills in January, letters from home chronicled Jay Hawker guerrilla barn burnings and vendetta murders their families were through suffering. The betrayal of that promise weakened Tennesseans resolve and made them suspect in the eyes of Confederate officers. Which is why Bowen had placed them in the center, opposite a second growth wood, deemed too dense to allow an organized attack to be launch through the trees.

But the weariness of the men and officers lead to mistakes, such as sending the horse teams, responsible for moving those valuable cannon, over the railroad bridge to the west bank of the Big Black River for safety. Some how General Bowen never understood that had been done. And that was not the only mistake.

At some point in the night the regiment assigned to the very northern end Green's line, The First Missouri Cavalry (dismounted), under Colonel Elijah Gates, was ordered to pull back. So in the dark, the regiment was awakened and stumbled across the bridge. No one noticed it's absence until first light, at which point Bowen exploded in anger. Gate's weary men were shaken awake again, marched back across the bridge to return to their original position.

That belated movement drew the attention of Yankee Major General John Alexander McClernand (above).  He had already sent Peter Osterhaus's 9^th division into line between the Edward's Depot road and the dense wood. Brigadier General Theophilus Toulmin Garrard, a wealthy, half blind 50 year old Kentucky slave owner, commanded the 1^st brigade. To their right was the 17^th brigade under Colonel Daniel W. Lindsey.  But seeing the movement close to the northern end of the rebel line, McClernand suspected the rebels might be preparing to launch an attack from there. So he dispatched his reserve, Brigadier General Eugene Asa Carr's 14^th division, to anchor his left flank, north of the woods.

What changed the battle to come, was the commander of Carr's 2^nd brigade, the big Illinois Irishman, General Micheal Kelly Lawler (above). He stood over 6 feet tall and weighed over 250 pounds. One of his soldiers observed that the farmer, merchant and lawyer, “Could only mount his horse with great difficulty, and when he was mounted it was difficult for the horse”  Union Secretary of War Charles Dana would later describe Lawler as “…brave as a lion,…and has as much brains”,   But Lawler was smart and an experienced soldier. He summed up his favorite strategy as, “If you see a head, hit it.” And he noticed an opportunity to play wack-a-mole on of this seemingly featureless terrain.

The Big Black River had once followed a straighter path, before some long forgotten floods had carved out the present westward bend. The new bend abandoned the old flood levees marking the old stream bed, which angled to within a hundred yards of the rebel cotton bale defenses. That old levee now offered chest high cover for attacking Yankees, starting on the north and ending opposite the center of the rebel line, held by the Tennessee Brigade. And because everybody on the southern side was so tired, nobody on the Confederate side of the line, had noticed that old levee.

To be fair, the rebels were distracted. Not long after 8:00 a.m. General Osterhaus appeared, leading four 20 pound Parrott guns, which unlimbered at the south western edge of the wood and just 400 yards from the cotton bale fortifications. At what was point blank range for the big guns, they began to methodically dismantle the cotton bale fortifications. Colonel Cockrell's artillery tried to suppress the Wisconsin guns, and managed to hit one of the Union ammunition limbers, exploding it. The blast wounded an officer and 3 gunners, and it a chunk of shrapnel clipped Peter Osterhaus' thigh, forcing him to withdraw for a short time. All that fire and fury drew attention away from what was about to happen in the center.

As a test, Lawler sent the 11^th Wisconsin regiment charging up the old river bed, 200 yards to the relative safety of the levee. The sudden movement, almost perpendicular to their lines, caught General Green's rebels off guard. That success encouraged Lawler to send the 21^st and 23^rd Iowa after. They took a few causalities but arrived essentially intact. 

At about the same time, Lawler was informed of the discovery of a hidden farmer's lane cleared through the woods to the center opposite the rebel lines. Lawler sent to six guns, from the 2^nd Illinois Light and 22^nd Iowa artillery, down that path. The charge of the Iowans drew rebel eyes away from sudden appearance of the guns. Within fifteen minutes Lawler could lay down direct fire on the Confederate center.

