VICKSBURG Chapter Eighty - Six

 

Captain Yeger's saber flashed in the sun. Two squadrons of rebel cavalrymen opened fire on the Bear Creek bridge. And the single company of Harris' brigade, 28^th Mississippi cavalry spurred their horses forward, four abreast, down the narrow fenced road, directly into the open mouth of a 12 inch howitzer. The cannon belched fire and smoke. Hundreds of supersonic lead balls filled the air. And 100 Iowa Yankee carbines barked death.

Twice the Mississippi rebels charged, and twice the Iowa boys forced them back. But then, seeing the Yankees pulling the ugly little gun to the west side of the bridge, Captain Yerger ordered this men forward a third time. And this time the riders in butternut brown and gray scattered the blue clad gunners and captured the ugly little cannon. In victory the rebels barely notice the Yankees had fired the bridge, and it would soon be unusable.

History would insist that this 22 June, 1863 skirmish at Bear Creek, just west of the Birdsong Ferry over the Big Black River, was of importance only to the 13 Americans killed on both sides – including the brave Captain Yeger – and the 32 wounded , and, of course to the 40 horses killed. The bridge would be repaired, and that would take just a little time . But it did have a larger meaning to at least two other men.

As June slipped away, General Joseph Johnston's strongest unit, Major General William Henry Talbot Walker's 8,000 man division, was station 20 miles northwest of Canton, Mississippi at the crossroads village of Vernon. From there Walker could guard against a Yankee end run toward Yazoo City. And should Johnston take the offensive, as President Jefferson Davis had ordered, the first step for Walker would be a march 3 miles due west to Bogue Chitto – in the Choctaw language, Big Creek – and then another 4 mile march to the Big Black River at Birdsong Ferry, 10 miles north of the Big Black River Bridge battlefield. 

Just east of Canton, was the 6,000 man division of one armed Major General William Wing Loring. Based in part on the the success of the skirmish at Bear Creek Bridge, “Old Joe” Johnston intended both Walker and Loring's divisions to spear head a drive across the Big Black River to Bear Creek and beyond, to Grant's supply base on Chickasaw Bayou below Snyder's Bluff.

To support that 2 division thrust, General Johnston had stationed Major General John Cabel Breckenridge's 6,000 man division some 20 miles south of Vernon and 10 miles due west of Canton, defending the little railroad town of Bolton. The Southern rail line had been rendered useless for the past month. But the Big Black River Railroad Bridge was still standing, just 20 miles beyond  Bolton – a single day's march.

In addition, the 6,000 man division of wealthy slave owner Major General Samuel Gibbs French occupied the trenches at Jackson, at the end of the hastily repaired Central Mississippi railroad. The line was dependable only as far south as Canton. Beyond that the lack of ballast for the rails and the patchwork bridge repairs cut speeds in half or more. And now most of the slave workers had been switched to repairing the bridge over the Pearl River. Should the army move forward, Johnston could use French's division to support either Breckenridge or the thrust over the Big Black.

Finally, on Sunday, 28 June, General Johnston (above) gave the order, and the next morning, Monday, 29 June, his ramshackle Army of Relief, loaded with 3 days rations, lurched forward. Immediately problems showed Johnston's force had so exhausted itself in just getting to Jackson and Canton that it was still in no condition to take on Grant's Army of the Tennessee. On the first day General Walker's men managed to cover 6 miles, but they stumbled into camps on the Jones Plantation, still short of Birdsong Ferry.

And it was the inability of Breckenridge's men to move efficiently that drove the primadonna “Ole Blizzards” Loring (above) to throw yet another of his infamous hissy fits. His men were supposed to march this day from Canton to Bolton, then turn north, heading for Birdsong Ferry. 

But they could not get through Bolton, which was jammed with Breckenridge's men still being issued their 3 days of rations. Flashing his sword and temper, Loring tried shoving individual units out of his way, which only made the situation worse . And then the now disjointed Breckenridge's regiments elbowed their way in between Loring's regiments.

Word of the tangled mess reached Breckenridge before noon. He ordered his forward units to hold at Edward's Depot, while he raced back to Bolton and faced down Loring in a shouting match.  While all of that was going on, neither Loring's troops nor Breckenridge's troops moved very much at all. Eventually Johnston's staff officers intervened, and the mess slowly untangled. But Breckenridge's division got no farther than Edward's Depot, and Loring's division no further than Brownsville, Mississippi. And because those unit's did not reach their intended first day's objectives, General French's 6,000 men barely moved out of Jackson. All in all, the first day's march had been a minor disaster.

