03/29/12

The Vicksburg Campaign: Before the Storm

This entry is part 1 of 6 in the series Operations Against Vicksburg

The Vicksburg Campaign:

Before the Storm

By the fall of 1862, the city of Vicksburg, Mississippi was the hinge that held the two halves of the South together. No less an authority than Mississippian Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederacy, said, “Vicksburg is the nail head that holds the South’s two halves together.”

Located on a bluff overlooking the Mississippi, Vicksburg dominated the river by blocking navigation. Along with its control of the mouth of the Red River and of Port Hudson to the south, it controlled the flow of supplies from the Western states of the Confederacy to the armies and population centers of the East.

The city was in a naturally defensible position. It was located on a high bluff at a horseshoe bend, the De Soto Peninsula, in the Mississippi River. The city’s location made it almost impossible to approach by ship. South of the city was the Mississippi Delta, sometimes referred to as the Yazoo Delta, a nearly impenatrable swamp some 200 miles north to south and up to 50 miles wide.

Twelve miles up the Yazoo River, the Confederates had positioned batteries and entrenchments at Haynes Bluff. West of Vicksburg, across the river, was the state of Louisiana. The land here was broken up by many streams. The roads were poor and the area was prone to winter flooding.

In the spring of 1862, Admiral David Farragut had captured New Orleans and cleared the lower Mississippi River of Confederate forts. This opened the river to Union naval forces who proceeded up the river and on May 18, 1862 demanded the surrender of the city. His demand was rejected but he returned with a flotilla in June when he bombarded the city through the month of July.

Farragut had insufficient troops to force the issue and began to explore other options. He investigated the possibility of bypassing the city by digging a canal across the back of the peninsula. In fact, on June 28th, troops and local laborers under Brig. Gen. Thomas Williams began the attempt but it was abandoned in late July due to tropical diseases and heat exhaustion.

During the rest of the summer and into the fall, the Army of Tennessee under Maj. Gen. Ulysses Grant fought a series of battles along the Tennessee-Mississippi border. In October 1862, Maj. Gen. Henry Halleck, the Union general-in-chief, reconfigured the responsibilities in the Western Theater. The District of West Tennessee became the Department of the Tennessee under Grant’s command. Grant’s army officially became known as the Army of the Tennessee.

At the time, Grant’s army numbered about 48,500 troops: 4,800 guarding rear areas in Kentucky and Illinois, 7,000 in Memphis under Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman, 17,500 in Corinth, Mississippi and 19,200 in various garrisons in West Tennessee and Northern Mississippi. This force was too small to allow Grant to advance while continuing to hold all of the locations that Halleck had set up.

Grant believed that the Union victory at Corinth had taken place despite Maj. Gen. William Rosecrans and was prepared to relieve him of command. However, Halleck relieved Maj. Gen. Don Carlos Buell of command of the Department of the Cumberland and moved Rosecrans into that position.

New troops being recruited by Maj. Gen. John McClernand, a political opportunist, from Illinois, Indiana and Iowa gradually filtered south and Halleck began to assign them to the Army of the Tennessee. McClernand had attempted to set himself up in an independent command with appeals to Lincoln, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton and Halleck. Halleck didn’t appreciate McClernand, a non-West Pointer, going outside the chain of command and retaliated by taking these troops out of his control.

After advising Halleck of his general plan of operations, Grant began his advance on November 2, 1862 with the unopposed occupation of Grand Junction, Tennessee. The town was the nexus of the Mississippi Central Railroad and the Memphis & Charleston Railroad. As the Union troops advanced, the Confederate forces withdrew. Grant’s troops occupied Grand Junction and the nearby town of La Grange, Tennessee by November 4th.

Grant’s next objective was Holly Springs, Mississippi, 27 miles to the south-southwest on the Mississippi Central Railroad. The Confederates were said to have 30,000 troops stationed there. Grant proposed to take 31,000 troops while Sherman would feint from Memphis with his 7,000 men.

