VICKSBURG Chapter Thirty - Seven

 

John Gregg (above) 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 he felt self conscious about comparing what he had to offer his 1858  bride, Mary Francis Garth, to what she was 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 10^th President of the United States, 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 Gregg 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 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 by 1861, that was no longer possible. 

These were violent, ambitious men like John Gregg 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 that would destroy it.  

As was observed at the time, secession was a logical discordance which had gripped one third of the nation. Without such periodic bouts of insanity humans would never have needed 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 7^th Volunteer infantry regiment.  In the summer of 1861, after Mary Francis had been sent back 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 Gregg's men before they fired a shot in anger. 

Then, in February of 1862 another 20 were killed and 40 wounded at the battle of Fort Donelson. Almost all of the remainder, including John, were forced to surrender.

The 7^th 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 7^th joined with the 3^rd, 10^th,, 41^st and 50^th Tennessee regiments into the 4,500 man 10^th 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.

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So 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 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 1^st 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 1^st 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 20^th 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 20^th 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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VICKSBURG Chapter Twenty - Nine

The dawn of Saturday, 2 May, 1863, illuminated the golden haired "frat boy" of the Army of the Potomac, 49 year old Major General Joseph "Fighting Joe" Hooker (above), standing atop the pinnacle of success.  He looked the part - handsome, athletic and audacious, a candle burning brilliantly at both ends. His diligent attention to the welfare of his soldiers had rebuilt the army after the twin disasters at Fredricksburg and the Mud March. 

At the same time his alcohol soaked headquarters became so infamous for its female contingent that forever after prostitutes bore his name. But in the previous 24 hours, "the inevitable" Major General Hooker had achieved what every other Federal general had failed to. He had stolen a march on Robert E. Lee.

The man who had boasted, "May God have mercy on General Lee, for I will have none" had planted 70,000 men and 108 cannon facing south and east at Chancellorsville clearing, 11 miles in the rear of the 50,000 men of the Army of Northern Virginia. His enemy was now trapped between his great host and the 40,000 Yankees of the VI Corps facing west on the Rappahannock River. One simple command, and the massive vice would snap shut, crushing the rebellion. And yet, for hour after hour that Saturday, the anxious Federal soldiers heard only silence from their Caesar. 

And the astounding rumor began to trickle through the ranks that their boastful, vain and beautiful Napoleon was cowering in Mister Chanellor's brick mansion "...in a crumpled trance, helpless, lethargic, entirely demoralized." His senior corps commander, 41 year old Major General Darious Nash Couch said later, "I retired from his presence with the belief that my commanding general was a whipped man.” This before a shot had been fired. This, with victory staring him in the face.

General Robert Edward Lee (above) was not going to wait for Hooker to recover his arrogance. First the Virginia aristocrat left 10,000 men to watch Major General John Sedwick's VI corps, and marched west to meet Hooker with the remaining 40,000. Forty thousand men against 70,000 -  it was a direct violation of Napoleonic generalship - never divide an inferior force in the face of a superior enemy. But having done it once, Lee now did it again. 

He fixated Hooker by dangling 13,000 men to his west, while sending 23,000 on a 12 mile, 10 hour eastward flanking march under the puritanical, lemon sucking 39 year old Major General Thomas Johnathan "Stonewall" Jackson. Lee's only hope for success was if Hooker stayed right where he was, with that handsome chin of his, daring the entire universe to strike it.

A thousand miles to the west, as eastern Louisiana turned to face that same morning, the sun revealed some 950 federal troopers of the 6th and 7th Illinois volunteer cavalry, swimming their mounts across a the rain swollen Comite River. Rising from the warm waters, their commander, 36 year old Colonel Benjiman Harrison Grierson (above), drove his men on another two hours southwestward before he allowed his weary troopers to dismount and collapse in sleep. However the one time civilian music teacher felt the need himself to stay awake and watch over his men. He discovered a piano in a nearby house, and startled his unwilling hosts by playing on it for some time. About noon a sentry alerted him to approaching cavalry. And for the first time in 16 days, he was not worried.

