VICKSBURG Chapter Sixty

 

The shattering crash of yet another volley of musket fire forced Charley's face into the dirt. A half breath later he heard the cloud of mini'e balls rip the air inches over his head. Only then did he dare to look to the fate of the color-bearer. As the afternoon breeze sluggishly tugged at the acidic smoke, the Captain saw the bloody blue body on the precipitous slope of the rampart. The precious flag lay crumpled in the dirt at his side.

Charley could sense that in a moment the men behind him might break and turn their backs to the enemy. If they did, they would be slaughtered.  And the only way 28 year old Captain Charles “Charley” Ewing could save their lives was by risking his own. Charley took a deep breath and pulled himself up, dug his heels into the loam and started up the slope of the Stockade Redan. It was about 2:15 p.m. on Tuesday, 19 May, 1863.

Lieutenant General Ulysses Grant explained his thinking in his memoirs. “The enemy had been much demoralized by his defeats at Champion’s Hill and at the Big Black, and I believed would not make much effort to hold Vicksburg. Accordingly at 2 o’clock I ordered an assault.” So it was the vision of the rebel army collapsing, and capturing 1,700 prisoners just 2 days earlier which told Grant he might be able to carry the city in a rush.  He was wrong.  But he was not wrong for trying.

It was the Prussian General Carl Philipp Gottfried von Clausewitz (above)  who noted that all actions in a war are wrapped in a “...fog of greater or lessor uncertainty.” The Napoleonic Wars were the consuming event of this military philosopher's life.   In 1792, at 12 years of age, Carl was inducted into the Prussian army as a Lance-Corporal, and fought in war after war for the next 20 years, while achieving the rank of Major-General before his death at 51 years age in the Second Great Cholera Pandemic of 1831.  Although never wounded, Clausewitz saw more of war than most people, and understood it better than just about anyone else.

“War”, said Clausewitz in his book  was“...a fascinating trinity—composed of primordial violence, hatred, and enmity, which are to be regarded as a blind natural force; the play of chance and probability, within which the creative spirit is free to roam; and its element of subordination, as an instrument of policy, which makes it subject to pure reason." Historian Christopher Bassford has shortened Clausewitz's Trinity to "Violent Emotion and Chance and Rational Calculation." Although Grant did his best to rationally calculate the impact of “Chance”, he never allowed it to prevent applying his reasoning to war, as he did now.

The nearest troops at hand were also the freshest - Major General William Tecumseh Sherman's XV Corps. They had last seen combat 5 days previously, on Thursday, 14 May, at Jackson. This was no accident. Throughout the campaign, Grant's obsession with never retracing his steps was shared with his staff, ensuring every possible enemy reaction was considered before any marching orders were issued.

Setting out before dawn on Saturday, 16 May, Sherman's XV corps had covered the 60 miles from Jackson to Vicksburg in 3 day's march. The lead element,  after crossing the Big Black River,  was the 2^nd Division, under 42 year old Missouri lawyer, Major General Francis “Frank” Preston Blair Junior (above) . His father, Francis Blair senior, was a wealthy St. Louis newspaper editor.  The eldest son, Montgomery, was Lincoln's Post Master General. As Lincoln put it, “Their family is a close corporation. And Frank is their hope and pride.”

The 2^nd Division had been the last of Sherman's 3 divisions to land at Grand Gulf, and had escorted the final supply wagons, joining  Grant's  Army of the Tennessee in the vicinity of Raymond on 13 May.  So the 2^nd Division's 3 brigades were in the lead as they approached Vicksburg on Monday, 18 May.   Grant made the decision not to wait for  McClearnand or McPherson's Corps to come up, but to press ahead with just 2 divisions - about 7,000 men against some 20,000 rebels inside Vicksburg.  He intended to test the possibility that the rebels were teetering on the edge of despair.  And he was right. They were.