In the midst of the planning for the advance, Grant received a dispatch from Halleck announcing that heavy reinforcements from the Midwest were heading his way. Unbeknownst to Grant, this was Halleck’s way of cutting McClernand out of the game. Grant decided to postpone his operation against Holly Springs until the reinforcements arrived.

After a further communication from Halleck that confused Grant as to the limits of his authority, he telegraphed Halleck for clarification. On November 10th, he received this reply, “You have command of all troops sent to your department, and have permission to fight the enemy where you please.” With that settled Grant determined to proceed with his campaign. It would become one of the most momentous of the war.

The long Vicksburg Campaign has been divided in two halves by historians: Operations Against Vicksburg (December 1862 – January 1863) and Grant’s Operations Against Vicksburg (March–July 1863). We will do the same in the interest of clarity.

03/30/12

The Defenders of Vicksburg

This entry is part 2 of 6 in the series Operations Against Vicksburg

The Defenders of Vicksburg

Why was the City of Vicksburg so important to the Confederacy? Supplies and men from the Trans-Mississippi states of the Confederacy, Texas, Arkansas and Louisiana, flowed down the Red River to the Mississippi and then to the docks of Vicksburg. From there they were loaded onto the trains of the Southern Railroad of Mississippi and moved eastward to supply the rest of the Confederacy.

Vicksburg was aptly nicknamed the Hill City because of its location atop the 200 foot bluff overlooking the Mississippi River. The city can be divided into two sections: Vicksburg-on-the-hill, where the majority of people lived and Vicksburg-under-the-hill, where those involved in the river trade resided. The riverfront district was a raucous red light district filled with riverboatmen, gamblers and other shady characters.

The population of Vicksburg-on-the-hill in 1862 was about 4,600 people with about 1,400 slaves included in this number. At least a third of the adult population was Southern-born while the rest were either European immigrants, primarily from Ireland, Germany and Britain, or from other states.

There were six daily and weekly newspapers, a variety of churches and synagogues and mercantile establishments. The Warren County Courthouse was the tallest structure between Memphis and Baton Rouge.

As a transfer point from west to east, Vicksburg saw vast quantities of flour, cornmeal, beef, sugar and salt pass through its docks and warehouses in a steady stream from the Trans-Mississippi states to the Confederates armies and population centers of the East. Also, vital munitions uniforms and medical supplies were also a part of the never-ending flow of material. Most importantly, the men of the Western Confederacy were part of this river and rail traffic.

During Farragut’s attempt to capture Vicksburg in June and July of 1862, it became clear to both sides that combat casualties were not the issue for them. The subtropical climate in the summer months was the real issue.

Diseases such as malaria, dysentery and typhus were the real enemy of the troops and the laborers employed by both sides. Losses to disease during that summer were staggering. By the time Farragut withdrew, 40% of the Confederate defenders were ill.

The most vivid example of the power of the climate on the fighting took place in late summer of 1862. Maj. Gen. Earl Van Dorn, the Department commander, had detailed Maj. Gen. John C. Breckinridge and his 4,000 man division to retake Baton Rouge. Van Dorn felt that the recapture of the city was necessary to protect the Red River route. They set out by rail from Jackson, Mississippi to Camp Moore, Louisiana, some 60 miles from their objective.

The Confederate camp was flooded and men fell ill in droves. By the time Breckinridge was ready to move, 40% of his men were ill and unable to continue. The Union troops in Baton Rouge were in somewhat better physical condition and were able to fend off the Confederate attack.

Van Dorn cast about for an alternative to Baton Rouge and settled on Port Hudson, about 16 miles north of Baton Rouge. He ordered Breckinridge and his depleted command to occupy the town. By mid-August, Port Hudson was in Confederate Army hands. They began to fortify the bluffs overlooking the river with artillery positions.

In October of 1862, Earl Van Dorn was removed by his old friend, Jefferson Davis, from Department command. Van Dorn’s defeats at Pea Ridge and Corinth plus his scandalous personal life proved too much even for his old friend to excuse. He was replaced by Lt. Gen. John C. Pemberton as commander of the Department of Mississippi and East Louisiana.

