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).

    

- 30 -

VICKSBURG Chapter Two

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

Poet, teacher and farmer, 40 year old Captain Henry Clinton Forbes, later described LaGrange 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 looking southward over the Wolf River valley.  That stream flowed generally northwest, and reached the Mississippi just south of Mud Island, at Memphis, Tennessee. Over a gentle divide were the headwaters of the Coldwater River which meandered south westward, combining with other streams to form the Yazoo River, the which emptied into the Mississippi River just above Vicksburg. Invading the state  here placed a federal army directly astride all the rivers which controlled region. But even more importantly, the Confederate headquarters, 23 miles away at Holly Springs, was actually visible from LaGrange, making it the perfect launching pad for an invasion of central Mississippi.

The real prize of this avenue of attack was the industrial and communication hub of Jackson (above) and the east/west Southern Railroad (blue) from Vicksburg, which crossed the Pearl River bridge just southeast of the Mississippi state capital. Once Jackson was occupied and that bridge destroyed, the wealth of the trans-Mississippi Confederacy might as well be on the moon for all the good it would do the Richmond. 

But Jackson was 220 miles south of LaGrange, behind what could be three river defense lines - the Coldwater, the Tallahatche and the Yalobusha. And much of the year those rivers might seem more like a great collective swamp - the Mississippi Delta.  In retrospect it seems unlikely Grant was intending his advance into central Mississippi to be anything except a feint.

Whatever his intent, that early November of 1862 Major General Ulysses Grant was concentrating his army. Coming south from Bolivar, Tennessee were two divisions under a Grant favorite, Major General James McPherson. (above) 

Advancing west from Corinth, Mississippi were three divisions 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 left and center wings of Grant's army.  

The right wing was logically commanded by the sour but loyal Major General William Tecumseh Sherman, His three infantry divisions were encamped in Memphis, and their only job initially was to support Colonel Benjamin H. Grierson's  6^th Illinois Cavalry,  in their capture of LaGrange and their scouting as far south as the Tallahatchie River.

If Sherman were not to move, the threat to Jackson would need a right wing,  and Grant intended that to 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, he was to advance to the Coldwater River and destroy railroad bridges around Grenada – thus unflanking the  potential  rebel defensive line along the Yalobusha. 

Sherman, meanwhile, was to remain in Memphis, where he could hijack the two divisions recruited and trained in Illinois by Major General John Alexander McClernand. Once the rebels had been forced to retreat as far south as Grenada, Mississippi, Sherman would steam down the big river and up the Yazoo River and land five divisions in Vicksburg's rear, occupying the high ground northeast of the city. If that were Grant's plan it seems he told no one of it, not General Halleck in Washington, and  not even Sherman, But I think that was clearly was his intent - else why hold Sherman in Memphis?

But having penetrated  the LaGrange and Grand Junction (above) line, and thrown his cavalry south as far as Holly Springs, which the 2nd Iowa Cavalry occupied on Saturday, 15 November,  Grant came to believe the rebels had almost as many men in central Mississippi as he did. So late in November Grant wrote Sherman "I cannot move from with a force sufficient to handle that number without gloves." So Grant ordered Sherman to push his 15,000 veteran infantrymen 50 miles south to Holly Springs, to tie down as many rebels in central Mississippi  as possible.  But Grant also ordered Sherman not to spend time or energy repairing the Central Mississippi Rail line beyond Holly Springs, which he established as a supply depot. 

Grant now commanded some 40,000 infantrymen but only some 5,000 cavalry troopers. That was far too few horsemen to preform reconnaissance and picket duty over an 80 mile wide front, extending from the Coldwater River to the mountains of western Mississippi. So the gloves in Grant's message were a reference to the standard equipment of gauntlets worn by cavalrymen. That yawning shortage of cavalry would increase in depth with ever step the army took southward. Grant was forced to to use infantry to fill in for his lack of cavalry. 

While Grant spent November of 1862 assembling his host and inching southward in fine weather,  in  the “...beaten and demoralized...” rebel Army of Mississippi, frustrations boiled over. Many officers blamed the failure at Cornith, like the March failure at Pea Ridge in Arkansas,  on the short brash and brilliant Major General Earl Van Dorn (above). 

