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 Nineteen

 

On Sunday, 5 April, 1863, about 50 old men and boys of the Tensas Parish mounted militia - AKA the 15th Independent Louisiana Cavalry, AKA runaway slave hunters - were on a "training patrol" along the eastern shore of Bayou Vidal, in one of the richest cotton growing parishes of cotton rich Louisiana. 

The parish had 118 plantations,  a third of which each held more than 100 humans in bondage. After two full years of war,  slaves in the parish now outnumbered white males by two to one, heightening white fears of a slave revolt. (So much for the myth of "happy Darkies")

 Late that afternoon the militia spotted a couple of Negroes paddling a flatboat across the bayou. With Yankees at Richmond, Louisiana,  all boats had been ordered held on the eastern and southern shore. The whites ordered the slaves to halt. And when the command was ignored the militiamen fired on their disobedient servants.

And to the white men's shock, somebody shot back. One militiaman was killed and another wounded. The idea that a black man or woman would know how to or dare to fire a weapon at a white man was unbelievable. They rushed back to inform their commander, Major Isaac F. Harrison that the Yankees had come to Tensas Parish.

Major Harrison's first responsibility was to notify his superior officers, up the ladder to the deaf and cranky 59 year old Lieutenant General Theophilus Hunter Holmes (above).  But that seemed a pointless exercise because Holmes owed his exalted appointment to his incompetence, which had driven General Robert E. Lee to demand his removal from the eastern theater, and his long friendship to Confederate President, Jefferson Davis, who then made his incompetent friend Commander of the Trans Mississippi. Besides, Holmes was far away in Little Rock, Arkansas, obsessed with guarding the few resources his department was holding on to.  So Major Harrison sent notice not only to General Holmes but also to the nearest commander in the neighboring Department of Mississippi - 32 year old Georgian, Major General John Stevens Bowen.

Bowen (above)  was a competent field commander, and he informed his boss, Lieutenant General John C. Pemberton, in far off Jackson, Mississippi, that he wanted to send some men across the river to find out what Grant was up to.

General Pemberton had suspicions about Bowen. After the battle Corinth the previous year, the Georgia native had filed charges of incompetence against his superior, General Earl Van Dorn. The General was found not guilty, but the stink of betrayal lingered over Bowen and made him suspect. Besides, Pemberton doubted the Yankees were moving south.  Earlier - on Friday, 3 April, 1863 - all but 7,000 men of General Nathaniel Bank's 35,000 man Federal Army of the Gulf had disappeared from lines defending Baton Rogue, on the east bank of the Mississippi. Pemberton had no idea where those 28,000 blue coated soldiers had gone, but it seemed unlikely Grant would be moving south to cross the river if Banks was no longer there to reinforce him. 

Also, scouts reported there was heavy steam boat traffic on the Mississippi between Milliken's Bend and Memphis, to the north of Vicksburg.  This seemed to indicate Grant might be shifting his army for another invasion of central Mississippi. No, the Yankees at New Carthage were just a raiding party - at least that's what it looked like from Pemberton's perspective in Jackson. So he told Bowen to go ahead with a reconnaissance of Louisiana, but to remain ready to re-call those men if they were needed in Jackson.

On Thursday, 9 April, the 1st and 2nd under strength Missouri rebel regiments, under 28 year old lawyer and politician, Colonel Francis Marion Cockrell (above), crossed the river to Hard Times Landing. Cockrell was to find out what the Yankees were doing in Louisiana and if they were serious about it. So he pushed his infantry 6 miles north up the levee road beyond the head of the crescent Lake St. Joseph, south of New Carthage. There they bumped into the advance party of the 49th Indiana Volunteers.

Among the Hoosiers was Doctor John Ritter, and from his perspective the Yankees were a real threat.  "The Rebs", Dr. Ritter wrote his wife, had "occupied the high land down (to) the river. Their pickets were in sight all the time...We threw up breast works across the levee below and by that means held them in check...but if they had planted their artillery they could have shelled us out..."  Except Cockrell had no field guns. So after staring at each other for 5 days Colonel Cockrell decided to provoke a response by falling on an isolated company of the 2nd Illinois Cavalry, occupying the central houses of a plantation owned by Judge William Dunbar, guarding the Yankee right flank along Mills Bayou.

On the afternoon of the Tuesday, 14 April, members of the 1st Missouri left their positions along Bayou Vidal and marched west, crossing Mills Bayou, before swinging north behind the Federal positions. After a few hours of fitful sleep, at 4:00am the next morning, they waded into the waist deep water of the bayou again, falling on the Yankees without warning. In the dark the Missourians were able to capture one sentry, and kill a second before the Yankee cavalrymen awoke and fell back from the main house in confusion.