Lawler then galloped on horseback across the open space under heavy fire.  Somehow he arrived uninjured. And while he stripped off his heavy jacket, and strapped his sword around his substantial chest,  he ordered Iowa sharpshooters to lay down a musket fire on the unfortunate Tennesseans that was so heavy that one shot snapped the reigns of General Vaugnn's horse.

Crouching behind the cotton bales, the East Tennessee boys could sense if they could not see  the vice closing in on them. A few began to drift away from the front line. And they were joined by some from Colonel Cockrell's brigade. These men had fought hard the day before. They were the troops farthest from the boat/bridge over the river. It was as if it slowly began to dawn on the entire Confederate line that they were about to suffer a repeat of yesterday's debacle. And atop the west bank of the Big Black, the engineer Major Lockett saw that realization begin to set in. He sent a messenger galloping the mile and a half back to Bovina, to urge General Pemberton to authorize the destruction of the bridges over the river.

The only thing holding Lawler back was that he had no support should the attack fail. After 2 years of war even the amateur McClernand knew the foolishness of such an oversight. Since he had already committed his reserve, McClernand reached out to first available troops, which turned out to be a brigade from General A.J. Smith's division, part of Sherman's Corps. These men, marching from Jackson, had not turned right at Bolton. Rather they continued west to the ammunition wagons parked around the Champion House. They were now escorting the wagons carrying the shot and shell for Sherman's entire Corps, intending on turning north at the Big Black. But McClernand diverted them. When they arrived the final regiment in Lawler's brigade, the 22^nd Iowa, moved forward.

It turned out to be only a 20 minute delay -about the same time it took the messenger to gallop the 3 miles round trip between Bovina and the bridges. Receiving permission to fire the crossings, Major Lockett ordered both bridges soaked with turpentine. Soldiers with burning torches were ordered to fire the bridges before the first Yankee soldier began to cross. The hand full of deserters filtering toward the rear continued to slowly grow. And then, just past 9:00 a.m. Lawler launched his assault.

A newspaper reporter called it “the most perilous and ludicrous charge”, but the battle that followed took no more than three minutes. The 23^rd Iowa went over the levee first, 30 year old Colonel William Henry Kinsman (above), leading the way. He was a Canadian lawyer who had moved to Council Bluffs, Iowa 9 year earlier. His regiment was mustered in at Des Moines in September of 1862. Less than a year later, this charge was his idea. Before he had gone very far a rebel Minnie ball fired from a Missouri rife on the regiment's exposed left flank, knocked him down. He staggered back to his feet. He resumed the charge, urging his men forward. Then a shot thudded into his lung. And hour later William died, right where he had fallen. Just another of the 6 officers and 69 enlisted men killed, maimed and wounded as the 23^rd Iowa crossed that 100 yards, a small part part of an army which came from all over the world to fight for the idea of a government of, by and for the people.

The 21^st Iowa were right beside their fellow buckeyes. One participant wrote later, “To stop one instant was to die, and so onward they rushed, yelling, screaming madmen, wild with excitement, and shaking the gleaming bayonet.” The 21^st regiment's Colonel, 40 year old Protestant tea-teetotaler and abolitionist Samuel Merrill, whom Grant called "eminently brilliant and daring”, also went down, shot through both hips. He survived but his military service was over.

The 290 men of the 23^rd lost 13 killed in that charge, and 70 wounded. Clambering through the abatis, the 23rd's color bearer, Corporal John Boone was shot dead. The regimental flag was quickly recovered by Corporal John Shipman, who continued to lead the attack. As Colonel Lawler, mounted atop his horse, passed over the rebel line he saw the Tennessee regiments scattering before his men, and the panic infecting the entire Confederate line. Lawler turned and called for the 49^th and 69^th Indiana regiments to come up in support. In fact the entire Federal line began swelling forward, drawn by the scent of victory.