Pemberton was an oddity in the Confederate Army. He was a Pennsylvania native who had graduated from West Point in 1837. He was a veteran of the Seminole Wars and the Mexican War, both as a member of the 4th U.S. Artillery Regiment. He was married to a Virginian and at the beginning of the war he resigned his commission and joined the Confederate Army.

By June 1861, he was promoted to brigadier general. In January 1862, he was promoted to major general and given command the Confederate Department of South Carolina and Georgia, an assignment lasting from March 14 to August 29,with his headquarters in Charleston.

Pemberton’s abrasive personality irritated the Governors of South Carolina and Georgia, who petitioned President Davis for his removal. Davis assigned him to the western Department and replaced him with General P.G. T. Beauregard.

His forces consisted of fewer than 50,000 men under the command of Maj. Gens. Earl Van Dorn and Sterling Price, with around 24,000 in the permanent garrisons at Vicksburg and Port Hudson, Louisiana. The field force was described as “a beaten and demoralized army” after the defeats at Iuka and Corinth.

Pemberton did have some assets at his disposal. The local commander at Vicksburg was Brig. Gen. Martin L. Smith, a brilliant military engineer, who had arrived at Vicksburg in May of 1862. Smith was another Northerner who had relocated to Florida before the war. Throughout the spring and summer of 1862, Smith supervised the construction of artillery positions along the Mississippi River. He then turned his attention to the construction of landward defenses, reasoning that the next attempt against Vicksburg would be by the Union Army.

Smith assigned Maj. Samuel H. Lockett, another military engineer, the task of constructing a system of fortifications around the city. The task was enormous, requiring meticulous planning and thousands of hours of manpower. The terrain around the city consisted of terraces, canebrakes, ravines and the steep river bluff. Lockett planned and executed a defensive system that wrung every possible tactical advantage from the terrain.

Most of the manpower that was used in the construction of the fortifications was done by hired or impressed slaves. Completed, the system encompassed 8 miles of fortifications. It was anchored on the Mississippi River above and below the city. The system consisted of a trench and parapet fronted by a ditch for most of the length.

Dozens of artillery positions were sited along the arc and 9 large earthen forts guarded the gaps where the Southern Railroad of Mississippi and a half-dozen roads passed through the lines. Thousands of trees were cut down to clear fields of fire and create a vast tangled abatis. The abatis would slow down the enemy attackers and break up their formations.

One problem with the impressive system was its lack of depth in many locations. Due to the difficult terrain, in many places the fortifications were not only the first line of defense but also the last.

Smith and Lockett also laid out positions in the surrounding country to protect Vicksburg’s flanks. Fortifications were constructed at Haynes Bluff, Snyder’s Bluff and Drumgould’s Bluff along the Yazoo River, about 12 to 15 miles north of the city. Earthwork fortifications were also built at Warrenton and Grand Gulf along the Mississippi below the city.

Vicksburg certainly earned the name, “The Gibralter of the Mississippi.”

03/31/12

Grant Moves South

This entry is part 3 of 6 in the series Operations Against Vicksburg

Grant Moves South

In early November 1862, Maj. Gen. Ulysses Grant ordered his Army of the Tennessee south toward the Confederate positions along the Tallahatchie River. Lt. Gen. John C. Pemberton’s forces defending Vicksburg depended on the Mississippi Central Railroad for supplies as much as he did.

The most vulnerable point on the line was the railroad bridge over the Yalobusha River at Grenada, 60 miles south of the Tallahatchie. Destroy the bridge and the Confederate’s supply line would be severed. Pemberton would be forced to retreat from his defenses along the Tallahatchie.

Grant was determined to crack the Confederate defenses so he sent a raid led by Brig. Gen. Alvin P. Hovey with some 7.000 cavalry and infantry across the Mississippi River from Helena, Arkansas to Friar’s Point, Mississippi.

Despite a continuous cold rain that turned the roads into mud, Hovey and his men persevered. Hovey’s infantry bogged down, so he gambled and dispatched his cavalry on to the Mississippi Central Railroad alone. When they arrived, they tore up a section of track a few miles north of the Yalobusha River but discovered that the bridge was to wet to burn. It was also guarded by a growing force of Confederates.