It seemed an indication that the numbers alone were not a fair measure of force provided by Johnston's Army of Relief.  He had some 27,000 men, but most had been heavily used just getting to Jackson and Canton, and were now placing demands on the Confederate supply system it could no longer sustain. They were making the kind of rookie mistakes you would expect from "green" soldiers, not veterans.  And when they finally reached the Big Black River Johnston's men discovered that the country to the west, which had been almost empty of Yankees in Mid-June, was far from that by the First of July.

Initially the only Yankees guarding Chickasaw Bayou were cavalry screens and Major General Parke's IX Corps, including 2 brigades in Major General Thomas Welsh's 1^st Division, and 3 weak brigades of Brigadier General Robert B. Potters' 2^nd Division. As May turned to June these men were pushed forward, until their trenches reached from the Yazoo River to Messanger Ford and Bush's Ferry, north of Birdsong Ferry. 

By mid-June those troops, now named the Army of Observation, had been placed under the command of Major General William Tecumseh Sherman (above), and reinforced with 1 division each from each of the armies other corps - "Parke's two divisions from Haines's Bluff out to the Benton or ridge road; Tuttle's division, of my corps, joining on and extending to a plantation called Young's, overlooking Bear Creek valley, which empties into the Big Black above Messinger's Ferry; then McArthur's division, of McPherson's corps, took up the line, and reached to Osterhaus's division of McClernand's corps, which held a strong fortified position at the railroad-crossing of the Big Black River. "

As the threat of a Vicksburg breakout faded, more divisions from the besieging army were fed into Sherman's command. By the end of the month three divisions of the XVI corps, under 43 year old Minneapolis flour mill owner Major General Cadwallader Colden Washburn provided a substantial reserve. Sherman now had a total of nearly 40,000 men. 

Johnston's Army of Relief could still muster only 27,000, and although the rebels were eager enough, they lacked the military stamina and equipment of the Yankee force.

After the war, Grant confided to journalist John Russell Young, that, “If I had known Johnston was coming (west of the Big Black), I would have told Pemberton to wait in Vicksburg until I wanted him, awaited Johnston’s advance, and given him battle. He could never have beaten that Vicksburg army, and thus I would have destroyed two armies perhaps.” Still Grant insisted, “...the South, in my opinion, had no better soldier than Joe Johnston – none at least that gave me more trouble.” And that included Robert E. Lee.

Johnston spent three days looking for an opening somewhere in Sherman's lines. He was cautious of being caught over the Big Black without a secure line of retreat, as Pemberton had been caught over Baker's Creek at Champion Hill. Finally, on the evening of 3 July, General Johnston decided he must act the next day, to relieve the pressure on Vicksburg's defenders. But that night, he received information which changed his mind.

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VICKSBURG Chapter Seventy - Eight

 

The pro – Union newspaper, the Memphis Evening Bulletin,  had only been publishing for a few weeks when the Civil War broke out. Editor Ralphael Semmes was hoping to build circulation with a series of articles investigating corruption surrounding Tennessee's Democratic Senator Andrew Johnson. Then, abruptly, Semmes was replaced by his business partner James Brewster Bingham, and the paper began supporting Johnson. The reason for the sudden editorial shift could be explained in two words – Andrew Johnson.

The 51 year old Democrat Andrew Johnson (above) was the only senator from a succeed state to remain in Washington after the war broke out. That made him a favorite of Republican President Lincoln. And first among the favors bestowed upon Johnson was the sudden retirement of Ralphael Semmes. The biggest problem was that Johnson's term in the senate was set to expire in January of 1863, which would limit his usefulness.  Before that happened, Nashville and Memphis were captured by Federal troops and in November of 1862, Johnson was named Tennessee's Military Governor. To further assist Johnson, Lincoln even exempted Tennessee from the Emancipation Proclamation.

But if he was to be effective at helping Lincoln hold the states together (above) Andrew Johnson needed to broaden his own base of support. And this was one of the reasons editor James Bingham decided on 10 June, 1863, that the Memphis Evening Standard would be one of the first newspapers to publish Illinois Democrat Major General John Alexander McClerand's General Order Number 72 – his version of the failed federal assaults of 22 May.  Bingham thought he was doing McClernand a political favor. In fact he was laying down the fuse to a bomb that would blow up McClernand's political dreams.