That same Saturday morning, Major General John McClernand's troops edged up the Rodney Road and about 9:00am marched into the "Pretty little village" of Port Gibson (above). They found it filled with rebel wounded from Friday's battle. There was some gunfire from rebel pickets across the South Fork of Bayou Pierre, but a few cannon rounds drove them back out of range. The men then stacked their muskets on the sidewalk and under "fine weather" started dismantling buildings to construct a pontoon bridge across the river. 

Two divisions from General McPherson's corps also came up the road to filter through the town and move to a river ford east of Port Gibson. It was Grant's intent to give Loring's men no chance to recover from their exertions of Friday. 

 As soon as it was dark he would push both corps across the river, to advance the 8 miles to Grindstone Ford over the North Fork of Bayou Pierre toward the Big Black River. Only then would he allow his men to rest.

In Virginia, shortly after noon, scouts of the 25th Ohio regiment of the 2nd Brigade, First Division of the XI corps, stationed on the far right flank of the Army of the Potomac, spotted rebel infantry and artillery moving toward their front. 

They dutifully reported this to their commander, 38 year old Colonel William Pitt Richardson (above). That officer went to look at the situation himself, and raced back to deliver the alarming information to his division commander, 43 year old Worcester, Massachusetts lawyer and now Brigadier General Charles Devins Jr., 

Devins (above), who had little respect for his mostly German Catholic immigrant soldiers, dismissed the information. He bluntly told Richardson, "I know that Robert E. Lee is retreating." He then turned to his aides and announced, "I guess Colonel Richardson is somewhat scared. You had better order him to (return to) his regiment."

High above the Mississippi River at Grand Gulf, General Bowen (above) returned to the gunners who were still denying Federal transports access to Bayou Pierre. He added the weight of his star to the commandeering of horses and wagons from the merchants of the town and surrounding plantations. The river road ran from these bluffs 30 miles north to lower bluffs at Warrenton. Bowen knew the minute Grant crossed the North Fork of Bayou Pierre, this fortress which had defied the Yankees 48 hours earlier, must fall to an attack from the rear. So he also supervised preparations to destroy the heavy guns and the magazines filled with powder and shells, to prevent them falling into the hands of Admiral Porter's Yankee sailors.

Colonel Benjiman Grierson rode just a half mile south of his sleeping men before meeting dust covered riders coming up the road from Baton Rouge. Grierson greeted them by waving a mud spattered white handkerchief. The approaching horsemen were 2 companies of the First Louisiana Cavalry - Federal. The single most important cavalry raid of the American Civil war was over. During a 600 mile ride through Confederate territory, Grierson's raiders had destroyed or damaged 60 miles of unreplaceable railroad tracks and telegraph lines, destroyed or damaged 3 steam locomotives and burned a dozen boxcars and their contents.

Back in Virginia, and almost three hours later, Major Owen Rice of the 153rd Pennsylvania regiment sent an even more alarming message back from his picket line on the Orange Turnpike to the commander of the 1st Brigade of the First Division, Colonel Leopold Von Gilsa. It read, "A large body of the enemy is massing in my front. For God’s sake, make dispositions to receive him!" 

Colonel von Gilsa personally delivered this message to General Devens (above). He again dismissed the information as merely more proof the rebels were retreating.  But von Gilsa persisted. 

He now delivered the warning to the commander of the XI Corps, 34 year old one armed Major General Oliver Otis Howard (above). This pious Protestant "Christian General" held his Germanic Catholic soldiers in no less contempt than Devens, and he dismissed von Gilsa with an insult.

