GRANT TAKES VICKSBURG Chapter One

I know two amazing things about General and President Ulysses Simpson Grant, and the first one is that was not his name. His real name was Hiram Ulysses Grant (above). His mother's maiden name had been Simpson, and in 1839 when Ohio Democratic Congressman Thomas Hamer nominated Ulysses for West Point, somebody on his staff screwed up the application. So, as the reporter in "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" intones, "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend." So Hiram Ulysses became, on his West Point acceptance letter,  Ulysses Simpson Grant, or U.S. Grant - earning him the nickname at West Point of "Sam", as in Uncle Sam. 

The other amazing thing about U.S. Grant is that in the fall of 1862 he was a slightly better than average general. In early April he had been caught napping at Pittsburgh Landing, and came within a hare's breath of having his 40,000 man Army of the Cumberland pushed into the Tennessee River. But he did not panic, and the next morning, reinforced,  he counterattacked and drove the 40,000 man Army of Mississippi from the field. 

Grant later wrote, "I saw an open field...over which the Confederates had made repeated charges...so covered with dead that it would have been possible to walk across the clearing, in any direction, stepping on dead bodies, without a foot touching the ground."  After a few months under the cautious eye of his superior, General Henry Hallack, by mid summer he was returned to full command of the western Federal armies, with instructions to capture Vicksburg.

During a week in October, 1862, Grant secreted himself and his staff in a Cincinnati hotel suite (above). With maps and reports scattered about the rooms, Grant familiarized himself with the terrain of Mississippi, until he had committed every inch of it to memory. 

As he worked his mind began to focus on a three mile stretch of 90 foot high bluffs. They rose steeply from the bottom land, beginning 23 miles up the lethargic and meandering Yazoo River. Eventually he could name the obscure features in his sleep; Drumgould's Bluff, Snyder's Mill and Snyder's bluff, Haine's Landing and Haine's Bluff, the Johnson Plantation and Chickasaw Bayou.  Over the following 8 months he never let his focus to waver off those bluffs. It was that vision which would make him the greatest general of his generation. 

Now, to most northerners, in the fall of 1862 the American Civil War was looking like a stalemate. But Southerners were beginning to panic. James Shirley, a businessman in the Mississippi River town of Vicksburg confided to his diary before war was declared, “We are in the midst of a terrible commotion caused by the election of Abe Lincoln...all kinds of property has depreciated in value....and...soon a terrible storm will overwhelm us”.  Well, the storm had come and was raging.  

In the second full year of warfare, Union troops had driven Confederate forces right out of Missouri.  Western Tennessee had been cleared of rebel troops, from Memphis on the Mississippi River to Pittsburg Landing, and Shiloh near the head of navigation on the Tennessee River. 

And just across the border, was the town of Corinth, Mississippi.  After six months of attack and counter attack, it had finally fallen under Union control.  It was called the "Cross Roads City", because it was the junction of the Mobile & Ohio railroad running from Virginia to Chattanooga,  Tennessee (  “The vertebrae of the Confederacy”)  and the north/south Memphis & Charleston railroads, also known a the Central Mississippi Railroad. That junction was considered by many the 16 most valuable square feet  of railroad track in the entire Confederacy. And that vital rail connection was now in Federal hands.  It had been a terrible six months for the Confederacy.

At the beginning of May, 1862, New Orleans, Louisiana  -  the largest city in the Confederacy with 168,000 residents and $500 million in annual revenue and a port crucial to the long term economic survival of the Confederacy - had been captured by Federal ships under Admiral David Farragut. Within days Federal ships had also sailed 50 miles up the meandering Mississippi River to capture Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and then continued another twisting 50 miles north to briefly capture Natchez, Mississippi.  Beginning on 18 May, 1862 Admiral Farragut's fleet even spent 2 months bombarding and threatening Vicksburg itself,  400 miles up river from New Orleans.

But Vicksburg's commander, Brigadier General Martin Smith,  refused to surrender the city to Farragut's floating cannon. Besides the ships of the U.S. Navy's blue water fleet could not raise their guns high enough to engage the batteries atop the backbone of Vicksburg. Then, in July, a rebel ironclad, The Arkansas,  appeared and challenged the Yankee ships.   With the summer water levels falling the Federals finally gave up the attempt.  This failure left the Confederacy still controlling a 450 mile stretch of the Mississippi River -  a 150 mile stretch south from bluffs of Memphis, Tennessee (above)...