Still in the dark, the Missourians gathered up the wives and children of the overseers and other white employees who had been left behind. They also rounded up the 100 slaves in their cabins, driving the frightened people like cattle back across Mills Bayou in the dark. They also claimed to have discovered a chaplain of the 2nd Illinois "entertaining" a “young, full grown, athletic” slave woman in a back room of the big house. The truth of that situation can never be proven because no one's version of events can be taken as gospel.

By dawn additional federal units had been awakened, and part of the 10th Ohio Infantry regiment joined the remainder of the 2nd Illinois in driving on the plantation with artillery support. Shortly after dawn the rebels were all safely back across Mills Bayou, taking any of their dead and wounded with them, leaving the Federals to claim only one rebel captured, in exchange for 1 dead, 2 wounded and 2 missing. It was not much of an engagement, unless you unlucky enough to have been shot or killed in it. But the rapid counter attack by the 10th Ohio, told Colonel Cockrell that there was strength behind this move south, and that it was not likely these Yankees were a mere raiding party.

The nervous Dr. Ritter, feeling vulnerable and isolated atop the open levee south of New Carthage, was not as alone as he felt. Behind him Federal engineers were directing the work of the the 1st Missouri Federal and the 127th Illinois and 34th Indiana infantry regiments building a dam...

...and 4 bridges - one 200 feet long - across flooded countryside, and widening to 20 feet and improving and "corduroying" 40 miles of road from Richmond to New Carthage, and " the road from Miliken's bend to Richmond, Louisiana.

Soldiers have been building corduroy roads across swamps for 6,000 years, and the process is simple. It merely requires unlimited manpower, and vast quantities of young trees. First, you clear the roadway, not only of trees but of stumps. Ideally you dig out the roadbed to a depth of a few inches. Then you lay felled trees, each 4 to 6 inches in diameter, across the road, packing the trunks as tightly together as you can, using branches and mud to chock the logs and keep them from rolling under the pressure of a passing legion, a single horse or a wagon. Then you cover the "road" in the mud dug out earlier, to cushion the impact of traffic and to provide safe footing for  the horses.

During the American Civil War only the Yankees seemed to build corduroy roads. Observed a member of the rebel Army of Northern Virginia, "...the roads might have been ‘corduroyed’ according to the Yankee plan...but timber was not to be procured for such a purpose; what little there might be was economically served out for fuel."  A corduroy road could strip a forest of a human generation worth of trees.

In fact the Federal armies got pretty good at it, learning that a fence stripped of its posts would provide enough wood to corduroy half its length in road.  But no corduroy road would survive long under the intense pressure of military use.  And marching 50,000 men over the 12 miles of corduroy road between Young's point and the Desoto Peninsula, would destroy the entire structure, even before the endless supply trains required to feed the men and horses which had marched down that same road. 

But Grant "doubled down" on this approach. Besides the 40 mile interior route to New Carthage,  he ordered the improvement of a second, shorter route, 8 miles long atop the levees directly from Young's Point to the shore of the Desoto Peninsula south of Vicksburg.  But then, Grant had no intention of supplying his army down either road he chose to march over.

Federal troops taking the shorter route would be fully visible to Confederates in Vicksburg, while the inland route was masked from enemy view.  Also, Grant discovered that although the digging had not added enough depth to the bayous to make them usable for shipping, it had deepened them enough to form a flooded obstruction to any rebel infantry from the west wishing to interfere with the march south. 

So by 15 April, the day Colonel Cockrell's Missourians had poked at the Federal's right flank, Grant was ready to order the Hoosiers to push further south, toward Lake St. Joseph and beyond to Hard Times Landing, to make room for the remainder of General McClernand's Corps, and the rest of the army behind them.

Grant's goal seemed obvious, from his perspective at Millinken's Bend. But Pemberton was high and dry in Jackson, Mississippi. Pemberton did not awaken every morning to the sound and smell of the river.  He had not been living next to it and on it for three months, as Grant had. Pemberton's perspective inclined him to look to Grant's army, when his eyes and ears should have been following Grant's brown water navy.

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VICKSBURG Chapter Twenty- Five

Brigadier General John Stevens Bowen  (above) knew what was coming next,  even as the tattered remnants of the 23rd Alabama fell back to their former positions around 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 and his pathological inability to retrace his steps. 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 after 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 of 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 day delay 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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