On December 7th, Hovey withdrew his tired and wet troops back to Helena, trailed by over 500 jubilant former slaves. Despite Hovey’s lack of success, it demonstrated Grant’s authority over Union forces on both sides of the river. Halleck had authorized him to make use of forces in Arkansas and Missouri as he required them and Grant was to take advantage of this permission.

On the other hand, Pemberton was to be hindered by his lack of authority over forces on the west side of the Mississippi River. This lack of authority would come back to haunt the Confederate commander in the months to come.

Hovey’s raid was just the harbinger of the use of cavalry by both sides in the Western Theater. It also pointed out that audacity was not confined to the Confederate cavalry. The Union cavalry had learned over the first year and a half of the war and eventually surpassed their adversaries in gray in size and reach of their fast moving columns.

Hovey’s raid pushed Pemberton into abandoning his defensive lines along the Tallahatchie River and falling back the 60 miles to Grenada. The Confederates troops with their slave laborers constructed a new line of earthworks on the south side of the Yalobusha River within sight of the Mississippi Central Railroad bridge.

It was after this time that Grant became aware of Maj. Gen. John McClernand’s attempt to secure an independent command by bypassing Henry W. Halleck, the general-in-chief, and appealing directly to Lincoln and War Secretary Edwin Stanton. For bypassing the chain of command, McClernand earned Halleck’s implacable animosity.

Halleck wired Grant with this one line dispatch, “You have command of all troops sent to your Department, and have permission to fight the enemy when you please.” Grant didn’t need to ask twice for permission to commandeer McClernand’s newly-raised regiments. Grant decided to launch a waterborne attack against Vicksburg led by his chief subordinate and loyal supporter, Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman.

Grant took a page out of the plan of his Fort Henry and Fort Donelson Expedition. Sherman was assigned some 33,000 troops. The Army of the Tennessee supplied 20,000 while 13,000 came from the Helena, Arkansas garrison. He would load them onto a flotilla of transports and proceeed down the Mississippi River and then up the Yazoo River to Haynes Bluff, about 15 miles above Vicksburg.

Once they took the high ground, they were to proceed inland and cut off the Southern Railroad of Mississippi between Vicksburg and Jackson, Mississippi. The main problem with this plan was that Grant and Sherman would be separated by hundreds of miles of Confederate-held territory. They would be out of communication and unable to support each other in a crisis. Pemberton had an advantage of interior lines of movement and be able to shift his troops between Vicksburg and Grenada using the railroads.

Grant needed to fix Pemberton’s forces in place at Grenada to keep him from diverting forces to oppose Sherman. In order to keep Pemberton focused on his forces, he ordered them to move south in a continuous movement. He decided not to confront Pemberton’s forces on the Yalobusha line until he knew that Sherman’s forces had landed at Haynes Bluff.

In this plan Grant was acting as an opportunist. If Pemberton stood his ground at Grenada, Grant would continue to give him the impression that he was preparing for an assault, giving Sherman the opening to seize Haynes Bluff. If Pemberton moved his forces out of Grenada, Grant would attack across the Yalobusha River, pummel him and threaten Vicksburg from the rear. This approach marked Grant’s evolution from simply being a fighter to a general.

In December, Halleck directed him to divide the Army of the Tennessee into four corps. The 13th Corps was under the command of McClernand. The 15th Corps was under Sherman. The 16th Corps was under Maj. Gen. Stephen A. Hurlbut and the 17th Corps was commanded by Maj. Gen. James B. McPherson. This reorganization clarified the relationship between Grant and McClernand. McClernand’s Corps, without the general who was still in Illinois, was assigned to Sherman’s force.

The best-laid plans are often disrupted by enemy actions. In this case, Lt. Col. John S. Griffith, a Texas cavalryman, suggested a plan to Pemberton. Why not attack Grant’s supply base at Holly Springs, 30 miles north of Oxford. This attack on the Union rear area would disrupt their offensive operations.

