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 Twenty - Eight

 

Brigadier General John Stevens Bowen  (above) knew what was coming next,  even as the tattered remnants of the 23rd Alabama fell back to the Foster Farm. They had bought with their lives and souls nothing more than a few precious minutes. And now it was up to the 32 year old Georgian to give their sacrifice meaning. He grabbed a fresh horse and raced back down the Rodney Road, looking for more men.

John Bowen knew what was coming up that road because he knew 41 year old Lieutenant General Ulysses Grant, personally. They had graduated West Point a decade apart, (Lt. Grant, above) but had briefly bonded in 1858 when Lieutenant Bowen and his new wife, Mary Kennerly, had been assigned to Jefferson Barracks in St. Louis. 

Grant (above) was then working for his Missouri in-laws, having just resigned from the army because it separated him from Julia. The couples' time together was brief, but long enough for John to witness Grant's stubbornness,  which contributed to his failure in business. 

Later, when transferred to Texas, John Bowen also resigned from the Army because he missed his wife. Afterward, he returned to St. Louis, as Grant had done. And in 1861 Bowen had been part of the failed effort to carry Missouri firmly into the Confederacy.  But at Shiloh in April of 1862, the Confederate General Bowen had seen how that same streak of stubbornness now contributed to General Grant's  (above) growing success.

Bowen had no doubt that the Illinois native would throw every soldier and gun he could lay his hands on at the Confederate line blocking his way to Port Gibson and across the south fork of Bayou Pierre. Port Gibson was the cork in the bottle. If the rebels could hold that cork in place, the Yankees would be trapped against the Mississippi flood plain. But to do that, Bowen needed more men, and he needed them right now.

Almost the instant Bowen galloped off in search of reinforcements,  at about 10:00am, Friday morning, 1 May, 1863, 10,000 men of the 10th Division under 48 year old Brigadier General of Volunteers Andrew Jackson Smith, and the 12th Division, Hovey's Babies, under 41 year old Indiana pro-union democratic lawyer Brigadier General Alvin Peterson Hovey. slammed into General Green's exhausted brigade. The Federal assault (above), with about 7 men per yard, simply swamped the rebel defenders of one man every 2 yards, sending them running for the rear. They Yankees captured 200 prisoners, 2 cannon, 3 caissons and 3 ammunition wagons. It took them less than 30 minutes.

Political glory hound, 50 year old Union Major General John Alexander McClernand (above) called a halt after sweeping the rebels from the Foster House ridge, ostensibly to reorganize. But like a bad actor genuflecting for his audience's approval - and with an impressionable visitor in 48 year old Illinois Governor Richard Yates standing next to him - McClernand could nor resist launching an extended bandiloquent blovoiation.  Luckily for the Federal cause Lieutenant General Ulysses Grant, also a Yates favorite, was keeping a close eye and ear on McClernand. After listening to the smug supercilious sycophancy spewing from his subaltern, Grant pointedly suggested the rebels were not beaten but merely retreating to stronger lines. He then pointedly ordered McClernand to push his men forward, toward Port Gibson and the vital bridge over the south fork of Bayou Pierre.

But after advancing less then 2 miles, at about noon, the Yankees ran into the 1,000 man brigade of 35 year old Columbus Mississippi bookstore owner, Brigadier General William Edwin Baldwin. 

Having learned from the demoralizing Federal cannon fire the  mistake of fighting on the ridge tops, Bowen sheltered Baldwin's men in the maze of the 8 foot tall canebrake (above) along the bottoms of Willow Creek.  On their right were the 1,500 men of Colonel Francis Marion Cockrell's Missouri brigade, having forced marched from Grand Gulf.  Bowen was stronger at this moment than he had been at any time before - with more than 6,500 men and 16 cannon in line of battle. But they were still facing more than 24,000 Federal troops, with more still arriving every hour.

The Yankee's advance would be slowed by the canebrake, but General Bowen had no doubt Grant would keep pushing. He sent a telegraph to General Pemberton, expected to arrive shortly in Vicksburg. It read in part, "We have been engaged in a furious battle ever since daylight; losses very heavy...the odds are overpowering." 

And as if to confirm this, at about 2:00pm, on the Brunisburg road, 3 divisions of Grant's XVII corps under the popular 34 year old Union Major General James Birdseye McPherson begin pounding the Alabama brigade, now commanded after Colonel Edward Tracy's death, by 46 year old Colonel Isham Warren Garott, The new commander asked General Martin Edwin Green for instructions, but received a confusing mish-mash of language in return. Garott had no choice but to begin a grudging slow retreat, forcing Green's entire command to follow his lead. The Rebel left collapsed.