In Louisiana, Colonel Grierson's raiders were allowed to parade through Baton Rouge. (above) The cost of the 16 day raid was 3 men killed, 7 wounded, 9 missing and 5 men left behind because of illness. The profit for the Illinois troopers was 100 rebel soldiers and militiamen killed or wounded and 500 captured and paroled as prisoners. When Grierson's raiders rode into Baton Rouge they were still leading 100 POW's. During their 16 day 600 mile ride the Yankees also destroyed 3,000 muskets, pistols and cannon, and had stolen 1,000 fresh horses and mules. The troopers also led into the Federal lines 500 self-emancipated slaves armed with shotguns and hunting rifles, all on horseback and each leading 2 or 3 more horses. By the end of the year, most of these "contrabands" would be wearing Union Blue and fighting for their own freedom in Mister Lincoln's armies.

In Virginia, Colonel William Richardson had grown so certain that he and the 2nd Brigade were about to be outflanked, that he and his officers rode over to consult with von Gilsa and the staff of the 1st Brigade. When they realized Devens arrogance would permit no adjustments in their south facing lines, they returned to their regiments. 

One of them, Colonel Robert Reily (above) of the 75th Ohio regiment, 2nd Brigade, gathered his men together and delivered an amazing speech. He told his men, "Some of us will not see another sun rise. If there is a man in the ranks who is not ready to die for his country, let him come to me and I will give him a pass to the rear, for I want no half-hearted, unwilling soldiers or cowards in the ranks tonight. We need every man to fight the enemy." Reily then told his men to lie down but to keep their guns close by.  Many of the other regiments began to prepare a last meal.

The most important act committed by the Grierson raiders in Mississippi was their approach to Union Church. Confederate Lieutenant General John Pemberton became so frantic to stop the Yankees he ordered the cavalry out of Grand Gulf to catch him. Grierson had preferred to avoid the fight and turned south, but the rebel troopers went galloping after his raiders across southern Mississippi, just at the moment Grant's men were crossing the river and attacking Port Gibson and Grand Gulf. It had all worked so smoothly it might have been an intricate plan. But the truth was that after 2 years of warfare the Yankee professionals were at least as good as their Confederate enemies. Maybe better. And it was that quality of the Yankee soldier which helped make Grant a better general.

But the greatest prize Colonel Grierson brought out of central and southern Mississippi was a lesson which he shared with an admiring Yankee chaplin. He told the man, "The Confederacy is a hollow shell." In modern military vernacular, the South was over mobilized. Every available man had been swept forward to meet the invading Federal armies. But that left too few troops in the rear to maintain the supply line of food, ammunition and new recruits. And once the outer shell had been punctured, as Grierson had done, and as Grant was doing now, the South had little left to defend itself.

Just before 5:30pm that Saturday evening, 2 May, 1863 the woods west of Chancellorsville, Virginia, spewed forth 28,000 rebels of the II Corps of the Army of Northern Virginia, 4 divisions under Lieutenant General "Stonewall" Jackson. "‘Like a crash of thunder from the clear sky", they slammed into the 153rd Pennsylvania. The Lehigh Valley Germans fired off a single volley before the rebels washed over both their flanks. To their east, Colonel Reily just had time to order the 75th Ohio to deploy in line and charge into the attack. They managed to stem the Confederate tidal wave for a moment, but it cost them 150 causalities, including Colonel Reily, shot in the leg and left behind to die.  Every regiment in Deven's ill-prepared division collapsed and retreated. The shock and confusion spread until Howard's entire XI Corps was being driven back to Chancellors mansion.

Jackson's sledgehammer captured 4,000 prisoners and dove the Union troops back two miles before darkness finally brought the fight to a close. It was an overwhelming Confederate victory, confirmed even to the confused General Hooker after two more days of indecisive fighting. But the triumph was marred by Confederate tragedy. As the 18th North Carolina regiment reformed to continue the advance they spotted what might have been Federal Cavalry to their front and challenge them. The reply was unclear and the regiment fired a volley.  But it is not Union cavalry to their front but General Jackson and his staff. Many of the officers are killed, and Jackson was wounded three times. He was carried from the field on a stretcher. Still, once again, Lee had pulled unbelievable victory from certain defeat.

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