Pemberton, realizing how close the Union raid on the Yalobusha railroad almost succeeded, decided to act on the suggestion. He had just the man for the raid, Maj. Gen. Earl Van Dorn. Van Dorn was properly matched for this assignment.

04/1/12

Van Dorn’s Raid at Holly Springs

This entry is part 4 of 6 in the series Operations Against Vicksburg

Van Dorn’s Raid at

Holly Springs

In a war filled with strange and eccentric personalities, Maj. Gen. Earl Van Dorn was one of the stranger ones. Van Dorn was short (5’5″), emotional and impulsive individual. Van Dorn was also a noted painter, writer of poetry, was respected for his skill at riding a horse, and also known for his love of women. A graduate of West Point, class of 1842, he was 52nd out of 56.

His early years in the military gave no indication of his future. He served in a variety of garrisons until the Mexican War. War was his stage and Van Dorn was very good at it. During the war with Mexico he brevetted twice, rising from first lieutenant to captain and then to major in less than a year. He was wounded twice in battle in the space of ten days, near the end of the war.

He returned to garrison duty after a short period as aide-de-camp to Brev. Maj. Gen P. F. Smith from April 3, 1847, to May 20, 1848. After more garrison duty, he served in the Seminole Wars from 1849 to 1850. Following that, he returned to garrison duty in a variety of posts. This was the lot of a peacetime officer in the antebellum U.S. Army.

During the 1850s, Van Dorn sharpened his skills as a fighter against the Comanches. He was wounded four times in fights with the tribe, on once occasion so severely that he wasn’t expected to recover. He did and five weeks later he was back at duty. By June of 1860, he had been promoted to major and was on leave of absence for the balance of 1860 and into early 1861.

Earl Van Dorn resigned from the U.S. Army when his home state of Mississippi seceded in January 1861. He was immediately appointed to the rank of brigadier general in the Mississippi Militia on January 23, and replaced Jefferson Davis as major general and commander of Mississippi’s state forces in February when Davis was selected as the Confederacy’s President.

By the time of the Vicksburg campaign, Van Dorn had served in Texas and then with the Army of the Potomac in Virginia as a division commander of cavalry. Jefferson Davis needed someone to command the Trans-Mississippi Department and appointed Van Dorn in January of 1862.

Almost immediately, his army was engaged at Pea Ridge, Arkansas where they were defeated by Union forces led by Brig. Gen. Samuel R. Curtis and Army of the Southwest. The Confederates were defeated after a two-day battle on March 7-8, 1862.

Transferred across the Mississippi River to reinforce the Army of Tennessee, Van Dorn’s army was defeated at the Second Battle of Corinth, Mississippi on October 3-4, 1862. Van Dorn was sent before a court of inquiry to answer for his performance there. Though he was acquitted of the charges against him,Van Dorn would never be trusted with the command of an army again,and he was subsequently relieved of his district command.

Van Dorn was returned to duty as a cavalry commander, a position better suited to his talents. When Pemberton decided to follow Lt. Col. John S. Griffith’s suggestion and raid the Union supply depot at Holly Springs, Mississippi, he called upon the commander of his cavalry division, Earl Van Dorn to lead it. Van Dorn had been recommended by the officers of the Texas Brigade in a letter to the commanding general.

The cavalry brigades and regiments of Pemberton’s command had been parceled out to the divisions for limited tasks. Griffith envisioned a combined effort against the Union rear area. Pemberton warmed up to the idea of a raid on the Union supply depot. He had already asked Gen. Braxton Bragg, the commander of the Army of Tennessee, for assistance. Bragg had dispatched Brig. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest and his cavalry to break the railroad near Jackson, Mississippi.

Never was a man better matched to his assignment. On December 17, 1862, Van Dorn led the 3,500 men of his cavalry division across the Yalobusha river and traveled the east of Ulysses Grant’s army. Van Dorn’s command consisted of three cavalry brigades: Lt. Col. Griffith led his Texas Brigade, Colonel William H. Jackson and his Tennessee Brigade and Colonel Robert M. McCullough led a mixed brigade of Missouri, Arkansas and Mississippi cavalry.

