VICKSBURG Chapter Thirteen

 

I think the 200 year old daguerreotype of John Clifford Pemberton (above) has influenced what historians think of the Vicksburg commander . To me, frankly, he looks a bit seedy. But in the flesh this 5 foot ten inch curly brown headed aristocrat was born with a silver stick up his butt and a marble chip on his shoulder. A few, a very few, were allowed to call him "Jack". With all others, he offered only cold reserve. To give our hero the most favorable interpretation, John Pemberton was the most famous American led to treason by his heart since Benedict Arnold. But there was a lot of that going around in 1860.

John Pemberton's family were wealthy Philadelphia Quakers, and the shallow youth inherited a brittle sense of entitlement. He was quick to take and deliver offense. He confessed to his mother, “I cannot always bear reproach though I deserve it,” and promised to do better. But he never did. While at West Point - from 1833 to 1837 - John became engaged to a Philadelphia girl. Then he met a more exciting paramour in New York City. The young lieutenant broke his engagement by mail. Shortly there after his new love buckled under family pressure and ended their affair. After that double fault John swore off serious women.

During John's antebellum West Point years, his best friend was William Whann Mackall (above), from a prominent Maryland slave owning family. Although trained as artillerymen, both cadets eventually became competent staff officers, dedicated to detail, minutia and the thousand little  things that have to happen before a more empathetic field officer could inspire soldiers to fight. When asked to risk his own life, neither John nor William ever  flinched. But John often charged to a trumpet only he could hear.

While stationed on the isolated Minnesota frontier, John's abrasive, self centered nature worsened, and he became a martinet, sparking conflicts with his fellow officers and inspiring one insulted corporal to take a shot at him. In 1842, while stationed at Fort Monroe, Virginia, the 34 year old Pemberton met his "Peggy Shippen". She was the 22 year old, 5 foot 2 inch tall Martha "Pattie" Thompson (above) . His wooing of the young lady was interrupted by the Mexican American War of 1846 - 1847.

His current enemy at Vicksburg, Federal General Ulysses Grant, described the Pemberton he served with under Major General Zachary Taylor. in northern Mexico this way;  "A more conscientious, honorable man never lived," Grant generously wrote. "I remember when a (written) order was issued that none of the junior officers should be allowed horses during the marches...Young officers not accustomed to it soon...were found lagging behind." After a verbal order rescinded the restriction, all the other officers remounted, "Pemberton alone said, 'No,' he would walk," remembered Grant. And, "...he did walk, though suffering intensely... he was scrupulously particular in matters of honor and integrity."

When he returned to Virginia, brevet Major John C. Pemberton proposed to Martha.  Her Episcopalian father, William Henry Thompson,  was skeptical of the Quaker from Pennsylvania. He was a wealthy shipping magnate, dispatching vessels from Norfolk and Charleston to and from French ports. 

And like most prosperous Virginians, the Thompsons defined their wealth in part by the number of their slaves. John's passion for Martha beguiled him into writing his own mother, "The more I see of slavery the better I think of it, " and he dismissed the victims as "lazy plantation Negroes". This disturbed John's anti-slavery Quaker family. But despite misgivings all around, the couple were married on 18 January, 1848 in Norfolk, Virginia and then moved to Philadelphia.

Marriage and fatherhood - 3 children over the next decade - did not mellow John. He argued with at lest one superior so often he was arrested for insubordination. When cooler heads prevailed, the charges were dropped. But it seems that Captain John Clifford Pemberton's career was saved only when slavery split the nation. John's parents pleaded with him to stay in the union. His older and younger brother both put on Union Blue. But Martha was drawn home to Virginia, and John followed her. Delaying his announcement until she and the children had reached Norfolk, John Clifford Pemberton then resigned his commission, and enlisted as a colonel in the Confederate Army.

Because of his father-in-law's prominence, in June of 1861 Confederate President Jefferson Davis made the Colonel a General, and put him in command of a brigade at Norfolk (above). His ruthless discipline produced immediate complaints, which did not stop until January of 1862 when he was promoted to Major General and assigned to defend Charleston, South Carolina.  Which got him out of Norfolk. 

Upon examining his new fiefdom, John dared to point out that Fort Sumter (above), the raison d'etre for the entire war, was obsolete and not worth repairing. The political outrage this produced was so fierce, that Pemberton's boss, General Robert Edward Lee, reprimanded him. Still, when Lee was transferred to Virginia, John was given command of all of South Carolina and Georgia.  He was failing his way up the promotion lists.