The commander of the 2^nd division's 1^st Brigade was a 33 year old hotel operator named Colonel Giles Alexander Smith.  He was a combat veteran, serving in the Army of the Tennessee River since Fort Donaldson, in February of 1862.  Eighteen months later, his troops were the 113^th and 116^th Illinois Volunteer regiments, the 6^th and 8^th Missouri Volunteers – Smith's old command. But the spearhead of this particular assault would be the 13^th United States Regular Infantry regiment, under Captain Edward Crawford Washington, grand nephew of father of the nation, President and General George Washington.

With Brigadier General James Madison Tuttle's 3^rd Division held in reserve, direct support for the attack would be the 5 regiments of Colonel Thomas Kirby's 2^nd Brigade and the 4 regiments of the 3rd Brigade under Brigadier General Hugh Boyle Ewing – older brother to Captain Charles Ewing, second in command of the 13^th U.S. Regulars.  Artillery support would be provided by the XV Corps' 3 batteries of Illinois artillery and one from Ohio. The infantry of Blair's division were fresh troops. They had not seen combat since the Yazoo Pass Expedition in March. But they would see their share today when they attacked straight up the Graveyard Road at the Stockade Redan.

The packed earthen walls of the redan were 17 feet high and 16 feet thick, their exterior face dropping below ground level into a 6 foot deep trench. Any attacker would be forced to clamber up 23 feet before coming to grips with the defenders. Atop the rampart was a single 12 pound howitzer. In addition there was a lunette south of the Graveyard Road, which could lay down flanking fire on any attack on the Redan. Five feet below the lip of the Redan's interior wall was a firing step, defended by some 400 men of the 36^th Mississippi regiment, supported by survivors of the 27^th Louisiana regiment.

The 36^th Mississippi had been formed in March of 1862, after the first patriotic rush, and from companies organized across the state. They were under 43 year old Louisiana Brigadier General Louis Hébert's command. 

The 36^th had been bloodied in the Corinth campaign – 12 dead and 71 wounded – before being transferred to Vicksburg that winter. The 36^th had helped defeat Sherman's Corps at Chickasaw Bayou, and spent the next six months guarding the guns at Snyder's Bluff. In fact it was the 36^th which had been withdrawn so precipitously on 17 May, just before the arrival of the Iowa cavalrymen. They were a full strength veteran regiment and well rested.

A sergeant in the 36^th, George Powell Clarke, remembered that morning, well. "At 10:00 A.M ,” he wrote, “ the firing ceased and the Federals advanced in two lines of battle... We could plainly hear when the order was given to advance....and soon the long, glittering line of bayonets came in sight... they gave a prolonged yell, and broke into a double quick towards our lines…our batteries opened on them with with grape, canister, and shrapnel shells, which told fearfully on their crowded ranks. When they had reached within fifty yards of our lines we opened upon them with musketry...with murderous effect…”

Captain Washington (above), leading the 13^th U.S. Infantry, was cut down by the first volley, as he struggled through the obstructions in the ditch at the base of the redoubt.  Hit twice, he tumbled into the thick loam.. Later, the rebel Sergeant Clarke gave credit to the men he was killing, writing, “...they were brave men and did not falter, though hundreds were falling all around them, until within a few feet of us. They then wavered, rallied once, but finally gave way and retreated to their own position.” In the confusion, they left the bleeding Captain Washington behind.

Grant decided to bring up more artillery, to soften up the Redan before giving it another try. XV Corp gunners blasted the Redan for four more hours.  Rebel gunners returned fire as best they could, but their guns were too spread out to provide effective counter battery fire. And not all Federal the shots were effective, either.  One shell from a 20 pound Parrott gun burrowed right through the 16 foot thick loam of the Redan walls, and sailed out the other side, before finally exploding in the air, over the Glass Bayou a quarter mile to the rear.