It was General Francis “Frank” Preston Blair junior who ignited that fuse. And Lincoln needed the powerful Blair family much more than he needed Andrew Johnson. Newspaper owner Francis Preston Blair (above)  had helped Lincoln win the Republican nomination in 1860. His eldest son Montgomery Blair was Lincoln's Postmaster General. Together with younger brother Frank, they had delivered Missouri solidly into the Union camp at the very outset of the war.

By the summer of 1863 General Frank Blair (above) was commander of the 2^nd division in William Tecumseh Sherman's XVth Corps, which was pressing the northern flank of Vicksburg. And on Tuesday, 16 June, 1863, Blair finally read McClernand's tortured version of the assault on the Railroad Redoubt as published by the Memphis Evening Standard. McClernand claimed not only to have captured the redoubt, he added, “...assistance was asked for...(which) would have probably insured success.”

McClernand's account made it seem Grant and the rest of the Union army had abandoned the XIII corps on the edge of victory.  But General Blair knew McClernand had not captured the redoubt. He knew McClernand's men had barely dented its defenses. And Blair was fully aware of his own men's sacrifices in supporting the already failed XIII corps assault. The Missourian immediately stormed into to Sherman's headquarters with a copy of the newspaper clenched in his tightly balled fist.

Sherman was just as outraged as his subordinate, but he wisely and somewhat uncharacteristically let his temper cool until Wednesday, 17 June, before dispatching the newspaper up the chain of command to General Grant.  And in a display of political legerdemain Sherman rarely possessed, he now pretended to doubt McClernand “ever published such an order officially to his corps. I know too well that the brave and intelligent soldiers and officers who compose that corps will not be humbugged by such....vain-glory and hypocrisy.”

That evening an almost carbon copy of Sherman's letter, this one allegedly written by XVII corps commander Major General James Birdseye McPherson (above), was delivered to  Grant's headquarters.  “I cannot help arriving at the conclusion,” wrote McPherson, that McClernand's offending missive, “...was written more to influence public sentiment....with the magnificent strategy, superior tactics, and brilliant deeds of [McClernand]...” McPherson then went on to add, “It little becomes Major General McClernand to complain of want of cooperation on the part of other Corps... when 1218 men of my command...fell... If General McClernand’s assaulting columns, were not immediately supported...it most assuredly was his own fault.”

Two letters, representing two thirds of his command staff, had now been filed, both questioning the motives and accuracy of McClernand's public version of events. Grant (above) immediately forwarded a copy of the Memphis Standard's article to General McClernand, along with a short note. “Enclosed I send you what purports to be your congratulatory address to the XIII Army Corps. I would respectfully ask if it is a true copy. If it is not a correct copy, furnish me one by bearer, as required both by regulations and existing orders of the Department.”

McClernand replied immediately, and claimed to be blindsided. “The newspaper slip is a correct copy of my congratulatory order, No 72. I am prepared to maintain its statements. I regret that my adjutant did not send you a copy promptly, as he ought, and I thought he had.”

Whether the letters protesting General McClernand's boasting were ghost written or not was now beside the point. Months ago, Grant (above) had ordered all communications within the Army of the Tennessee must be presented to his headquarters before they were published by the corps commanders, and no orders were to be released to the public except by Army headquarters. And with the army now stationary outside of Vicksburg, with Grant's star supreme in the west, with permission to fire McClernand from General-in-Chief Henry Hallack, still in his pocket, and having maneuvered McClernand into a written admission he had violated orders, Grant was now ready to act.

About 1:00a.m. on Thursday, 18 June, 1863, Grant signed the order. “Major General John A. McClernand is hereby relieved of command of the XIII corps. He will proceed to any point he may select in the state of Illinois and report by letter to Headquarters of the Army – meaning Army of the Tennessee - for orders.” 

The words were those of Grant's chief of staff, Major John Aaron Rawlings (above).  Rawlings then gave the order to the 25 year old Inspector General of the Army, Lieutenant Colonel James Harrison Wilson, with instructions to deliver it first thing in the morning.

An historian has described the young James Wilson (above) as “....ambitious, impatient, outspoken...(and) a stranger to humility and self-doubt”.  In short, a younger version of McClernand. A West Point graduate, Wilson had briefly been an acolyte of General McClernand, but only used him to finagle his own way onto Grant's staff.  And Wilson urged that he be allowed to deliver the message immediately. Rawlings was a stickler for protocol and offered half- hearted resistance. But he also despised McClernand, and finally released the vengeful Wilson into the night. 

The colonel arrived at XIII corps headquarters about 3:00 a.m. Thursday morning, accompanied by a provost marshal and a squad of soldiers. He was told McClernand was asleep, but insisted the orderly awaken the general.