This latest promotion didn't work, either. John offended too many people, too often. The complaints poured in. Eventually President Davis came up with what he thought was the perfect solution to his touchy, irritable argumentative northern southern officer. He promoted John again and put him in charge of defending Vicksburg. And that is why, after having failed at every job given him, John C. Pemberton rose from Colonel to Lieutenant General in 18 short months, without ever winning a battle or even hearing a shot fired in anger.

John's new command consisted of 54,000 men, but they were spread all across the state of Mississippi, as well as parts of Louisiana. There were 3 divisions - 21,000 men - on his left flank, at Vicksburg. There were about 19,000 men to defend his center, stretching from the state capital of Jackson,  west along the delta rivers of the Tallahatchie and the Yazoo.  There was also a token force of 1,400 on the Alabama border at Columbus. And finally, protecting his vulnerable underbelly to the south were the 12,500 men digging in at Port Hudson, Louisiana. Importantly, Pemberton's headquarters were in the state capital of Jackson, Mississippi , not at Vicksburg. John did not look at the Mississippi River every morning, judging its level, as Grant now did.

As a staff officer, John had solid rationalizations for remaining where he was. Jackson was centrally located. It had more secure road, rail and telegraph communications with Richmond. And when John and his staff first arrived, in October 1862, Grant's first advance into Mississippi was aimed ultimately at Jackson. But after Major General Earl van Dorn's December victory at Holly Springs, and the unwelcome appearance of General McClernand on the Mississippi, Grant was forced to shift his attack to the west. However Pemberton remained in Jackson.

Even after the attack at Chickashaw Bluffs. Even after the Desoto Canal. Even after the Lake Providence canal. Even after the Yazoo Pass was breached. Even after the battle of Fort Pemberton. Even after the threat of Steele's Bayou. Even after the Duckport Canal, which I have yet to recount. From October, November and December 1862 though January, February, March and April of 1863, Lieutenant General John C. Pemberton remained rooted in Jackson, mentally and physically, while the vital high ground, the the raison d'etre for his entire command, Vicksburg, was being wedged out of his control.

As proof, in mid April of 1863,  when several Federal gunboats and transports ran past the guns at Vicksburg,  John Pemberton, took far too long to realize the event had changed everything about the coming battle.

- 30 -

VICKSBURG Chapter Twelve

 

On Wednesday, the first day of April, 1863, "The Enrollment Act", the nation's first military draft, went into effect. Signed by Lincoln just the month before, it required all males 20 to 45 years of age to register. They would then be called up to meet monthly quotas established for each Congressional district. However, draftees could buy an exemption for $300 (equal to over $6,000 today), or pay a substitute to serve for them. Critics now labeled it a rich man's war, but a poor man's fight. Within months this would lead to riots. But in the Confederacy, the war was even more unpopular.

On Thursday, 2 April 1863 a thousand or so desperate workers, most from the Tredegar Iron Works (above) gathered at the foot of Washington's statue in Capital Square, demanding a meeting with Virginia Governor John Lecter, to discuss food shortages.  

It had been a hard winter for all 100,000 war time citizens of Richmond, Virginia (above). In early March there had been an explosion at the Brown's Island ammunition factory which killed 45 workers, all of them women and girls. There had been 20 measurable snow falls over the bitter cold winter, and just the week before a foot of snow had isolated the city.  

The weather was driving up food prices almost as much as the Union blockade. Speculators had tripled the pre-war price of flour to $40 a barrel. Milk and butter, if they were available, now cost 4 times what they had in 1861. In early March the desperate Jefferson government had seized 5,000 barrels of flour from Richmond speculators, but that did nothing to convince workers the government cared about their sacrifices.

Tredegar was the third largest iron works in the United States, and the largest in the Confederacy. Its 900 skilled employees forged cannon and locomotives and the sheathing for iron clad warships. Half of Tredegar's workers were slaves - who were, of course, provided smaller food allowances than the whites.  And with so many white males in uniform, most of the remaining white workers were women. If the Confederacy could not feed workers in this vital industry, it was clearly doomed.

The problem was becoming a crises. According to the "The Carolina Watchman", on Wednesday, 18 March, 1863, 50 hungry, angry wives and mothers of Confederate soldiers were driven to chop down the pantry door of a grocery in the Piedmont village of Salisbury, North Carolina. They accused the owner, Micheal Brown, of profiteering when he had no flour available at the state mandated $20 a barrel.  After hacking at the door for several minutes, the  women were convinced to accept just 20 barrels to end the assault.  