Suffering in the heat behind the ridge in front of the Redan, a member of an Ohio regiment remembered the men had “perspiration oozing out at every pore.” Then, at 2:00 p.m. the cannon went silent and the Yankee infantry came on again, right up the Graveyard Road. A staff officer in Blair's division watched while, “The very chips and sticks scattered over the ground were jumping under the hot shower of rebel bullets.”

With the absence of Captain Washington, command of the 13^th Regular Infantry had now devolved upon Captain Charles Ewing (above). And as he lead his men head on into that maelstrom of fire, it must have crossed his mind that he had the political connections to be anywhere else he wanted. Charley was the son of Lincoln's Secretary of the Interior, Thomas Ewing.  His sister, Ellen, was the wife of General William Tecumseh Sherman.  And yet at this moment, a few minutes after 2:00 p.m. on Tuesday, 19 May, he was here, once again stumbling into the ditch, and struggling through the abatis obstructions. 

The Rebels were firing into the blue clad men from above, appearing on the crest long enough throw

shells with lit fuses into the ranks where the shrapnel splintered bodies and separated minds from souls. The regimental color bearer had already been shot down, his body rolling to the bottom of the ditch.  A second soldier had taken up the flag, and struggled up the slope with it as a rallying point.  Clumps of men were drawn to follow. 

But when the second bearer fell, a shell exploding in his faced, almost decapitating him, the regiment deflated, and fell to the earth and turned their heads from the horrible sight. It seemed to Charley as if the regiment had sighed, their spirit escaping like a lost breath under water.

Charley saw that the moment had come. A small band of men could determine the battle in a few moments. But if no one acted, the attack would die right here on the slopes of the Stockade Redoubt. 

So Charley clawed himself to his feet, and pausing to pick up the flag as he climbed, he powered to within 100 yards of the crest of the Redoubt. 

It was not as operatic as the artists of a later generation would see it (above). Charley was alone. And he was 100 yards from the nearest rebel soldier. But it was as dramatic a moment as any in the four bloody years of war.  

Seeing a company of rebels preparing to fire, Charley  jammed the staff into the ground, and bending on one knee to hold the flag steady,  he turned to call the regiment to rally to him. He could see the men begin to move, a leg lifting, and rifle swinging upward. Then abruptly a volley of muskets snapped above the din of battle.  A wave of minie' balls tore at the banner, whipped the cloth las if in a gale, sand slicing the thick wooden staff in two, and tearing off one of Charley's fingers.

The pain was immediate. He grasped his left hand in his right, the sight of his own gushing blood sending him into shock. Charley involuntarily ducked his head and closed his eyes as tight as he could.  So he did not see the men who dragged him back down the slope, nor the man who rescued the regimental colors from the dirt. The attack was broken.  

The 13th regiment hung on to the Mississippi soil at the bottom of the trench, for the rest of the long afternoon, exchanging snipping with the rebels, dodging the random shells with burning fuses sent rolling down the slope, or sailing into the air over their heads. Said the Regimental history, “The ditch literally filled with the dead bodies of our cherished comrades and the glaciers blue with the victims of war.”

When darkness finally covered the 13th regiment's withdrawal, it had sacrificed 43% of their men in their two assaults on the Stockade Redoubt.  That night, rebel soldiers brought Captain Washington into the Redoubt and tried to bind his wounds. He died before morning. 

The rescued 13th's regimental flag had been hit 56 times, the nation flag 18. Total losses for the entire 1^st Brigade were 157 killed - including 17 color bearers - and 777 wounded. Rebel losses were 8 killed and 62 wounded.

That night Major General William Tecumseh Sherman wrote his wife, telling her that “Charley was very conspicuous in the 1st assault, and brought off the colors of the battalion which are now in front of my tent, the Staff 1/4 cut away by a ball that took with it a part of his finger.” Later, Captain Charles Ewing would be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for his actions in planting that first flag on the battlements of Vicksburg. The 13th Regiment would henceforth be entitled to call itself, "First At Vicksburg."  

