VICKSBURG Chapter Ninety – Two

And hour after dawn, the boys of the 36^th Arkansas scrambled up the slope of Graveyard Hill, directly into the gunfire of the 33^rd Iowa infantry and bronze cannons manned by members of the 33^rd Missouri. Thirty-three year old Brigadier General Dandridge McRae, noted the cost paid by the Confederate officers. “Major Davie...fell, shot through the thigh...Captain Robinson, acting major, fell mortally wounded...There also fell Captain Garland....” And still the rebels pressed forward, “yelling like demons”.   After repelling two charges, the Iowa boys fell back, allowing the Arkansas boys to capture the pair of 6 pound guns of Battery “C”. As planned, General McRae immediately turned them, intending to fire upon the retreating Yankees.

On this same spot, 30,000 years earlier, when the Gulf of Mexico almost reached as far north as Cairo, Illinois,  Graveyard Hill was the southern end of an island chain, later called Crowley's Ridge. 

On Saturday, 4 July, 1863, it looked down upon the Yankee occupiers of the strategic town of Helena, Arkansas - 70 miles down the Mississippi River from Memphis, and 230 river miles north of Vicksburg. 

In May, there had been 20,000 Yankees guarding Helena. By the beginning of July there were only 4,000 left – 7 infantry regiments of the 1^st Division, XIII corps under Prussian immigrant and surveyor, 37 year old Brigadier General Frederick Charles Salomon.

A veteran of the 36^th Iowa, Sargent Minos Miller, sought to reassure his mother by describing the trenches and defensive works which ran from the river north to the river south of town. Across a half mile wide plain to the north and west were 3 one hundred foot high bluffs, each defended by infantry and artillery batteries. 

Tucked behind the bluffs was the earthen Fort Curtis (above) , containing five 24 pounder and two 32 pounder guns mounted on turn tables so they could quickly fire upon any point on the perimeter. Every artillery piece had 200 rounds stocked within reach, and each soldier carried 200 musket rounds on his person. 

The streets of the town had been barricaded, and in the river was the 180 foot long, 575 ton reinforced sidewheeler gun boat the USS Tyler, carrying a 32 pound cannon and 6 eight inch guns.

Over the previous ten days 43 year old over all commander, Major General Benjamin Mayberry Prentiss (above), had noted that southern sympathizers in Helena had stopped talking to his soldiers. In addition his cavalry patrols were running into more rebel pickets along all three roads leading into Helena. So for the last week, Prentiss had ordered the garrison to rise at 2:00 a.m every day. And at 4:00 the morning of Saturday, 4 July, 1863, John Williams of the 28^th Wisconsin remembered, “...the gun (in) Fort Curtis thundered forth its warning that the enemy was coming...We had not long to wait – the butternuts soon came pouring in, and the ball opened in earnest.”

The dance instructor for the Confederacy that morning was Lieutenant-General Theophilus Hunter Holmes (above) , a 58 year old, mostly deaf , "grim-featured man" who gave “the impression of an inattentive elderly man”.  Asked to defend his inaction at the battle of  Malvern Hill in 1862, Holmes said, “I thought I heard firing.”   The only man who believed in Holmes was the only man who counted – Jefferson Davis. It was Davis who, in summer of 1862, promoted Holmes to command the Trans-Mississippi, and then had to replace him with Lieutenant General Kirby Smith in December.

In June Smith put Holmes in command over Arkansas, and ordered him to support Pemberton at Vicksburg by taking the Yankee supply base at Helena. Holmes responded with bombast. “The invaders have been driven from every point in Arkansas save one—Helena. We go to retake it.”

The operation began on Monday, 22 June, 1863 when the troops of 38 year old Brigadier General James Fleming Fagen set off from outside of Little Rock. His men were closest and able to travel mostly by boat down the White River and then by rail.

The men under 52 year old Major General Sterling “Old Granny  Price - called by Jefferson Davis the most conceited man  he'd ever met.....

...and 33 year old Brigadier General John Sappington Marmaduke,  were not only farther away but  had to make the entire 10 day journey on foot.  Four days of rain turned the roads to mud and forced crossings of the rain swollen Grand Prairie and the Bayou De View on improvised ferries. On 3 July the 7,600 weary rebels came together 3 miles from Helena.  

Holmes (above)  was there to personally direct operations. Although one of his subordinates had admitted the "old dear" should be kept as far from a battlefield as possible.  Though he admitted he had very little intelligence on the Yankee positions he issued instructions for an attack to begin “at daylight”. 

General Fagen (above) would attack from the southwest, Price from the west and Marmaduke from the north.

The first problem with Holmes' plan became apparent before dawn when the Confederates discovered hundreds of trees had been felled across the roads. Infantry could go around, but artillery had to wait until axes could clear the way. The second problem was a definition of “daylight”. “Did that it mean dawn? Or first light? 

General Fagen thought it meant dawn, and his men were the first to throw themselves up the slopes of Rightor Hill. Without support, their attack was crushed.

An infuriated General Holmes demanded that General Price attack immediately. That was not going to happen.   By the time Price got his men moving, General Marmelduke's assault was bogged down and neutralized. It was almost an hour later that the center of the rebel line charged up Graveyard Hill. 

Their first two assaults were thrown back, but the final one sent the Iowa boys running back to Fort Curtis. His own artillery still struggling to even get to battlefield, Price intended upon using the captured Yankee cannon to bombard the fort. It was an absurd idea that two 6 pound cannon might overcome 7 guns in Fort Curtis and 7 more guns on the USS Tyler. And he discovered one of the guns had been spiked and on the other the firing mechanism had been removed. They were useless.

As Sargent Miller, in Fort Curtis, told his mother, “...by this time the Rebels....charged down a hollow towards Fort Curtis, but our batteries poured the grape and canister to them so fast they tried to shelter in a large brick house about a hundred of them got into it and some of them under it when our cavalry... took 150 of them prisoner...” 

By 10:30 a.m. even Holmes had to confess,  the effort had failed, and the Confederate troops began to withdraw. As he admitted in his official report, “The expedition failed which should have succeeded.”  But it had been too little, too late. 

Confederate losses were over 1,600 – 169 killed, (the Yankees reported burying 400 rebels) 659 wounded and 786 captured or missing – over 20% of Holmes 7,600 man force. On the defence, the Yankees suffered 57 men killed, 146 wounded and 36 missing. And by the time the attack on Helena fell apart, Yankee troops were entering Vicksburg.

- 30 -