At the same time McClernand was extending his line eastward. Just 1,200 yards through the woods was the rough road of the old Natchez Trace, leading around the rebel left. Colonel Cockrell threw the 3rd and 5th Missouri regiments at the Yankees, trying to force them to consolidate.  But there were too many Yankees, and about 5:30pm General Bowen was forced to send a final message from the Port Gibson telegraph office. "I am falling back across Bayou Pierre.  I will endeavor to hold that position until reinforcements arrive.…"  He then sent the bitter message to the gunners still defending Grand Gulf to prepare to spike their guns and destroy the ammunition magazines before withdrawing to Warrenton.

It was at just this moment that General Bowen was superseded by the arrival of the disruptive and profane one armed Floridian, the 5 foot 9 inch tall Brigadier General William Wing "Old Blizzards" Loring (above).   Dispatched from Edward's Station, the one armed argumentative general arrived as the troops were retreating back across the Bayou, and quickly came to the conclusion that this time he was too late. 

Port Gibson could not be defended. Loss of Port Gibson meant the line of the south fork of Bayou Pierre could not be held.  Loring knew from personal observation, that the north fork of the stream would be easily breached. After that Grand Gulf would be taken in the rear. The only militarily rational choice was to abandon Grand Gulf and Port Gibson and the entire Bayou Pierre line, and pull back through Willow Springs 30 miles to Harkinson's Ferry over the Big Black River.  And that is what Loring ordered the bloodied troops under General Bowen to do, burning the bridge over the south fork of Bayou Pierre behind them. There they would meet his own over strength division, marching south. 

The Yankee's delaying action at Port Gibson had cost Bowen's little army about 70 killed, more than 350 wounded and 384 captured - or almost 17% of his original force engaged.  Yankee losses were about the same, but suffered by a much larger force.  Grant did not press the rebels too hard, now that he had forced the cork out of the bottle  He was just pleased to have escaped the malaria and mud of the Mississippi floodplain. As McClernand's  men worked overnight, dismantling buildings in Port Gibson, to rebuild the burned bridge, McPherson prepared his men to ford the \south fork of Bayou Pierre upstream of the town.

Come the dawn, Saturday 2 May, 1863, two thirds of Grant's army would be across the south fork of Bayou Pierre, and when Sherman's Corps - the remaining third of Grant's army - arrived, they would be able to transfer directly across the Mississippi to Port Gibson, saving them a 2 day march.   

The only positive for the Confederacy on that Friday evening, 1 May, 1863, was that the Commander of the Army of Mississippi,  Lieutenant General John C. Pemberton (above), had finally transferred his headquarters to Vicksburg (below).  But that change of perspective, which once might have salvaged the campaign for the rebels, had been converted by time and events into a recipe for disaster.

The nature of that disaster threw its first shadow across the strong point of Port Hudson, 200 river miles south of Vicksburg. This narrow choke point in the Mississippi, had been bypassed by Grant's capture of Grand Gulf and Port Gibson.. So General Pemberton wired the commander of Port Hudson, 41 year old New Yorker,  Major General Franklin Kitchell Gardner, to bring his 2,000 man garrison  to Vicksburg, as quickly as possible.  It was the militarily sensible choice. With Vicksburg directly threatened, every man and gun would be needed to defend that vital point.

But a thousand miles away in Richmond, Virginia, 64 year old Confederate President, Jefferson Finis Davis (above), countermanded that order. He reminded  Pemberton, "To hold both Vicksburg and Port Hudson is necessary to a connection with the Trans-Mississippi."  Gardner and his 2,000 men would remain right where they were. Davis was right, of course. The South needed both points to stitch the Confederacy together. 

But it was also insanity.  The 2,000 man garrison was not strong enough to hold Port Hudson by themselves. But 2,000 more men might have made the difference at the upcoming battle of Champion's Hill (above).  Over the next 2 weeks President Davis would frantically jam another 5,000 men into the trenches around Port Hudson.  If those 7,000 men had gone to Vicksburg, they might have held the place, freeing the rest of Pemberton's army to remain mobile, and block a siege. The conundrum has given birth to an endless game of what if's, which would keep armchair generals busy for the next 200 years.

But the core of the issue is that Port Hudson (above) could not stand on its own.  If Port Hudson fell, a fortified Vicksburg, with a mobile field army to ward off a siege, might remain standing, even if isolated.  But if Vicksburg fell, Port Hudson was doomed. Pemberton knew that. Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston, now supposedly Pemberton's immediate superior, knew it. But by the time anyone had time to do anything about Port Hudson in May of 1863, it was too damn late. 

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VICKSBURG Chapter Eighty-Four

 

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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