VICKSBURG Chapter FIfty

In the dark, late on the evening of Thursday, 14 May, 1863, after abandoning Jackson, Mississippi General Joe Johnston (above) paused 6 miles north along the New Orleans and Memphis rail line. There he composed another missive – to call it an order seems to be stretching that definition beyond the breaking point - to Lieutenant General Pemberton, somewhere to the west, near Bovina Station. He wondered if Pemberton might be able to cut Grant's supply line. He wondered how long Grant's army could survive, once it's supply had been cut. And he urge, again, that Pemberton unit their forces. “I am anxious to see a force assembled that may be able to inflict a heavy blow upon the enemy." And that was the passive aggressive order he sent to Pemberton, near midnight on Friday, 15, May.

Later that morning another 4,000 man brigade joined his forces, bringing Johnston's strength to about 10,000 men. But the new arrivals were exhausted, and needed at least a day to recover. More troops were coming, and within a week Johnston would have perhaps 30,000 men. But ominously, forty miles to the west on that morning, Lieutenant General Pemberton and his army was not moving toward a junction, as ordered earlier, but were waiting.

Pemberton's original plan had been a compromise between his conflicting orders from Confederate President Jefferson Davis to hold Vicksburg, and his “orders” from General Joe Johnston, to abandon the city and march his army east to join forces with Johnston's gathering little force. Pemberton's solution to this conflict seemed practical. 

Pemberton left 2 divisions of infantry and the battalion of artillerymen – about 13,000 men in total – to hold Vicksburg and the heights above the mouth of the Yazoo River. With his remaining 3 divisions of infantry and Wade Adam's Cavalry -about 17,000 men - he would advance eastward along the Southern Railroad to Edward's Depot (above). By staying along the railroad he was protecting his own supply line.

However last night, at a council of war, Pemberton had accepted Major General Loring's suggestion, that the army should strike away from the railroad, toward Raymond – 20 miles to the southeast. The goal was to cut Grant's supply line, force him to pull back to protect his “line of communications”, and thus allow Johnston's smaller force to safely advance and link up with Pemberton. Thus Grant would be forced to react to the rebels for a change, perhaps even cause him to make a mistake. But, leaving the railroad required shifting the Confederate's supply line. And that required finding more horses and wagons.

It took time to seize the transport – until now Pemberton had refused to simply take what he needed – and to load the wagons and organize them into a column. And so Pemberton's entire army spent the morning on their asses while this wagon train was formed. The rebel army was not ready to move until the morning was almost gone. And then, before the great advance had made much more than a single mile, it was forced to halt again.

You see, there were three routes which could be taken from Edward's Depot to Raymond. The most northern road crossed Baker's Creek on a bridge and then rounded the northern slopes of a low hill before reaching a crossroads. Continuing east lead to Bolton. Turning south, on what was called The Middle Road, lead to Raymond. The central route, called the Jackson road, turned right off the Bolton Road a quarter of a mile east of the bridge, and then climbed that 75 foot hill. On its broad flat top the Jackson road crossed a narrow north south lane called the Ratcliff Road, before descending back to level ground where it passed the farmhouse of Sid and Matilda Champion, who had given their name to the entire hill.

The farmland had been a wedding gift from the father of the bride, and in the 7 years since their nuptials, Sid and Matilda  (above) had built a 2 story home, and introduced 4 children into the world. Sid had joined the 28^th Mississippi cavalry in '62. And now, a year later, with soldiers from both sides gathering around her home, Matilda had taken the children to her father's home in Madison County, Mississippi. The property was left to be guarded by the slaves who toiled soil. 

Following the Jackson Road after it passed the Champion home, lead to the small Jackson Creek and then it crossed The Middle Road. Turning south led to Raymond, but should the traveler continue east they would eventually reach Clinton and then the state capital of Jackson.

But General Pemberton had chosen the most southern route, which a mile east of Edward's Depot forded Baker's creek. It avoided Champion's Hill entirely, and ran adjacent to a light railroad, which in peace time had carried the cotton harvested in and around Raymond to the southern railroad at Edward's Depot. But this proved to be a most unfortunate choice, because, as the head of Pemberton's column approached the Baker's Creek ford the rebels found the stream so swollen with Friday's downpour, it had washed out the bridge.

A little scouting would have warned Pemberton of this problem But no one had checked the route in daylight, even with the hours of delay in getting started....

...not even the one armed General Loring (above), whose division formed the vanguard of this sad sack of a march. So now, Pemberton's little army had to turn about in place, one unit after the other slowly filing a mile back to Edward's Depot, and then lining up again on the Bolton road. It took another hour or more. The inability to execute a simple march sapped the energy and spirit of the troops. But the man most offended was Major General Loring. He had been urging Pemberton to attack the Yankees since the Battle of Port Gibson. This entire maneuver was his idea, And as its implementation quickly revealed its drawbacks, Loring blamed not himself but Pemberton. Old “Give 'em Blizzards” already low estimation of Lieutenant General Pemberton, plummeted even further.

Then Pemberton made things even worse. After crossing the bridge and turning south on the Jackson road he chose to lead the column onto the narrow and badly maintained “Ratcliff Plantation Road”, which ran a mile south across the top of Champion's Hill before dropping and reconnecting with road he had originally intended upon using. This final choice slowed their progress even more, and the effect of all this waiting, marching and counter-marching, and now following the narrow dark country lane, was that when darkness finally brought the frustrating and exhausting day to an end,  Private Wesley Connor, a member of the Cherokee Artillery near the rear of the column, recorded his unit set out promptly at 7:00am, and then “... marched two hundred yards, halted an hour or two, and then marched back to our position...” They then waited another 11 hours, until 6:00pm , when they “Left our position again, and marched eastward several miles and then southward. Bivouacked five or six miles from Edwards Depot.”  Loring's division had traveled the farthest, but by nightfall was little more than 4 miles down the Raymond road – reaching the property of the twice widowed, 46 year old Sarah Ann Walton Bowles Ellison.

Lorings men pitched their tents around the widow's house, while Lieutenant General Pemberton slept comfortably inside. Two miles up the road to the north centered of the junction of the Raymond and Ratcliff road was the division of Major General Bowen. And behind them, the troops commanded by Major General Stevenson camped around the hill top.  And behind them was the supply train, which had delayed the army for half a day. That train had advanced less than four miles in total. It was a disastrous day's march. In fact, the wreckage of Pemberton's first bold decision would save his army because it failed.

Awakening before 5:00 the next morning, Saturday, 16 May, 1863, Pemberton learned that the cavalry scouts sent ahead to locate Grant's supply trains had found the roads from Port Gibson to Raymond, completely empty. Suddenly Pemberton is adrift. Where are Grant's supply trains? Where is Grant's army” Then about 6:30 the commander of his cavalry brigade, Colonel Wirt Adams (above) came galloping up and dismounted. He reported that his men were skirmishing with Yankee infantry on the Bolton Road, at the very rear of Pemberton's army. And behind those skirmishers there appeared to be a lot of Yankee soldiers on the road to Edward's Depot.

Almost immediately a new rider appeared, bearing a message from General Johnston, in Jackson, Mississippi and dated on the afternoon of Thursday, 14 May. It informed Pemberton that Johnston was being forced to surrender Jackson, and added, “Our being compelled to leave Jackson makes your plan (to attack Grant's supply line) impractical. The only mode by which we can unite is by your moving directly to Clinton...".

And abruptly, Pemberton had no choice but to do that very thing.

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