Down the street at "Henderson and Enniss", John Enniss provided 3 more barrels of flour. Another store owner managed to buy off the hungry women with a single jug of molasses. Shop owner Thomas Foster claimed the salt in his store was already paid for and waiting to be shipped. Instead he offered the women $20 cash out of his own pocket. The women took the cash, and some salt. The railroad agent protecting a flour shipment at the Carolina Depot was literately run over by the women. "They took ten barrels, and rolled them out and were setting on them...waiting for a wagon to haul them away."

The "Watchman" said the Commissioners for County Relief should hang their heads in shame for allowing things to get this bad. But the paper also chastised "the ladies" - "In God’s name let us not fall to devouring each other by mobs." Such riots were not uncommon that spring, everywhere the local authorities had failed to appreciate the plight of the working poor, such as in the Virginia capital of the Confederacy.

Back in Richmond, the Governor lectured the Tredegar protesters and promised no concessions. The crowd began march down the street, chanting  "Bread, bread, bread." The mayor ordered them to disperse. In response, 40 year old, 6 foot tall butcher's apprentice Minerva Meredith, raised a "skeleton arm" and shouted, "We are starving!" The chant now switched to "Bread or blood!"

The mob began emptying warehouses, grocery stores, mercantile shops, seizing food, clothing, and wagons. Some merchants resisted but most watched helplessly as the looters seized bacon, ham, flour, and shoes.

Two hours after it began, Confederate President Jefferson Davis ordered the looters to go home. He had  a loaf of bread thrown at his head. He then took out his pocket watch and announced that in five minutes he would order the militia to open fire. 

Before the willingness of the local men to shoot down hungry local women was tested, the crowd dispersed. Some 60 men and women were brought to trial, including Minerva Meredith, She was convicted and sentenced to 6 months in jail and fined $100. The rebel authorities tried to keep the riot secret, but a week later the details appeared in the New York Times. Few noticed it, however.  Nor did they notice the big things that were beginning to happen along the Mississippi River, near Vicksburg.

Any sane person in 1863, wishing to travel from the village of Richmond, Louisiana to New Carthage, Louisiana would make most of the journey by water. You might begin at Richmond's railroad depot, and take a train to the end of the line, 5 miles west to the the port of Desoto. There you would board a ferry to cross the 900 yard wide Mississippi River to the town of Vicksburg, where you would transfer to a riverboat.

Five miles south on the Mississippi river you would pass the somber ruins of Warrenton, Mississippi (above). In the summer of 1862, Yankees from Admiral Farragut's blue water fleet had shelled the town, and then landed a regiment, seeking to intimidate nearby Vicksburg into surrender. But the rebels had counter attacked and the battered buildings had been fought over until the the Yankees were convinced Vicksburg was not going to surrender. The net result was, for the 250 people who had called Warrenton home, just another senseless tragedy.

Three miles south the river jogged to the west, around a knuckle called Diamond Point, with 3 or 4 islands - depending on the level of the river - close to the Mississippi shore. These showed the safe depth was on the Louisiana side. Once past the Diamond Islands, the river turned east again, and the current shifted across the channel, carrying you toward the Mississippi plantation docks of Mr. Thomas Freeland. But the river was merely gathering strength for its next big adventure, a 90 degree westward twist called Davis Bend, at the base of a thumb of land called the Hurricane Peninsula.

For the next 5 miles Old Man River swept around three sides of the 5,000 acre Mississippi Plantation of 78 year old Joseph Emory Davis (above). A West Point Graduate, then a successful lawyer, and finally a progressive among slave owners, he was one of the ten richest men in the south, holding - as of 1860 - 365 human beings in bondage.  Davis' 3 story brick mansion was considered one of the finest in the state, containing one of the largest private libraries. 

"Colonel" Joseph Davis was so wealthy he provided on his property a 200 acre ,116 slave plantation for his younger brother. That single story plantation mansion (above)  was called Brierfield . The younger brother was 56 year old politician Jefferson Finis Davis, President of the Confederacy. While Jeff was away in Richmond mis-maneging the war, Joseph had abandoned his home, taking his wife and children, most of his books, his wardrobe and his slaves south to safer properties. He left the two plantations under the care of his trusted overseer, manumitted slave Benjamin Montgomery.

At the apex of Hurricane Bend on the Louisiana shore, some 20 river miles south of Vicksburg, was the village of New Carthage, Louisiana. That spring of 1863 the little village was abandoned, inundated up to its eves by the flooding river. There was not much dry ground left for a human to stand on except the levee. Still, at the start of April, 1863, thousands of men were heading toward New Carthage, and they were coming by road.

Grant's orders for the advance were issued on Tuesday, 31 March to Major General John Alexander McClernand, commander of the XIII Corps. 

He ordered his Ninth Division, commanded by 40 year old Prussian-American General Peter Joseph Osterhouse, to lead the advance. 