...through the delta of the Yazoo River to the high yellow hills around Vicksburg -  such as Haine's Bluff.  And on the opposite shore from Vicksburg was more high ground - De Soto Point, named after Hernando de Soto , whom Europeans claimed had discovered the 100 million year old Mississippi River,  in 1541 A.D.  Sixty river miles south of Vicksburg the 80 foot bluffs again touched the river at Grand Gulf, but only on the eastern shore.

Then, after 80 miles of swamp south on east and west shores were the 80 foot high bluffs at Port Hudson - the most southern tip of the bluffs.  Another 25 more miles of swamp south of Port Hudson were the entrenchments outside of Baton Rouge,  now held by the Yankees since May.  In between Memphis and Baton Rouge was that narrow 150 mile waist of the Mississippi River. And the only  spot in that 150 miles with high dry ground on both sides of the river, and able to support railroad lines. was at Vicksburg and the De Soto Peninsula.  In the words of Confederate President Jefferson Davis, Vicksburg was the nail that held the Confederacy together. It was Richmond's last rail connection to the Trans-Mississippi Confederacy - its richest Confederate state of Louisiana, and the fertile farm and cattle lands of Arkansas and Texas.  So it was decided in Richmond, that Vicksburg must be turned into the Gibraltar of the Confederacy.

No bridge spanned the Mississippi south of northern Illinois. But the Vicksburg, Shreveport and Texas railroad ran a 5'6" wide gauge track from the supply depot at Monroe, Louisiana , 78 miles east,  to the village of Desoto (above) at the base of the peninsula across from Vicksburg. The line had only 6 locomotives and 67 cars, and because of its non-standard gauge and because there was no bridge,  all supplies had to be unloaded in De Soto and transferred to barges, and then floated across the river to the Vicksburg docks. 

The corn and sugar and beef and wool and leather had to be then reloaded on the Southern Railroad for shipment east through Jackson, Mississippi and beyond via the Pearl River Bridge to Alabama. Permanently cut the Southern Railroad by occupying Vicksburg and or the state capital of Jackson, Mississippi, or destroy the quarter mile long Pearl River bridge,  and all the wealth of the Trans-Mississippi might as well be on the moon. And that is what Jefferson Davis meant when he said that Vicksburg must be held at all costs - even if at times it seemed Davis did not fully understand all that was encompassed by the name Vicksburg.

The guy Davis picked to defend Vicksburg was 48 year old  John Clifford Pemberton (above). a career soldier. During the Mexican - American War he had twice been promoted for bravery. But he might have been a better general if his politically connected Philadelphia daddy had not helped his career so often.  Jefferson Davis also promoted the big man quickly up the ladder in the Confederate Army - a year from Colonel to General. And that appears to have made Pemberton a living example of the Peter Principle - "managers rise to the level of their incompetence." And maybe the real reason John Pemberton got the job of defending Vicksburg was that Davis found him acceptable. And his rank, Lieutenant General,  said he could handle the situation. In fact only one of those statements was true.  

Bruce Catton, who wrote the centennial history of the Civil War in 1965,  described Pemberton as 
"diligent".  Catton noted that under Pemberton,  "For the first time the department got competent administration...Yet", he added, "the man could not win people.  In a spot that called for inspirational leadership he was uninspiring "  One Confederate Senator even told President Davis that "hardly anyone in Mississippi so much as realized that Pemberton was in command..."  And Lieutenant General Theophilus Holmes, commander across the river in Arkansas, wrote that, "Pemberton has many ways of making people hate him and none to inspire confidence." 

The Federal campaign to defeat Pemberton and capture Vicksburg was supposed to begin on Sunday, 2 November 1862, when Lieutenant General Ulysses Grant (above)  took over as commander of the Army of the Tennessee.  He was now the highest ranking Federal officer in the theater, with authority over every Federal soldier west of Nashville, and south to Baton Rouge.  Directly below him in rank was Major General John Alexander McClernand and thus his second in command. But McClernand  was on detached duty,  recruiting men in Iowa and Illinois.  And Grant knew it would be best if things could be settled before McClernand returned. 