The face of that frustration became division commander General John Stevens Bowen (above), who formally charged Van Dorn with failing to make a proper reconnaissance before the attack on Corinth, marching the troops in a hastily and disorderly manner to the attack, failing to press the attack sooner on the second day, and neglecting the wounded after the attack failed. Later a charge of drunkenness while on duty was even added.

Back in Richmond, President Jefferson Davis had realized Van Dorn would have to be replaced even before the failure at Corinth. But the pugnacious little serial adulterer had to be handled carefully.  He still had talents the south needed. So on 10 October, 1862, Davis shifted Major General John Clifford Pemberton from South Carolina to command a new department including all of Mississippi and Eastern Louisiana.  To avoid injuring Van Dorn's fragile ego by being demoted,  or even being replaced with a life long staff officer,  Pemberton was simply promoted over Van Dorn, to the rank of Lieutenant-General.  The new commander's orders were concise. He was, to "... consider the successful defense of those States (Mississippi) as the first and chief object of your command." Pemberton arrived at his new headquarters in Jackson, Mississippi, on Tuesday, 14 October 1862.

Two days later Pemberton would officially assume command, headquartered in the state capital(above)  To avoid disrupting the defense of Mississippi Van Dorn remained in the command of the army, leading the troops, and Pemberton assumed the post he was most comfortable with - as a bureaucrat,   Under Pemberton the army was fed more regularly. Blankets appeared.  Ammunition began to arrive where it was needed, as did replacements. Medical care even improved slightly.  Said a Jackson newspaper, "No officer ever devoted himself with greater assiduity to his duties. Late and early he is at his office, laboring incessantly.”  But even though Pemberton journeyed to the new headquarters at Grenada, Mississippi, to talk with Van Dorn, the average soldiers and even the most people in Jackson remained unaware the new Lieutenant General was in charge. 

And then Pemberton ran out of time. On  Monday, 24 November, 1862, General Sherman marched his three divisions south out of Memphis, to join the general advance, to the Tallahatchie River.  And on Thursday, 27 November, Federal General Hovey launched 2,000 infantry and 1,500 cavalry in a raid toward the mouth of the Coldwater river, where it met the Tallahatchie. They burned bridges and damaged the railroads, cutting communications and threatening to outflank the defenses .  Also on 27 November, General Hamilton set his infantry south from Grand Junction. Grant's full invasion of Mississippi had begun.

- 30 - 

VICKSBURG Chapter Two

If you live long enough you could spend a second lifetime apologizing for the stupid things you say in your first life. During his life William Tecumseh "Cump" Sherman (above) famously said several smart things, but on 29 December, 1862 , just as he was about to attack Chickasaw Bluff,  he said this, "We will lose 5,000 men before we take Vicksburg, and may as well lose them here as anywhere else". This was a really stupid thing to say, particularly to one of the "lucky" 5,000.  But the future "Butcher of Atlanta" avoided having to live under the shadow of that stupid remark because of the stupidity of the general who hovered just off stage during Sherman's December failure - Major General John Alexander McClernand.

The 50 year old John McClernand  (above) was greedy for fame. And greed makes you stupid. He has been described by one biographer as “brash, energetic, assertive, confident, and patriotic”, but also as ”ever the politician", which is an overly polite way of calling him a self obsessed jackass. Contemporaries, such as Illinois politician Richard Oglesby used other words - “vain, irritable, overbearing...(and) possessed of the monomania that it was a mere clerical error which placed Grant’s name and not his in the Commission for Major General."

McClernand (above, right) would accept no other rational to explain as to why Lincoln (above, center) did not give him the overall command at Vicksburg. John McClernand  (above, right) was Lincoln's life-long doppelganger.  Born in Kentucky - like Lincoln -  and raised in Illinois - like Lincoln - he became a lawyer - like Lincoln.  In 1835 McClernand founded the “Shawneetown Democrat Newspaper” and used it to win election to first the Illinois statehouse in Springfield - like Lincoln - and later the U.S. House of Representative - like Lincoln.  Lincoln had even tried his last legal case in partnership with John McClernand. But unlike Lincoln, McClernand was a Democrat, and as such, politically valuable to the Republican Lincoln...if McClernand could be controlled.

