VICKSBURG Chapter Forty-Nine

Beginning bright and early on the morning of Friday, 15 May, 1863, the 16, 000 men of William Tecumseh Sherman's XVth Corp began destroying everything which contributed to the military power of the Confederacy in the state capital of Jackson, Mississippi. This included, Sherman explained , burning “ the arsenal buildings, the Government foundry, the gun carriage establishment, including the carriages for two complete six-gun batteries”. Also a horse stable was burned down – not the horses, they were too valuable - dozens of captured wagons, with saddles, bridles and traces were also destroyed, as were the carpenter and paint shops. Four cannon had been captured on Thursday, and thirteen more on Friday. All were spiked and once packed with powder, set off, blowing out their breeches.

But the Yankees spent most of their energy, and seemed to most enjoy, dismantling the railroads. This meant tearing the iron rails from their cross ties.

Piling the ties four or five feet high , the soldiers then set  them on fire - which they usually did easily because they were soaked in lubricating oil constantly dripping from locomotives. 

Once the ties were burning fiercely, the rails were piled on top until they softened. These were then bent around an unlucky tree or post and twisted into what would later be nicknamed “Sherman's Neckties”.  If done right., such neckties  would have be returned to a foundry, to be recast.

According to Sherman this treatment was applied to the rail lines crossing in the city for a distance of “4 miles east of Jackson, 3 south, 3 north, and 10 west.” 

In addition the Yankees burned the bridge over the Pearl River along with 3,000 feet of high trestle work connecting it to level ground. They also burned every other bridge they could reach. Sherman estimated the cost of rebuilding the rail lines alone would be $204,000.00 – over $4 million today.

The rail yards machine shops were dismantled and burned, all the machines for making machinery were pounded with sledge hammers until it was useless. Five locomotives were blown apart, and 22 freight cars were burned. Sherman estimated it would take six months to repair and replace all that was destroyed. But he was being conservative. Jackson was finished as railroad transfer center.

The Yankees also destroyed the state prison, known as “The Walls” (above). Since it's opening in 1840, Mississippi had used the labor of the 200 inmates to defray costs for their incarceration, even adding a 40 acre farm. But during the war most of the prisoners had either been shipped to adjoining states, or inducted into the Confederate Army. After the 1862 arsenal explosion, the prison factories had been used for making ammunition, as well continuing the manufacture of bale rope and hemp, and bags for cotton harvesting. But Sherman's men now cleared the building and blew its walls down.

Not far from the capital building, atop 'asylum heights', was the 7 year old state mental hospital (above). It had once sheltered 150 white patients, but war and 'natural' mortality had reduced that number by half. However, the Yankees under Brigadier General Joseph (Fighting Joe) Anthony Mower – in charge of the center of Jackson - went on a shopping spree of the hospital's storehouse and garden, driving away many of the animals intended to feed the patients. Even worse, according to the Jackson Daily News, “seven of institution’s ten employees left their jobs and joined the Union Army.” The remaining 50 or so patients survived as best they could, if they could, until after the war.

Since 1841 the Federal Government had been sitting on a fund to pay for the establishment of a state school for the blind. But the state of Mississippi refused to recognize the Federal right to those lands, and for 13 years had refused to avail themselves of the money. Finally, in 1857, sanity demanded that the children came first and and in 1858 a dormitory and rude campus was constructed (above) a mile and a half west on the Clinton Road. Federal troops investigated the property, but did little damage. However, the mostly young, indigent patients were now among the most vulnerable in a state devastated by war. They too were the cost of defending human slavery at all costs.

No Government buildings were purposely damaged – the state capital building (above) still stands a century later. The City Hall, the Masonic Hall, the concert Hall and The Lyceum were all guarded to ensure their survival, Even the Governor's mansion remained untouched. However a few Yankees had discovered a cache of rum and some pillaging of private property resulted. A minister admitted that while his church was undamaged, his home had suffered, “... wanton destruction...May God forgive them for all the evil they did...” But the war was still young, and compared to what Sherman would unleash upon Jackson just 5 months later, this was a benign occupation. 