It must have been obvious to McClernand that he was in some trouble, because he took the time to put on his dress uniform. He received Wilson in his office, the room illuminated by a pair of tall candles and his sheathed sword symbolically lying across the table. Wilson saluted and informed McClernand, “General I have an important order for you which I am directed to deliver into your hands.” 

Wilson handed the envelope to McClernand, who dismissively tossed it unopened onto the desk. Wilson then added, ”I was to be certain you had read the order in my presence, that you understand it, and that you signify your immediate obedience to it.”

Troubled by Wilson's tone, McClernand put on his reading glasses, opened the order, and read it. The shock was immediate. Obviously it had never occurred to him that he was about to loose his command. 

And McClernand could not help but notice the second half of the order actually named his successor to command of the XIIIth Corps - Major General Edward Otho Cresap (O.C.) Ord.  He had been  recovering from a head wound, but the inclusion of his appointment made it clear Grant was not acting on an impulse. 

McClernand blurted out, “Well, sir! I am relieved!” Then seeing the smile on Wilson's face, McClernand said, “By God, sir, we are both relieved.!” McClernand then sat, and pugnaciously announced that he “very much doubted the authority of General Grant to relieve a general officer appointed by the President.”  It might have been a telling point in a legal debate. In the reality of the moment it was meaningless.

Later that morning McClernand expanded his opinion in writing. He told Grant, “Having been appointed by the President to command...under a definite act of Congress, I might justly challenge your authority...but forbear to do so at present.” Clearly over the intervening hours, it had been explained to McClernand that Grant would not have acted if he did not already hold all the cards. Grant ignored the latest missive, but did now respond to McClernand's General Order Number 72, saying it contained “...so many inaccuracies that to correct it...would require the rewriting of most of it. It is pretentious and egotistical..."

Then, since technically he was now in Mississippi illegally, Major General John Alexander McClerand rode through the stream of reinforcements pouring into the Vicksburg lines, and boarded one of the steamboats returning nearly empty to Memphis and points north.

By Wednesday 23 June – 4 days later – and from Illinois - McClernand sent a telegram to his doppelganger,  President Abraham Lincoln. “I have been relieved for an omission of my adjutant. Hear me.” But it turned out that at the moment, with a 45,000 man rebel army invading the the state of Pennsylvania,  not even Lincoln, the ultimate politician, was interested in anything else that John McClernand had to say.

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VICKSBURG Chapter Sixty - Five

 

At 10:00 a.m. the primary assault against the largest of the 14 rebel forts – The Great Redoubt - was spearheaded by John Dunlap Stevenson's 3^rd Brigade, of Major General Logan's division, was lead by the 7^th Missouri “Shamrock” Infantry regiment, under Captain Robert Buchanan. In the first rush up the Jackson Road, rebel fire killed and wounded so many men that 100 yards from the ditch, the regiment was effectively cut in two and forced to ground.

Urged on by Captain Buchanan, the 7^th continued to advance on their hands and knees until they reached the comparative safety of the ditch. Once there it was discovered their 17 foot scaling ladders having been lowered into the 8 foot deep trench – invisible from the distance - no longer reached the crest of the redoubt.  Still the 7^th Missouri stayed where they were for an hour, while six color bearers, one after another, were shot trying to keep their flag flying on the slope. After suffering 272 causalities, Captain Buchanan was given permission to withdraw.

The initial reports from all three corps commanders - Sherman, McPherson and 3 miles to the south McClernand  (above) – were identical: troops advancing, heavily engaged. Grant had learned to trust the accuracy of Sherman's and McPherson's reports. But as recently as the Battle of Champion Hill, McClernand had misled Grant.  On 16 May, the Illinois political general had been ordered to launch his  assault against the rebel left flank at 10:00 a.m. Instead, despite repeated urging from Grant, the XIII Corps did not advanced until hours later. What ever the reason for the delay, Grant had learned not to believe McClernand's situation reports.

The sole justification for the assaults of 10:00 a.m. Thursday, 22 May, 1863, had been that the defeat at Champion's Hill and the debacle of the Big Black River crossing,  might have so shaken Pemberton's army, that another quick shock might cause it to shatter. That idea had to be tried. An hour later the argument had been rebuked.  Grant decided that Vicksburg would not be carried in a classic Napoleonic sweeping charge, with flags flying forward and bayonets fixed.  Instead Grant was ready to shift to a methodical siege. But his troublesome child, Major General John Alexander McClernand was essentially trying to manipulate Grant into expending the lives of his soldiers.