In May of 1861 McClernand resigned from Congress and was commissioned a brigadier General of Volunteers.  At Fort Donelson and at Shiloh (both times under Grant) he displayed at best modest skills as a commander, but extraordinary determination at campaigning behind the scenes to replace his boss, General Grant.  McClernand exchanged so many private letters with Lincoln and other politicians that Oglesby said other Illinois generals complained, “We did the fighting. He did the writing,”  This of course infuriated his fellow military officers who had to take orders from those same politicians but had no such back door access to them. As a Major General,  McClernand even suggested himself as a replacement for George McClellan, then commander of the Army of the Potomac. And he was vocal that Grant's plan to advance down the Mississippi Central Railroad would never capture Vicksburg.  It was sheer happenstance that McClernand was right.

Lincoln did not like or trust McClernand, but as always would support any general who could give him victory. So, needing to keep northern Democrats on his side, on Thursday, 9 October 1862 Lincoln authorized John McClernand to raise three divisions - what became the XIII Corps of the Army of the Tennessee  - as an independent command to be used against Vicksburg.  But when Grant was present, McClernand would remain subordinate to Grant. And despite McClernand's opinion, that could not have been a mere oversight.  McClernand showed his ambition in the speed with which he raised and trained his men. His lead elements were dispatched to Memphis, Tennessee, arriving in early December, of 1862. Typically, McClernand was not with them. He tarried in Illinois for personal reasons - to marry his second wife the day after Christmas.

The 41 year old "Cump" Sherman was quick to take advantage of McClernand's absence. Arriving himself in Memphis on 12 December, 1862, with 42 year old Brigadier General Morgan Lewis Smith's 7,000 man division, Sherman kidnapped the first two divisions of the XIII Corps which had arrived - the 6,000 men of General George Morgan's division, and the 8,000 men under 48 year old General Andrew Jackson Smith. All 21,000 of these men were then rushed onto river transports provided and protected by Rear Admiral David Dixon Porter (above), and left Memphis on 20 December, 1862.  Picking up 12,000 reinforcements from Helena, Arkansas, all 34,000 men now entered the Yazoo river on 21 December, and five days later, as McClernand was saying "I do" in Illinois, Sherman was landing his men 10 miles up the Yazoo river, on one of the many plantations owned by the family of Nova Scotia sea Captain William M. Johnson and his American business partner George Bradish, along with their silent partner, the pirate Jeanne Lafitte.

Captain Johnson was Lafitte's fence for those stolen cargoes which could be sold under Lafitte's name. This proved such a successful business model that in 1795 Johnson and Bradish started buying and expanding sugar and cotton plantations in the Louisiana delta and this one along the Yazoo delta, as a way of laundering their ill gotten booty.  After harvest. the Johnson sugar cane would be shipped aboard Johnson ships to Johnson distilleries on the west side of lower Manhattan, where it was cooked with New England molasses into rum.

The mash waste from the distillation was shoveled next door as feed to cows kept in dirty factory dairies, milked by Bowery alcoholics , nicknamed the "nurse maids".  The New York Times described the resulting "swill milk" as a " “bluish, white compound of true milk, pus and dirty water, which, on standing, deposits a yellowish, brown sediment..." in the glass. 

This was then peddled from street carts, adding to the high childhood death rate in New York City from cholera and diphtheria. And it encouraged the adult residents to drink Johnson's rum as a safer alternative. The distilleries also funded a half century long political delay in New York City sanitary laws.

It was the distillery side of their empire which in 1844 inspired one of the Captain's sons, Bradish Johnson, to name his new money laundering scheme  The Chemical Bank of New York. Ninety years after the civil war Chemical Bank bought out Chase Bank and then during the next half century of concentration of wealth, merged and morphed into the too big to fail J.P. Morgan Chase and Company. Thus the Johnson Plantation on the Yazoo River offers a glimpse of the true financial base of slavery and the New York city financial power structure . But I digress. Let's go back to December of 1862.

When Porter's 7 gun boats first nosed into the  waters of the Chickasaw Bayou, there were so few rebel soldiers defending the high ground of Snider's bluff  above the Johnson Plantation, that Sherman saw no reason to rush his men off the 59 transports.  Grant was presumed to have Pemberton's rebels tied down outside of Granada, Mississippi.   But because the telegraph lines out of Holly Springs had been cut by rebel cavalry, Sherman did not know that Grant's men were already on half rations, while Pemberton was already transferring  most of his little army west by rail, to block Sherman's move at Chickasaw Bayou.