In truth, Sherman had very little time to do much more. Before nightfall, “Cump” (above) had received orders that the last of his men were to be on the road to Clinton, by 10:00am, Saturday, 16 May, 1863. The Vicksburg campaign was rushing toward it's climax.

And Grant was ready. As the tail end of Sherman's Corps under General Blair reached Raymond on 14 May, they passed on the 200 wagon supply train to the protection of McClernand's Corps.  Most of what the army needed to survive and march with had been taken from the Mississippi farmers and plantations. But shot and shell, sugar and coffee were all in short supply in the Confederacy. Those, the Army of the Tennessee,  had brought with them from Grand Gulf, not in a continuous train of wagons, but in concentrated bundles, each protected by a full division advancing into the interior of the state. But this was to be the final bundle for Grant's army. He could support no more men in Mississippi, and thus would not be receiving any more supply trains from Grand Gulf.

The vulnerable rear of the Federal army, which General Loring had convinced Pemberton to strike for, no longer existed. Had Pemberton struck on 12 May, or even 13 May, he might have hit Grant a serious blow. But by 15 May, it was too late. And had Pemberton followed Johnston's original order, he might have been striking toward Clinton on 15 May with 35,000 men, and the story of the end of the Vicksburg might have been very different.

The story that was told later is that a year and a half earlier an unnamed rebel civilian was suspected of union sympathies by authorities in the still Confederate city of Nashville, Tennessee (above). This rebel was then publicly accused and escorted out of the town, before it became the first rebel state capital to fall to Federals in February of 1862. 

The individual, now in Jackson, Mississippi, harbored their resentment until 13 May, 1863, when Captain James Yeager went looking for two volunteers to carry copies of General Joseph Johnston's orders through the Yankee armies to General Pemberton, in Bovina. Knowing the vital nature of the message, the insulted rebel, volunteered. And at the first Yankee picket outside of Clinton,  he – or she – repaid the insult by handing over their copy of Johnston's message to Pemberton. Or so the story goes.

We know as fact the captured message went directly to the headquarters of Major General James Birdseye McPherson (above), who passed the message on to General Grant's headquarters in the evening hours of 14 May. 

Even with parts of the order written in an as yet unbroken code, the essence was clear. Pemberton (above) was ordered to abandon Vicksburg, and march on Clinton, where he would be met by Johnston's gathering host. Johnston may have been pushed out of the game, but Grant could not afford to assume a rebel army was not bearing down on his guard rear.

This explained Grant's orders to General McPherson on the evening of Thursday, 14 May. His XVII Corps wheeled about on their heels and during 15 May marched back through Clinton,  to Bolton - 20 miles west of Jackson.  Also on that Friday, the 3 divisions of Major General John Alexander McClernand's was ordered to "Turn all your forces toward Bolton Station, and make all dispatch in getting there. Move troops by the most direct road from wherever they may be on the receipt of this order." Grant was determined to block all of the roads Pemberton might use to combine with Johnston's growing force -  the Bridgeport to Clinton Road, the Edward's Depot to Clinton Road which ran through Bolton, and the Bolton to Raymond road.   Sherman's 2 available divisions were  ordered to finish their work in Jackson and be on the Clinton road by 10:00am on Saturday, 16 May.

Grant's staff had just shifted the Army of The Tennessee 180 degrees. McClernand's and McPherson's Corps were now in the lead.  Sherman's Corps was now the reserve.  It was a classic Napoleonic use of independent Corps to quickly concentrate their power in whatever direction their general chose.  Grant could not know that Pemberton's decision to strike toward Raymond was, in effect, moving toward Grant's left flank, while uncovering Grant's most direct route to Vicksburg and the Federal supply line.   And neither side could know the outcome of the entire campaign would now be determined not by human egos or minds, but by the rains of 14 May.

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