At 10:30 a.m., McClernand reported, “I am hotly engaged, If McPherson were to attack it would make a diversion”, Grant rode rode down the line far enough to visually confirm that McClernand's troops were actually attacking. But after observing the smoke and gunfire, he sent a message advising McClernand to draw upon his own corps before asking for reinforcements from others. Then Grant returned to Sherman's Corps.

Just before noon, McClernand issued another situation report, but this one phrased so as to put additional pressure on Grant. Ever the politician, McClernand's missive read, “We have possession of 2 forts and the stars and stripes are flying over them. A vigorous push should be made all along the line.”

The two forts McClernand was referring to were the The Railroad Redoubt and to the north, the smaller half moon shaped Texas Lunette.  Both were open to their rear, and from trench lines Confederates were pouring fire into the interior of both forts, preventing any Yankees from entering them. Union flags had been planted on their forward slopes, and a hand full of brave men had perched at the lip of those fortifications. But federal troops did not possess either fort. Once again McClernand was misleading Grant. And Grant sensed it.

Looking for support of his skepticism, Grant (above) handed the note to Sherman. After reading it, the red head mused that McClernand wouldn't make up “a thing like that.” Then Sherman offered to make an additional attack on the Stockade Redoubt. Grant recognized the sacrifice Sherman was asking his soldiers to make, and reluctantly granted McClernand's request. It would take time to move Sherman's reserves into position, and it would take even more time for McPherson's men to change their direction of attack to support McClernand against the Texas Lunette. Against his better judgment Grant ordered all 3 of his corps to launch another assault at 2:00 p.m.

For this second assault against the Stockade Redoubt, Sherman sent the 2^nd Brigade of McArthur's division under the soft spoken 29 year old railroad engineer, Brigadier General Thomas Edwin Greenefield Ransom (above) . His father had been a hero of the Mexican War, killed at Chapultepec when Thomas was just 14.  Quite spoken in private,   in combat E.G. Ransom was, "rash”, and had already been shot 3 times in this war, most recently a head wound at Shiloh. McClernand had seen him there, "...reeling in the saddle, and streaming with blood....” while preforming “prodigies of valor." Sherman was more prosaic, calling Ransom, “...one of the best officers in the service; been shot to pieces, but it doesn’t hurt him.”

This attack was spearheaded by the 300 men of the 72^nd Illinois, aka 'The First Chicago Board of Trade Regiment,' led by the popular , fiercely antislavery 42 year old Lieutenant Colonel Joseph C. Wright. At the stroke of 2:00 p.m, according to the second in command Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Stockton, “the word came to ‘go!' Up we started and rushed ahead with a yell, and were greeted with a most murderous volley”.

As man after man fell in crumpled bloodied forms, the 72nd swept forward, into and up from the ditch, to within 15 feet of the crest of the rebel redoubt. The regimental colors were planted on the slope, “but we could not go forward,” said Stockton, “the fire was too severe, men could not live; we laid down and only the wounded fell back, while shot and shell from the right and left and our own batteries in the rear, whose shells fell short, did terrific work. Men fell ‘like leaves in wintry weather.’”

Colonel Wright was urging his men on when a piece of lead tore into the elbow of his sword arm, shattering the bones. He fell, and the heart went out of the 72^nd.  Colonel Stockton assumed command. By  2:20 p.m.,   the regiment had suffered 20 dead, 71 wounded and 5 missing – one quarter of their strength. Along with the 72^nd, the assault had included the 11^th Illinois – 3 killed, 30 wounded and 9 missing – the 95^th Illinois – 18 killed, 83 wounded and 8 missing - the 14^th Wisconsin – 14 killed, 79 wounded and 4 missing, and the 17^th Wisconsin - 2 killed, 12 wounded and 6 missing. Ramsom's brigade had suffered 360 causalities, almost 60 men killed outright, in just 20 minutes of combat.

Lieutenant Colonel Wright would be carried to the rear, and treated by doctors, who quickly amputated his right arm to prevent blood infection. Recovering from the shock within 2 days, Wright regained his spirits and reminded a reporter he could still command. “I have one arm left,” he said, “with which I can guide my horse. The carrying of a sword is only for effect, anyhow.” Two weeks later he left Mississippi by boat and then by train for home. But once back in Chicago the stump of his arm became infected, until he was beset by delusional fevers. With his wife and 2 children at his bedside, Joseph C. Wright died on the morning of 6 July, 1863. One more causality in the war required to defeat slavery, and urged on by the ego of General McClernand .

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