Taking back roads north, they were able to avoid Union patrols. They avoided a large Union force at Pontotoc on the 18th. Arriving at the outskirts of the town on evening of the 19th, Van Dorn used information from an informant to create a precise plan of action. Each unit was given specific instructions about their objectives. At dawn of December 20th, the Confederate column charged into Holly Springs and overran the surprised Union garrison.

The Tennessee unit advanced from the north and west, the Missourians dismounted and walked in to take the infantry, the Texans came in from the south and the east.

Col. Robert C. Murphy surrendered his 1,500 man garrison without much of a fight. In fact, Murphy was captured in his pajamas. He was later to be court-martialed and dismissed from the army for cowardly and disgraceful behavior.

At the depot, there were railroads cars loaded and headed south, ready to go to Vicksburg. These cars were loaded with clothing, food, long guns, pistols, ammunition and other supplies. These were all destroyed in a series of spectacular explosions.

The raiders outfitted themselves with uniforms and weapons. They would be the best dressed troops in the south. Supplies were offered to the townspeople before everything else was destroyed. The railroad roundhouse and foundry were among the buildings that were also destroyed.

After paroling the captured Union defenders, Van Dorn’s column collected as much as they could carry. They also captured between 600 to 800 horses and mules. They burned a total of 300 wagon loads of ammunition and destroyed 6,000 to 7,000 stands of small arms. The destruction continued throughout the day and well into the night.

Upon leaving the town, Van Dorn’s column continued north as far as Bolivar, Tennessee before turning south again. Eluding the pursuing Union cavalry, the Confederate column returned safely after a 12-day foray. Each side sustained about 100 casualties, killed and wounded, in addition to the 1,500 Union prisoners.

The two cavalry raids, Van Dorn’s and Forrest’s, seriously damaged the Union Army’s ability to continue their overland march against Vicksburg. Forrest had rampaged in the Union rear for about two weeks, doing considerable damage to the Mobile and Ohio Railroad in Tennessee. Grant ordered his Army of the Tennessee to withdraw across northern Mississippi. He would not resume his offensive for several months.

In May 1863, Earl Van Dorn was shot in his headquarters at Spring Hill in Maury County, Tennessee, by Dr. James Bodie Peters, who claimed that Van Dorn had carried on an affair with his wife Jessie McKissack Peters. Alone in his office at the home of Martin Cheairs (now known as Ferguson Hall) Van Dorn was writing at his desk, and Peters entered and shot him once in the back of the head, killing him instantly. Peters was later arrested by Confederate authorities, but was never brought to trial for the killing. In defense of his actions, Dr. Peters stated that Van Dorn had “violated the sanctity of his home.”

04/2/12

The Battle of Chickasaw Bayou

This entry is part 5 of 6 in the series Operations Against Vicksburg

The Battle of Chickasaw Bayou

While Maj. Gen. Ulysses Grant was approaching the fortress city of Vicksburg by marching south down the Mississippi Central Railroad, his Right Wing, commanded by Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman would attempt to approach the city from the northeast from their waterborne landing on the Yazoo River. The two armies would battle at Chickasaw Bayou, sometimes called Walnut Hills, from December 26 to 29, 1862.

Grant had divided his army into two wings. Grant was in command of the Left Wing with approximately 38,000 men, while Sherman commanded the Right Wing with about 32,000 men. Grant proceeded down the rail line, making his forward base at Holly Springs and from there he moved further south to Oxford, Mississippi. He was hoping to lure Lt. Gen. John C. Pemberton and his army into a fight around Grenada, Mississippi.

Sherman’s wing was originally designated the XIII Corps, Army of the Tennessee. It was redesignated the XV Corps on December 22. His expeditionary force was organized into four divisions, commanded by Brig. Gens. Andrew J. Smith, Morgan L. Smith, George W. Morgan, and Frederick Steele.

On December 20th, the same day as Van Dorn’s Holly Springs Raid, Rear Admiral David D. Porter’s flotilla of seven gunboats and fifty-nine troop transports departed Memphis, Tennessee after embarking 20,000 men. They steamed to Helena, Arkansas where they embarked another 12,000 soldiers. From there they proceeded downriver to the mouth of the Yazoo River on December 24th.