Sherman continued his letter to Ellen, “We must work smartly as Joe Johnston is collecting the shattered forces...and may get reinforcements from Bragg … Grant’s movement was the most hazardous, but thus far the most successful of the war. He is entitled to all the credit,  for I would not have advised it.” As an after thought, Sherman added, “McPherson is a noble fellow, but McClernand a dirty dog.”

And across the way, in Vicksburg, a young woman noted how the repulse of the Yankee attack had lifted the spirits of the defenders.  Before they had sounded beaten. But after today they spoke optimistically of holding until relieved by “Old” Joe Johnston.”

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VICKSBURG Chapter Fifty - Nine

 

Less than an hour into Wednesday, 20 May, 1863, the city of Vicksburg was rocked by a stomach churning thud, originating from the river at its feet.  Explained the diary of the 3^rd Louisiana regiment, “A huge iron-clad approached from below, and commenced a furious bombardment of the city, which was rapidly responded to by our heavy batteries...The hoarse bellowing of the mortars, the sharp report of rifled artillery, the scream and explosion of every variety of deadly missiles, intermingled with the incessant, sharp reports of small-arms...” And thus began the final siege of Vicksburg.

As the sun finally rose that Wednesday, 48 year old Lieutenant General John Clifford Pemberton commanded just under 20,000 men, 72 heavy guns and 103 field cannon stretched in an 8 mile “D” around the city   The military adage that the defense multiplied defender forces by 3, which, according to the text books meant that Pemberton's 20,000 men should withstand 60,000 attackers. And for the previous six months, the spade and the engineer's diligence had struggled to reinforce that adage.

The river batteries formed the backbone of the “D”, from South Fort rising above Stout's Bayou to the Hill Fort, frowning down upon the DeSoto bend of the Mississippi river – 

From south to north, there was The South Fort (above)...

and The Widow Blakely Battery (above), whose cannon was known as "Whistling Dick".  The Marine Hospital Battery, The Brooke Battery, The Railroad Battery, The Depot Battery and the Whig Office Battery,...

...then across the Glass Bayou to Wyman's Hill Battery (above)...

...and Batteries 4 through 7, then up to the Hill Fort (above). Together these contained 37 heavy guns and 13 field cannon, manned by some 3,500 men.

That left the 6 ½ mile long landward defensive line, with 1 infantryman for every 2 feet of trench. Their weapon was the rifled muskets, with a truly effective range of 150 yards and an effective rate of fire of 3 rounds per minute. Pemberton's artillery on the land side consisted of 35 heavy guns and 90 cannon in earthen redans (V-shaped forts) and redoubts (French for 'a place of retreat'), averaging one cannon for every 250 yards, with a safe rate of fire of 1 round per minute. But the design of these fortifications had been developed over a thousand years to concentrate the defenders and cannon at critical points.

All trees up to 300 yards beyond the defenses were clear cut to provide a an unimpeded field of fire. That wood was then used in the three medieval defensive lines. First a 10 foot deep ditch was excavated, in the north above The Military Road, running ¾ of a mile eastward from the Hill Fort. Any attacker would find themselves forced into this depression directly in front of the defending gunners. 

In the trenches interior wall,  abatis were half buried – a felled tree or bush with the branches facing the attacker, or man made Cheval de Fris  (above),  to slow and disrupt an attacker.  Dirt scooped from the trench was used to raise the steep rampart walls of the second and primary defense positions - a broken line of lunettes and redans, on high ground above the terminations of the numerous gullies which steams had carved through the Vicksburg loam. 

In architecture, a lunette (rights) – French for little noon – is the recessed arch above a doorway. In fortifications it is a similarly shaped defense position with an open rear. A redan (center)  is generally larger, some at Vicksburg had  20 foot thick earthen walls, and a single “V” rampart thrusting toward the attackers. The rear of all these positions were open except the 4 walled "Redoubt".

The objective is to force the attacker to either smash their strength against a single high point, or flow around the obstruction, dissipating their strength and offering their flanks at close range to the defending marksmen inside the fort. Should the enemy attack the undefended rear, he would then present their own rear to a counter attack from troops in the third line of trenches.