First to arrive on Friday, Christmas eve, was 39 year old Confederate General Stephen Dill Lee (above) - no relation to Robert E. of Virginia - with 5,000 men who marched 15 miles from Vicksburg, up the River Road, which ran along the crest of the Walnut Hills. 

In the old army this North Carolina native had been a career artillerist, so using his troops and slave labor from the Johnson Plantation, Lee dug out trenches and earthen forts. The lakes and bayous already dictated just two narrow approaches for any attackers, but Lee set his men to constructing abatis - a sort of wooden barbed wire. - confining the attackers even more, into what would one day be called "kill zones". 

The 7 Federal gunboats broadcast the chosen landings by bombarding the Johnson plantation, destroying the main house and barns. Then the Federal troops wadded ashore.  It was not until nightfall on Sunday, 28 December that the 4 divisions were finally on reasonably dry land, with General Frederick Steele's division on the right, at the Johnson plantation, and General Morgan's men on the left , facing the "banks" of the 80 foot wide Chickasaw Bayou, on a small  plantation owned by Mrs. Anne Lake.

But Sherman had never reconnoitered this ground. He did not know until Sunday night that there only two escapes out of the bottom land, up the slopes of Snyder's Bluff. 

Sometime around 8:00 am that Monday morning, 29 December, General Morgan ordered his engineers to bridge the bayou (above). That was when the man assigned the task, Major Patterson, discovered that in the rush to launch the expedition a few crucial pieces of their pontoon bridges had been left on the Memphis dock. However, he said he could jury rig a fix in 2 hours.

But at about 10:00 am, when the engineers started their work, rebel cannon opened fire, slowing the engineers and causing causalities. Finally, at about 11:00 am Sherman grew frustrated. The volume of rebel cannon fire hinted that perhaps he had already waited too long to move for the high ground. He ordered the assault to be launched at once, telling a nervous General Morgan, "That is the route to take. We will lose 5,000 men before we take Vicksburg, and (we) may as well lose them here as anywhere else".  In fact it was already too late. Sherman was throwing 30,000 men against, now, 13,000 rebels, dug in and ready for them.

The bridge was not yet finished, so two brigades waded across the chest deep Chickasaw Bayou, exhausting themselves before staggering up the steep incline. Threading their way through the abatis, they managed to drive the rebel pickets from their forward rifle pits. 

But despite repeated courageous charges, it was a battle lost even before it began, because of the successful raid on Holly Springs. The Yankees failed to even dent the main rebel line. By 1:00 pm it was all over except for the dying. Federal dead were over 200, with about a thousand wounded. The Confederate losses were about 50 dead, and one tenth of the Yankee wounded. In addition, the rebels were able to capture over 500 Yankees, caught in a depression under the guns in front of the Confederate position.

After the repulse Brigadier General George Washington Morgan (above) found General Sherman in Mrs. Lake's mansion, alone and pacing the floor. Morgan reported the failure of the attack, and to his credit Sherman did not demand further sacrifice,  But when Morgan asked if he could send out a flag of truce, to  recover their wounded, Sherman worried out loud about giving appearance of being defeated. Morgan defended his men, telling Sherman, they were "terribly cut up, but were not dishonored....but that our dead and wounded covered the field and could only be reached by a flag (of truce)." Still, Sherman refused to ask for a truce until almost dusk. By then it was so dark the rebels could not see the flag, and fired on the parlay team. We will never know how many died because of the delay.

Admiral Porter spent the next day looking for a new spot to try and gain the high ground. He thought he found it a few miles upstream, and on the last day of 1862, Sherman began to shift his men. But when 1863 began with a thick fog blanketing the river bottom, Sherman at last admitted defeat and called off the expedition. On Friday, 2 January 1863 he returned to the Mississippi River, and sent a boat upstream to Cairo, Illinois - the first secure telegraph station. From here Washington was informed of his failure.  Grant still did not know, because with the destruction of Holly Springs, Grant's telegraph lines has been cut.  By return telegram, General-in-Chief Hallack informed Sherman that he and his men were now under the direct command of Major General John McClernand.

It seemed that Grant had lost his chance.

- 30 -