The weather did not favor that happening. While Grant's 40,000 men methodically advanced south from high ground around Lagrange, Tennessee, repairing the Mississippi Central railroad as they marched, seemingly endless rains turned the roads into quagmires.  A 7,000 man Federal expedition out of Helena, Arkansas, along the Mississippi River, threatened toward Haines Bluff. And that encourage Pemberton to withdraw his 24,000 men from defensive lines along first the Tallihatchie and then the Coldwater rivers. Pemberton gave up first Holly Springs on Sunday, 29 November, 1862, and then, on Thursday, 4 December,  Oxford, Mississippi -  both without a fight.   The Confederate forces had now retreated another 50 miles and were building new defense lines around Granada, Mississippi on the banks of the Yalobusha River. Grant realized he was in fact only forcing Pemberton's army closer to those bluffs outside of Vicksburg.  

Grant stockpiled food for men and horses, ammunition, uniforms and shoes - for men and horses - at Holly Springs (above), and dug in south of Oxford. He had decided to use this position as the anvil upon which to crush the Rebels.  The hammer would be forces under his most trusted subordinate, General William Tecumseh Sherman.  Grant ordered Sherman to secretly load a single division of his men on empty supply trains heading back to Memphis. Sherman would then assume command of all soldiers in the Queen City - most of whom would be 2 new divisions McClernand had just raised, and any other troops along the Mississippi Sherman could round up. 

Then all 30,000 plus men would sail down the Mississippi to the mouth of Yazoo River, just above Vicksburg.  Once on that river Sherman was to capture Haine's Bluff,  the high ground 6 miles outside of Vicksburg, and capture that city before Pemberton's army could get back. Or perhaps the attack would distract Pemberton, allowing Grant to outflank his army at  Grenada,  forcing him to retreat again, and, hopefully, uncovering Jackson and the Pearl River Bridge.

It was risky move by Grant. The two wings of his army would be too widely separated to support each other, or co-ordinate their movements. Once on the river, Sherman's men would not be available to support the rest of Grant's army, nor receive any support from them.  But if Sherman could seize Haynes Bluff, at the head of Chickasaw Bayou,  then Pemberton would be forced to fight or give up the entire western half of the state of Mississippi, including Vicksburg. 

But Pemberton had noted the feint toward Haines Bluff. He reinforced that position, and also decided to make a threat of his own, striking at Grant's Holly Springs supply depot. And the logical choice to make that raid was the commander of his cavalry, the handsome and debonair and fecund ladies man par excellence - he would father 4 children with three women, in addition to the 3 children he fathered with his own wife - 62 year old Major General Earl Van Dorn. But perhaps most importantly, Van Dorn was an even better example of the Peter Principle in action than Pemberton.

A year earlier General Van Dorn had been promoted to commander of the Army in the West in the Trans-Mississippi, and assigned to retake Missouri. He boasted to his wife, "I must have St. Louis—then Huzza!"  At the Battle of Pea Ridge at the end of June 1862, he not only outnumbered the Federal troops, but he had surprised them, by marching so fast he out ran his own supplies. But, in two days of vicious fighting, his hungry exhausted men lost the battle. And lost Missouri forever because of it. Huzza!

Van Dorn was relieved and given command of the Rebel Army of Tennessee. In October he led that army in a clever attack at a second battle attempting to retake Corinth, Mississippi.  But Van Dorn lost his cool in another 2 day battle and was charged with being drunk, neglecting his wounded and again outrunning his supply lines (again), sending his men into battle without enough food or water. The Court of Inquiry cleared Van Dorn of all charges but President Davis gave his  army to Pemberton, and reduced Earl Van Dorn to commander of the cavalry. Which is how Van Dorn was first promoted to his level of incompetence and was then reduced to his level of competence, again

The timing could not have been better for the rebels. Van Dorn left Grenada, Mississippi on Thursday, 18 December, leading 3,500 horsemen around the Federal right flank.  And 2 days later, on Saturday, 20 December, Sherman's one veteran and 2 borrowed fresh divisions sailed from the docks at Memphis, putting them beyond supporting distance for Grant. That same day, as if from nowhere, the competent Van Dorn led his rebels galloping into the middle of Holly Springs and burned $1.5 million worth of supplies, before returning to Grenada. In that devastating raid, and a second which again threatened the rail center at Corinth, General Grant was forced to immediately put his men on half rations, and 4 days later evacuate Oxford, and fall back to Corinth.  Now, even if Sherman was able to capture Haynes Bluff,  Pemberton's 24,000 men were still effectively blocking Grant's 42,000.

It was a most inauspicious beginning to the most auspicious military campaign in American history.

- 30 -