The Illinois 33^rd, AKA, “the brain's” regiment was surged forward with everybody else. These were the men who had swept up the exhausted rebels from the road before dawn. And now, just after 9:00 a.m., Private James “Jimmy” Adkins jumped astride the barrel of one of the 14 cannon the 33^rd captured that morning. It was a fine party until the exuberant private, “looking like a little bedraggled rooster” pulled the lanyard and the gun expectantly went off, throwing Adkins to the ground, and sending a shell out over the heads of his regiment. Said the regimental historian, “It was the first time that Jimmy was known to be frightened.” That day the 33^rd suffered 1 officer and 12 men wounded.

Some rebels escaped over the burning bridges. Some survived by swimming across the rain swollen river, while an unknown number drowned in the Big Black. In all another 18 cannon were captured by the Yankees, along with 1,400 rifled muskets, as well as 1,750 men killed, wounded and taken prisoner. In two short horrible days, out of a 17,000 man army, Lieutenant General John C. Pemberton had lost 5, 000 men killed and captured, 39 cannon lost, and had another 6,000 man division that wander off in search of a better field commander.

Grant's reaction to the victory was to order McPherson's Corps to cross the Big Black upstream, at the tiny community of Amsterdam, midway to Sherman's crossing at Bridgeport. Ulysses had his eyes fixed firmly on the Yazooo Heights. And by 10:00 a.m. that Sunday, 17, May, 1863, it was almost in his hands.

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VICKSBURG Chapter Fifty-Six

The apparitions rose from the fen so coated with mud they appeared to be the earth itself. It was a few minutes before 9:00 a.m. on Sunday, 17 May, 1863, and the night chill was just melding into the heat of the day. The demoralized, exhausted rebels, crouching behind the cotton bales, had endured an hour of heavy cannons methodically dismantling their textile fortifications from almost point blank range. And then, abruptly, while the bombardment continued, a great host of shouting banshees materialized out of the clinging mire, teeth and steel blazing in the sunlight, almost on top of them. Reason evaporated. Logic dissolved. The outnumbered rebels ran for their lives.

The Big Black River should have made a strong defensive position. The west bank was 60 feet above the meandering river and the swampy east shore. The railroad was carried 150 feet above  the marshes and an oxbow lake on great stone supports, a bridge 1,250 feet long. Normally wagons and travelers on foot had to use a browbeaten ford, and then clamber up the steep slope. The 5 divisions of Lieutenant General John Clifford Pemberton's army of Mississippi could have easily held the west bank against Grant, at least for awhile. With a little stupidity on Grant's part, even the 3 divisions which had crossed Baker's Creek 2 days earlier might have resisted. But the broken parts of the army which had escaped the debacle at Champion Hill, stood no chance of stopping the victorious Yankee army less than 18 hours later. And then, General Pemberton made made this bad situation even worse.

Instead of defending the west bank, Pemberton had posted a third of the battered remnants of his army with their backs to the river – just a day after the same sin had led to disaster. Sent ahead late on the afternoon of Saturday,16 May the seemingly tireless Chief Engineer, Major Samuel Lockett, had conjured a defense across the boggy neck of the east bank of the Big Black river bend.

Cotton bales awaiting shipment at Bovina Station were brought by locomotive to the west bank and rolled down the shoulder of the railroad levee. Stacked several deep in a line across most the open face of the river bend they formed an instant fortification. With dirt thrown against them to dampen any sparks, it was the same defense which had worked so well at Fort Pemberton, in February. 

Then, in front of the main battle line, Lockett added a trick developed by the Roman Army 2,000 years earlier – abatis. These were tree branches driven into ground with their brittle arms facing the advancing Yankees. Like barbed wire a generation later, these abatis were intended to break up attacking formations.

Crossties were also brought forward from Bovina Station and dropped between the rails on the railroad bridge. Then dirt was scattered down,  making it usable for horse drawn wagons.  

But vividly aware of the disaster the day before, Lockett was determined to provide a second line of retreat. Close at hand was a small fleet of steamboats – the Dot, the Charm, the Paul Jones and the Bufort - which had plied the Big Black until the Yankees had captured Grand Gulf, at the river's mouth. Lockett had one of these, the Dot, brought south of the railroad bridge. Her engine was stripped and sent north on the river, and everything above her bottom deck was stripped off.  Anchored to both shores, she formed a second bridge, for the men, if not their equipment.