They moved up the Yazoo to disembark Sherman’s men at Johnson’s Plantation, opposite Steele’s Bayou, north of the city. Prior to the movement of the transports, they conducted torpedo (mine) clearing operations of the river. It was during this part of the operation that the USS Cairo struck a mine and sank.

The Cairo was not to see the light of day until late in 1964 when the ship was cut in three sections and raised from the mud of the Yazoo River. It can now be seen at Vicksburg National Military Park. The noted Civil War historian and battlefield guide, Ed Bearss, was responsible for the discovery of only the third Civil War ironclad in existence.

Opposing Sherman’s force were Confederate troops from the Department of Mississippi and East Louisiana, under the overall command of Pemberton and the direct command of Maj. Gen. Martin L. Smith, who commanded four brigades led by Brig. Gens. Seth M. Barton, John C. Vaughn, John Gregg, and Edward D. Tracy.

Brig. Gen. Stephen D. Lee commanded a provisional division with brigades commanded by Cols. William T. Withers and Allen Thomas; Lee was the primary commander of the Confederate defense in the Walnut Hills until the arrival late on December 29 of Maj. Gen. Carter L. Stevenson.

Despite being outnumbered by more than two-to-one, the Confederates were positioned behind a formidable defensive position of both natural and man-made fortifications. There was a thick entanglement of trees interspersed with swampland.

Then there was Chickasaw Bayou that initially ran parallel to the Union line of advance and then curved perpendicular, acting as a natural moat. It was chest-deep and 50 yards wide. Finally, the Confederates had built defensive breastwork fronted by felled-tree abatis.

On December 26th, Sherman sent three brigades forward to scout the Confederate positions, looking for any weaknesses. They moved forward slowly against the covering force of S.S. Lee but achieved very little.

On the 28th, Brig. Gen. Frederick Smith’s Division attempted to turn the Confederate right flank on a narrow corridor with Chickasaw Bayou on their right and a tributary of the Yazoo River on their left. They were repulsed by Confederate artillery.

On the morning of the 29th, Sherman ordered a general artillery bombardment preparatory to a general assault. For four hours the two sides dueled to little effect. At about 11:00 AM, Sherman ordered a general assault along his entire line. He remarked, “We will lose 5,000 men before we take Vicksburg, and may as well lose them here as anywhere else.”

The Union attacking force included three brigades. Only one regiment of the third brigade actually attacked, since the rest of the brigade had lost its way. By sheer weight of numbers, the Union troops crossed the water barriers but were stopped at the defensive fortifications. When the Union troops fell back, Lee ordered a counterattack. During this, the Confederates captured 332 men and 4 battle flags.

Then Sherman ordered a two-division assault on the Confederate center, led by Brig. Gen. Andrew J. Smith. They advanced over the same difficult terrain as the previous attack and attempted to capture the Indian Mound, a prominent position in the Confederate line. Five attempts to capture the position were repulsed. At the same time an assault on the Union right by Col. William J. Landram‘s brigade was easily repulsed.

By the morning of December 30th, Sherman had concluded that further attacks would be fruitless. Sherman conferred with Porter and they decided to embark the troops and move up the river to Drumgould’s Bluff, hoping that an attack there would be unopposed. However, the attack was called by heavy fog on January 1, 1863.

On January 5, Sherman sent a letter to General-in-Chief Henry W. Halleck, summing up the the Battle of Chickasaw Bayou (in a manner reminiscent of a famous statement by Julius Caesar), “I reached Vicksburg at the time appointed, landed, assaulted, and failed.”

Union casualties at the Battle of Chickasaw Bayou were 208 killed, 1,005 wounded, and 563 captured or missing; Confederate casualties were 63 killed, 134 wounded, 10 missing.

04/3/12

The Battle of Arkansas Post

This entry is part 6 of 6 in the series Operations Against Vicksburg

The Battle of Arkansas Post

The Battle of Arkansas Post, called Fort Hindman by the Union side, was Maj. Gen. John McClernand’s attempt to wrest independent command out from under the shadow of Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant.