The top of the “D” was the Stockade Redan, at the eastern end of the northern line, so named because a Poplar tree stockade wall which stood across the junction of the Military and the Graveyard Roads. Defending the Stockade Redan was the 27^th Louisiana and 36^th Mississippi Infantry regiments, with three Missouri regiments in reserve, behind in a 7 foot deep trench line.

South of this stood Green's Redan defended by the 37^th Mississippi Infantry, with the 26^th Louisiana Infantry in reserve. A quarter mile further south was the 3^rd Louisiana Redan, and then The Great Redoubt, so called because it was the largest fort in the Confederate line , with four rectangular earthen walls.

South of the Great Redoubt the ground in front of the line was too broken support an attack, so there was only the a mile long ditch with abatis and manned trenches behind.  But then came the 2^nd Texas Lunette and the Railroad Redan (above), named because the South Railroad ran through the gully, along with Potter's Chapel Road.

A quarter mile south west, as the “D” began to angle back toward its base, was The Square Fort, later named Fort Garrott after its namesake, 36 year old Colonel Isham Warren Garrott from the 20^th Alabama regiment. Garrott was cut down by a sniper's bullet during the siege. A half mile further southwest, guarding the ravine where Hall's Ferry Road left Vicksburg, was the Salient Redan. The steep ravine carved by Stout's Bayou, as well as broken ground and lack of roads over the next 1 and ¾ miles made this section unsuitable for either an attack or defense. But the Vicksburg defenses were tied down with the powerful South Fort, guarding the Warrenton Road.

With the arrival of dawn, Wednesday, 20 May, Grant's artillery joined the bombardment from the river. According to the 3^rd Louisiana diary, “The place was a perfect pandemonium...The hoarse bellowing of the mortars, the sharp report of rifled artillery, the scream and explosion of every variety of deadly missiles, intermingled with the incessant, sharp reports of small-arms, made up a combination of sounds not such as described by the poet as being a " sweet concord."

There was much more to come.  And much worse.

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VICKSBURG Chapter Fifty - Eight

 

As his flotilla broke through the last of the rafts moored across the Yazoo River at Liverpool Landing,  28 year old Lieutenant Commander John Grimes Walker (above) was pleased to see white smoke rising above the tree line.  He could not yet hear explosions from the Yazoo City dockyards 15 miles upstream, but he knew he soon would - if not before his 3 ironclads and infantry filled transports arrived, then shortly there after. 

Once ashore, Walker was to destroy the three warships under construction in the Yazoo City (above) dockyards, and all the equipment used to build them. But the smoke meant  the rebel engineers had started Walker's job for him. It also seemed likely the rebel gunners on the heights above the town would be spiking and abandoning their guns.

The man who had dispatched Walker on this mission was 49 year old Acting Real Admiral David Dixon Porter (above). Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles had promoted Porter over many other officers because his ambition made him “...fertile in resources (and)...great (in) energy...” But that energy and ambition almost got Porter sidelined before the shooting had actually begun. Late in March of 1861, then naval Lieutenant Porter received an unusual invitation from the new Secretary of State, William Seward. Who, I should point out, he did not work for.

Porter knew what the New York politician wanted to talk about; “The Forts” – Fort Sumter in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina, and Fort Pickens (above), at the entrance to Pensacola Bay, Florida.  Both brick fortifications were isolated and were under siege, but neither rebel nor Federal officer wanted to shoot first. 

But when Seward asked, “ Can you tell me how we can save Fort Pickens?”, the ambitious Porter could not restrain himself. He immediately answered, “I can, sir.” He then set to work, secretly drawing up a plan to fulfill his hasty promise.