And Osterhouse gave the point to 32 year old Hoosier lawyer and politician, Colonel Thomas Warren Bennet (above), commander of the approximately 600 members of the 1st Brigade, 49th Indiana Volunteer Regiment. As support Bennet was also given 3 companies of the 2nd Illinois Cavalry, and 2 mountain howitzers from the 6 Missouri Cavalry. Most importantly however, for Grant's Vicksburg operation, Bennet's command also included the 40 members of 36 year old Captain William Franklin Patterson's Kentucky Company of Engineers and Mechanics, reinforced with 300 "pioneers" to build a road to New Carthage.

According to Captain John Alexander Ritter (above), a 44 year old surgeon with the Richmond, Indiana Hoosiers, "Our regiment left Milliken's Bend on the 2nd (and) went (12 miles) to Richmond", he wrote. "The next morning, the 3rd, they went out on a scout 20 miles to Smiths Plantation on Bayou Videl, where Roundaway Bayou connects..." There the Hoosiers dug in and held for a week while Patterson's engineers improved the road behind them.

Dr. Ritter told his wife Margaret that although the regiment had only been issued 2 days rations, they had never eaten better in the service.  Here at the business end of the war, flour was going for $100 a barrel. "That is what the "sesesh" have to pay, " wrote doctor Ritter. The Yankees just took what they wanted. "The boys...have had chickens, mutton, fresh pork, fresh beef, goats, young pigeons etc. Honey. The Colonel has a milk cow tied to a stake."  But he assured Margaret "We have had a peaceable time. Thus far General Ostehaus is quite a favorite. He is a Dutchman, a very plain man, quite sociable. We have a good deal of confidence in General Grant...."

And as they moved closer to New Carthage, that confidence would grow.

- 30 -

VICKSBURG Chapter Eleven

  

Overnight of Thursday/Friday March 12-13, 1863, the Federals found enough solid dry ground to land a brigade of 1,2000 infantrymen, who dragged 300 bales of cotton about 600 yards out in front of the rebel line north of the Tallahatchie River. At 11:00am on Friday, 13 March they opened fire with a single 30 pound Parrot gun, joining a renewed assault from just 600 yards by the repaired Chillicothe and the Baron De Kalib, as well as a mortar on a barge (above). They were answered by the same three rebel cannon, which had been resupplied.

Over the next 3 hours the Chillicothe fired 54 rounds, and was hit 38 times, wounding 6 of her crew. Low on ammunition she was forced to withdraw. The Baron De Kalib kept firing until dusk, and was hit six times. Most shots merely dented her armor, but her steering gear was disabled, 3 crewmen were killed and 3 wounded. The ironclad, the mortar barge and the shore battery were all, almost out of ammunition. And after all that shooting the Federal naval commander was forced to admit, "We are not able to perceive any advantage gained..."

Inside Fort Pemberton, the bombardment had killed one man and wounded 21 more, including an officer and 15 men injured when a lucky Yankee shot somehow penetrated 16 feet of earth and set off the magazine for the Whitworth cannon. That night another shipment of ammunition from Yazoo City arrived, rearming the fort.

Over Sunday, 15 March, the Federals added more guns to the shore battery, and the 2 repaired ironclads  returned to the assault on Monday, 16 March, but again to no affect. And finally, the Federals had to admit they could not force their way past the 1,500 men and 3 large and 5 small cannon blockading the head of the Yazoo. Having breached the Great Levee and flooded the Coldwater and Tallahatchie to allow their ironclads to reach Fort Pemberton, they had also re-created the swamps which now prevented them from deploying their infantry to outflank the fort. Frustrated, the Yankees withdrew.

One Federal officer told his diary "...a more dissatisfied set of men I never saw...we could have taken it if our leaders would have but gave us the opportunity." The same spirit inspired a joke which made the rounds of Grant's army over the next few weeks. The story imagined a Yankee straggler captured by the rebels at Fort Pemberton. Ask a Confederate interrogator, "What the thunder did Grant expect to do down here?" The captured soldier explained, "He expects to take Vicksburg." The rebel officer snorted his derision. "Well, hasn't the old fool tried ditching and flanking 5 times already" And the Yankee prisoner responded, "Yes. But he has 37 more plans in his pocket, and one of them will get the job done." The enlisted soldiers on both sides recognized Grant's two great strengths as a commander, and neither was that he was brilliant. First, he did not waste the lives of his men. And second, he was stubborn as hell.

Well, crawling over maps on the floor of his spacious office on board his flagship, the 260 foot long, 900 ton side wheeler USS Black Hawk (above),  Admiral David Dixon Porter thought he had found another plan. And on Saturday, 14 March he again entered the mouth of the Yazoo River, as he had in December, before the Chickasaw Bayou operation. 