Major General John Steve's Bowen's battered division filed into the new “fortifications” after midnight.  Although they had suffered heavily at Champion Hill, they were confident with the defenses they found awaiting them. 

Brigadier General Francis Marion Cockrell brigade was south of the road, and 47 year old Brigadier General Martin Edwin Green's brigade at the northern end of the line. Sandwiched between them were the 3 regiments of impressed draftees from east Tennessee, under General John Crawford Vaughn. Most of the rebels to the southern rebellion had already drifted away from their units by this time. But Pemberton had little faith in those who remained. And the weary Tennesseans who collapsed behind the cotton walls in the dark morning hours of Sunday, 17 May, knew their bodies were being offered as a sacrifice in the forlorn hope that Major General Loring's wayward division would soon arrive to rejoin the army.

As usual, Lieutenant General Ulysses Simpson Grant was prepared for the next step. His army was just as tired as the rebels. The only difference was that his men had won. The Saturday night of 16 May, Grant let his men sleep where they were, atop the bloody hill.Alvin Hovey's 12^th division was too damaged by the day's butchery to move the next morning. Better to allow them a day of rest, to recover those separated in the chaos, those confused or wounded or frightened, to find their way back to their units. Better to let them bury their own dead. They would follow the next day. But the rest of the army would not wait a moment longer than was necessary.

In the pitch black of 3:30 A.M., Major General Alexander McClernand  (above) pushed his XIII corps west out of Edward's Depot.  Brigadier General Eugene Carr's 14^th division lead the way, with a skirmish line Colonel Charles Lippicot's 33^rd Illinois regiment sweeping both sides of the road ahead, collecting rebels who had collapsed and fallen asleep. Brigadier General Peter Joseph Osterhaus' 9^th division was next in line, with Andrew Jackson Smith's 10th division bringing up the rear. James McPherson's entire XVII Corps would follow up the same road, but would not be required to form up until well after dawn.

William Tecumseh Sherman's (above) XV Corps – consisting of Frederick Steele's 1^st division and James Tuttle's 3^rd divison - was just catching up with the army after occupying Jackson. 

They had turned north at the town of Bolton, crossed Baker's Creek and were already marching west to reach the Big Black River 11 miles upstream at Bridgeport.  Here Sherman expected to be rejoined by General Francis Blair's 2^nd division, before crossing the river on a pontoon bridge he had been dragging along since Raymond. This crossing would outflank the entire Big Black River line, should Pemberton have decided to defend the west bank. Luckily for Grant, Pemberton had made it easy for him.

The Yankees were confident and careful. Examining the cotton bale defenses, General Carr spread his men out south of the Bovina Road. The Prussian immigrant Osterhause formed his division into a battle line north of the road and into the woods on his right. And like a carpenter choosing his his tools, Peter reached out the perfect weapon for the situation – the 10 pound Parrott rifle.

They were the largest field artillery piece used in the war. Being formed from brittle cast iron they were relatively inexpensive. Once drilled and rifled, water was poured down the barrel while a red hot cast iron band was clamped around the breech (above, rear). This reinforcement increased the muzzle velocity to over 1,100 feet per second, giving them an effective range of 3,500 yards – over a mile.

But the 20 pound Parrott had 2 disadvantages. First the gun and carriage weighed over 2 and ½ tons, requiring 8 horses to pull and 10 crew members to manhandle. And secondly, 22 of the big Parrotts were engaged during the Battle of Antietam the previous September, and 3 of them had blown out their breeches, killing many of their crews. This tendency of the brittle metal to fail caused more than a little unease among the crew of the 1^st Battery of the Wisconsin Light Artillery, who had 6 of the behemoths in their care. But it was these guns that General Osterhause reached for on that Sunday morning, telling their commander, 25 year old Lieutenant Oscar F. Nutting, in his broken English, “I shows you a place where you gets a good chance at 'em”.

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