McClernand was a political general who had been a prominent Democrat politician and a member of Congress in antebellum Illinois. He had been commissioned as a brigadier general in May of 1861 after raising the “McClernand’s Brigade”. A close associate of President Lincoln’s, McClernand tried to use that friendship for his own advancement.

In the fall of 1862, McClernand traveled to Washington and attempted to use his political influence with Lincoln and War Secretary Edwin Stanton to receive an independent. In so doing, he earned the enmity of Maj. Gen. Henry W. Halleck, the general-in-chief, who would punish McClernand for going outside the chain of command.

Despite the letter McClernand received from Lincoln promising the independent command, Halleck made sure that he could override it, using the ‘needs of the service’ as the reason.

In December 1862, Grant had ordered Sherman to take his corps and McClernand’s to Chickasaw Bayou where the attempted to move south against the city of Vicksburg. The Union invaders were repulsed and they returned to Milliken’s Bend. It was here that McClernand took command of the two corps by right of seniority. His force was designated as the Army of the Mississippi.

Fort Hindman was located near the small village of Arkansas Post and was originally named simply, the Post of Arkansas. The fort was a solid, heavily armed, square structure constructed on a horseshoe bend on the Arkansas River on a high bluff in the fall of 1862. The river enters the Mississippi River halfway between Vicksburg and Memphis.

In December 1862, Brigadier General Thomas J. Churchill had assumed command of the fort. In late December, Confederate troops captured the steamer the Blue Wing on the Mississippi River and sent it and its cargo of armaments to Churchill’s garrison at Arkansas Post.

McClernand’s, sensing an opportunity, decided to use his new force and join Rear Admiral David D. Porter’s flotilla against Confederates who were disrupting the Union supply lines on the Arkansas River.

Despite Union attempts to avid Confederate discovery of their movements, by January 9, 1863, Churchill was aware of the Union advance. He ordered infantry into a line of rifle pits about two miles north of the fort to impede the Union advance.

McClernand had landed troops south of the fort at Notrebe’s Plantation on the north bank of the river about three miles from the fort and more troops on the south bank.

By 11:00 Am on January 10th, thousands of Union troops had been disembarked at Notrebe’s Plantation. They bagan to advance against Fort Hindman. The Confederate position was anchored by the fort on the banks of the Arkansas River with a line of rifle pits to the west of the fort that ended near the Post Bayou, which protected the position from being turned.

Union gunboats led by the ironclads the Baron DeKalb, the Louisville, and the Cincinnati then moved against Fort Hindman, hammering the fort’s big guns and killing most of the Confederate artillery’s horses in and around the fort. By the time the Union naval bombardment was done, it was too dark to attack, allowing the Confederate troops the opportunity to strengthen their position.

McClernand and his generals spent the morning of the 11th organizing their 32,000 troops for the assault against the 4,900 Confederate defenders. Porter ordered his gunboats to bombard the Confederate positions at about 1:00 PM. The Union naval forces were aided by artillery positioned across the river. By 4:00 PM, the Confederate guns had been silenced and the attack commenced.

After a fierce, half hour firefight, the Confederates waved the white flag of surrender. Although Churchill later denied ordering the surrender, the defenders quit the fight. Union casualties were surprisingly high for such a brief engagement. Union losses were 134 killed, 898 wounded, and 29 missing; incomplete Confederate reports showed 60 killed and 80 wounded, with 4,791 of the garrison captured.

The Confederate prisoners were loaded onto transports and sent to prison camps up the Mississippi River. Confederate armaments and supplies were captured and the fort was razed. McClernand ordered a raid up the river to South Bend, Arkansas to destroy corn supplies. He also sent word to Sherman and Porter that he planned to move against Little Rock, the state capital.

At this point Grant stepped in and countermanded his orders. He ordered McClernand’s Army of the Mississippi to return to Union lines and rejoin the Army of the Tennessee. McClernand’s short-lived career in independent command was officially over. He returned to corps command under Grant’s direct command. The Siege of Vicksburg would now proceed with Ulysses Grant in complete command.