At some point during the next few days it occurred to Porter that his hubris had put him far out on a limb which his boss, Navy Secretary Gideon Welles, was likely to cut off. Still, a week later he assured President Lincoln and Secretary Seward that all he needed was the 16 gun steam frigate USS Powatan  (above) and “...a good-sized steamer and six or seven companies of soldiers...and the fort would soon be made impregnable.”

It was the amateur Lincoln who asked the key question. “Is this not a most irregular mode of proceeding? What will Uncle Gideon (above)  say?” Porter warned that disloyal clerks in the Navy Department would betray the expedition. “But if you will issue all the orders from the Executive Mansion,” Porter told Lincoln, “I will guarantee their prompt execution to the letter.” Lieutenant Porter then handed Lincoln four orders to sign. And one of those orders was so curious, Lincoln told Seward, “See that I don't burn my fingers.”

Two of the orders turned the USS Powhatan over to Porter and relieved the current captain. A third instructed the New York Navy Yard (above) – under Commander Andrew Hull Foote - to secretly fit out the Powhatan and not tell the Navy Department about doing it or when it sailed. 

But the fourth order relieved the commander of the Naval Bureau of Detail, the service's personal office, replacing him with 53 year old Virginian, Captain Samuel Barron (above).  Barron was a curious choice, certain to draw Gideon's attention. Barron was so pro-secession he would soon be named Secretary of the Confederate Navy.  The rest of Porter's little fleet sailed in secret on the last day of March, 1861 - the frigate USS Sabine, the steam sloop USS Brooklyn carrying 200 infantry, and the sloop USS St. Louis. But all four orders were delivered to Secretary Welles along with a stack of routine paperwork, late on the afternoon of April Fools Day, 1861.

When the diligent “Uncle Gideon” read the order on the Bureau of Detail, he was furious. His anger was so great that when Wells stormed into the White House, President Lincoln innocently inquired, “What have I done wrong?” Welles launched into a tirade about Barron, but then added that Porter's intervention had left his transport, “The Star of the West”, which had already sailed to resupply Fort Sumter,  without the support of the USS Powhatan.  After an hour's discussion, Lincoln agreed to reverse the order concerning Barron. But by then it was too late to repair any other damage. 

While Fort Pickens was reinforced even before The Powhatan arrived, Porter's political maneuvering had left “The Star Of The West” as an impotent threat trapped outside of Charleston Harbor. But that ships appearance inspired the rebel forces surrounding Sumter to demand it's immediate surrender. When the fort's commander , Captain Anderson,  refused, the rebel's opened fire at 4:30 a.m. on Friday, 12 April, 1861, and the American Civil War began in earnest. 

Porter (above) could claim he had tried to warn Welles about Secretary Seward's conspiracy. But Welles was not fooled. He could have treated Porter as a possible double agent for the Confederate states. Or he could have simply refused to advance him. But Welles was enough of a patriot that he found a way to overlook the ambitious Lieutenant's machinations. At least, Uncle Gideon told his diary, “Mr. Seward...committed (Porter) at once, and decisively, to the Union cause.” And Gideon Welles still felt comfortable jumping Porter several ranks to an Acting Rear Admiral, and putting him in charge of Grant's “Brown Water Navy” after it's first commander, Andrew Foote, was promoted. And because of that, Vicksburg was doomed.

By Monday, 4 May, 1863, after the port of Grand Gulf, Mississippi had been secured and Sherman's Corps had begun ferrying across the river. Porter was finally free to press his advantage. One ironclad, the Mound City, was sent north to close off the Mississippi just below Vicksburg. Meanwhile Porter steamed south with the rest of his  fleet - The ironclads USS Benton and USS Pittsburg, the side wheel ram the USS Lafayette, the wooden gun boat USS General Price, the river boat USS Switzerland and the tug, USS Ivy. On Thursday, 7 May, these ships had rendezvoused with Admiral Farragut's blue water ships at the mouth of the Red River.