Under his immediate command were the ironclads Mound City, Louisville, Carondelet, Cincinnati and Pittsburgh and 4 mortar rafts pulled by tug boats, as well as 2 army transports filled with soldiers, commanded by General William Tecumseh Sherman himself.   Just before this little fleet came within range of the big rebel guns now atop Haynes Bluff, they turned north into Steele's Bayou.

It was 30 convoluted miles up Steele's Bayou until it connected with the short Black Bayou. Then, because of the heavy rains and the destruction of the Great Levee above Moon Lake, it was possible to follow the narrow and usually shallow Black Bayou south for 3 miles until it connected with Deer Creek. Thirteen miles upstream Deer Creek was joined by The Rolling Fork Creek, coming in from the south. Four miles down The Rolling Fork, Porter's ships would reach the Big Sunflower River, which turned west and joined the Yazoo River 20 miles upstream from the mouth of Steele's Bayou - beyond the rebel fortifications protecting Vicksburg.

Objectively it might seem insane to travel 200 plus miles to gain 20 miles. But this was 1863, when the advantages of buoyancy far outweighed distance. A single riverboat could carry an entire infantry regiment. An entire division required just 10 such boats. An average sized riverboat could carry about 500 tons of supplies - food, forage, and ammunition. That amount alone could maintain Grant's entire army for two days. 

And then there was the weight of floating cannon. Grant's army during the Vicksburg campaign dragged some 180 artillery guns with them, most of which threw 12 pound shells. Admiral Porter's mud navy had 200 guns, most firing shells twice to three times as heavy. Porter's Steele's Bayou expedition might seem like a clumsy elephant, entangled in clinging vines, trying to stamp out a mouse. But if it ever reached the upstream Yazoo River, the rebels would be facing a disaster.

Everything went as planned for the Yankees until the Ides of March, when Porter's ships reached Deer Creek (above). The 13 map miles upstream toward its convergence with the Rolling Fork Creek turned into 26 twisting, turning, narrow miles of swamp. 

At many bends the ironclads had to be winched through turns shorter than the ironclads' lengths. A leaf canopy blocked the sun, as overhanging branches from opposite shores intertwined, threatening to bring down the transport's 200 foot tall smoke stacks. Because of this Sherman disembarked his men at Black Bayou , ready to march overland once the gunboats had reached the Big Sunflower River. 

But the ironclads were kept going, constantly clearing snags and struggling to find a channel until their progress was reduced to half a mile an hour. Only a man "‘vain, arrogant and egotistical to an extent that can neither be described nor exaggerated’ would have kept going, and that man was the impetuous imperious Admiral David Dixon Porter (above).

On Saturday, 21 March, at the junction of Deer Creek and Rolling Fork Creek (above)   2,500 rebels under Mississippian General Winfiield Scott "Old Swet" Featherston attacked the Federal gunboats. The Confederates had been defending Fort Pemberton, but the retreat of the Yazoo Pass expedition had freed them, Porter was forced to dispatch 300 sailors to act as infantry.  With support from the ironclads' guns the "swabies" drove the Confederate troops back.  

But at nightfall the sailors returned to their boats, and the rebels slipped behind the squadron and chopped down 20 large trees, blocking their escapee. In the morning, snipers kept most of the sailors behind their armor.  

Only then, outnumbered and surrounded, did Porter realize his entire command was in danger of being lost or captured.

Luckily, General Sherman  (above) had heard the fleet's cannon fire on that Saturday, and had immediately sent men by steamship up the creek.   At the same time he forced marched most of his command toward  the mouth of Rolling Fork Creek, 20 miles away.

The troops sent by boat arrived that evening, and on Sunday managed to hold the Confederate forces back. The larger force, which marched the entire way through swamps, did not reach the fight until the afternoon of Monday, 23 March. 

But they arrived at the perfect moment to break up a rebel attack, catching their enemy in the rear. It was, as Wellington said about Waterloo, "A damn close thing." Porter was smart enough to know he had been checked.  The infantry held off the rebels while the navy cut its way out of the trap. By Friday, 27 March, all of Porter's gunboats, and both of Sherman's regiments were back at Milliken's Bend on the Mississippi River.

And that is when  Porter and Sherman discovered that things were about to change. On Tuesday, 29 March, 1863, Major General Ulysses Grant ordered Major General John Alexander McClernand to move his XIII Corps down the west bank of the river to New Carthage, Louisiana. And he ordered the movement to be made by road. 

- 30 -