Loading coal and ammunition, Porter's flotilla then steamed up the Red River to Alexandria, Louisiana. Here they made contact with Major General Nathaniel Bank's Army of the Gulf, (above) finally returning to the Mississippi River after his Bayou Teeche adventure. Farragut could now provide shipping to transfer Bank's men to Port Hudson, which had been Bank's original assignment.

Beginning on Friday, 8 May a Union mortar flotilla, supported by the sloop USS Richmond, began a 2 day bombardment of the other remaining Confederate hold out on the Mississippi River, Port Hudson. The shelling was largely ineffective, but gave the garrison a taste of things to come. Meanwhile, by Friday, 15 May, Porter himself had rejoined his fleet anchored in the mouth of the Yazoo River above Vicksburg.

The very next day sailors reported hearing cannon fire off to the west. Unaware this was the distant echoes of the battle of Champion Hill, and not knowing the outcome of that battle, Admiral Porter ordered a tug to steam up the Yazoo River, looking for Grant's army. Finally, after making contact with the Iowa Cavalry on 18 May, Porter ordered marines to occupy Snyder's Bluff.

He also instructed the transports at Milliken's Bend to make steam, and begin landing food and ammunition at the Johnson Plantation a mile east of Chickasaw Bayou.

Grant and Sherman reached Snyder's Bluff on that Tuesday afternoon of 19 May. It had been 52 days since McClernand's corps had begun building the road south from Young's Point. Seeing that rations were already being landed, Major General William Tecumseh Sherman (above) admitted that until this moment he had doubted Grant's plan would work.  In fact, Sherman's XV Corps marching toward Vicksburg behind him would, that very evening, consume the last of their rations. Had Snyder's bluff held out for even a few days, Grant's army might have been forced to retreat into the interior to seek food. The nearest ammunition depot was back in Grand Gulf. But after Champion Hill the army did not have enough reserve to supply a single battle. But now Sherman had no doubts. 

He told Grant this was “one of the greatest campaigns in history.” Grant accepted the compliment, and announced his intention to attack Vicksburg in the morning.

In fact, the Federal supply problem was not solved – not completely. On Wednesday, 20 May, two Missouri units, companies of Major William Tweeddale's Engineer Regiment of the West, and Captain Herman Klosterman's Pioneer Company from Sherman's XV Corps, set 432 men to work rebuilding the road from Johnson's plantation, up onto the bluffs, and then 6 miles beyond to the rear of the new Federal army hemming in Vicksburg.  

Although the first wagons moved off that morning, full rations of food and ammunition would not be supplied until 24 May.  But improvements to the supply continued to be made until the end of the siege,  including over 500 feet of bridges, first pontoons and then more permanent structures.

On the afternoon of Thursday, 21 May, the federal ironclads Baron DeKalb and Chocktaw, the tinclads Forest Rose, Linden and Petel, dropped anchor in the Yazoo River, off Yazoo city.  Under their powerful guns, Lieutenant Command John Grimes Walker landed troops. 

They found the burned out hulks of the rebel ironclad rams which Admiral Porter had been so concerned about for so long - the Mobile, and the Republic, as well as the remains of a 3^rd even larger vessel, as yet unnamed.

The dockyard's 5 carpenter and blacksmith shops had also been burned down by the rebels before their retreat.  It seemed obvious that 45 year old Confederate Naval Lieutenant Isaac Newton Brown, in charge of the construction of the rams, had received little or no warning of Pemberton's decision to abandon Snyder's Bluff.   The federal tinclads spent the next day prowling up the river for a few miles, burning buildings, boats and bridges. The shore crews destroyed a sawmill and lumberyard north of Yazoo City. 

All public property in Yazoo City itself was burned down, but leaving the  private businesses along main street (above) untouched.  One hundred fifteen military patients at a hospital in town were given paroles  And on Saturday, 23 May, 1863, Lieutenant Commander Grimes steamed his little fleet back to the mouth of the Yazoo River.  All this damage was merely the first blow the Confederacy was to receive because of Lieutenant General Pemberton's  abandonment of Snyder's bluff.

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