CHAPTER VIII.

CAPTURE OF VICKSBURG.

After the fall of Arkansas Post, Sherman's expedition rendezvoused at Napoleon, January 18th, 1863. Grant came down from Memphis, in person, to interview Sherman. He had the investment and capture of Vicksburg fully in mind, and designed to make a passage up and down the Mississippi, past the Vicksburg fortifications, by a second effort to cut the canal across the Penninsula. There was still a conflict of authority and some feeling between Grant and McClernand, but a vast majority of the officers recognized the rectitude of Grant's claims, by virtue of his general command of the Department of the Tennessee. In December, 1862, the Western armies had been formed into five groups or corps. The command of the Thirteenth had been given to McClernand; the Fourteenth to Thomas; the Fifteenth to Sherman; the Sixteenth to Hurlbut; the Seventeenth to McPherson; the last two being at and back of Memphis.

After consulting with Sherman, at Napoleon, General Grant ordered Sherman's and McClernand's Corps to Vicksburg to resume work on the canal, and repaired thither himself to superintend operations. The work before these two corps was most difficult owing to continuous high water. Ere anything satisfactory was reached, Sherman received orders from Grant to report to him at Milliken's Bend. He went and was informed that Grant deemed Vicksburg approachable by way of the Yazoo River, if the bayous leading into it. could be threaded, He had tried Steele's Bayou with five

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gunboats and found no obstruction except fallen trees. therefore ordered Sherman to test the feasibility of getting an army through to the Yazoo, and to draw on his own corps for sufficient force to remove all obstructions and hold all available points. He supplied him with two steamers and promised to send him as many additional ones as he might need.

This was really Grant's first move on Vicksburg, and in view of its importance he chose for its leader one whom he thought best fitted for the hazardous enterprise. Sherman started up the Bayou with the Eighth Missouri, who were watermen, and with a full supply of axes and tools for removing obstructions. Sixty miles up, he met Lieutenant Woodworth with the gunboat Price, and then turned into Black Bayou, up which Admiral Porter had pushed some gunboats, amid the thickest kind of obstructions. At Deer Creek he met Admiral Porter, who thought he would be able to make his way to the Rolling Fork and Sunflower. Sherman returned to Black Bayou, and disposed his forces so as to clear the obstructions. He ordered up two additional regiments. On March 19th, Porter was attacked by the enemy and sent for Sherman to come to his rescue. He immediately dispatched some 800 men to Porter's aid, and sent word that he would follow with all the forces he could gather. Following the sound of Porter's guns, the forces made their way through water and cane brakes to the rescue. Coming upon the enemy, mostly sharp shooterswho were picking off Porter's men from the gunboats, they were dispersed, and Porter felt greatly relieved. But inasmuch as his aims were now known and a force of the enemy had really passed below him for the purpose of felling trees and cutting off his retreat, he deemed it best to back down the bayou with his boats

covered by Sherman's troops. This failure to reach the Yazoo above Haine's Bluff was a disappointment to Grant He ordered the troops back to Young's Point, which they reached on the 27th of March.

On April 3rd, 1863, the Third Division under General Tuttle was assigned to Sherman's corps. The corps now comprised three divisions commanded by Generals Steele, Blair and Tuttle. At this date it became apparent that the effort to divert the Mississippi through the canal was a failure, and equally, that to gain Haine's Bluff by way of the Yazoo was impossible. There was much speculation among army commanders as to what should be done next. Sherman favored a land movement in the rear of Vicksburg, by way of Oxford and Grenada, to be coöperated with by the gunboats on the river. But Grant would take no backward step, and concluded on a river movement below Vicksburg, so as to make it a diversion in favor of General Banks, then besieging Port Hudson.

While these experiments were being tried, Farragut had succeeded in running part of his fleet past the fortifications of Port Hudson, and in communicating with Grant. Through Farragut, Banks was also communicated with. He was then pushing his Red River expedition with a large army, and with a view to the capture of Port Hudson, under the coöperation of Farragut. It seemed to be the sentiment of Halleck, that Grant having exhausted his genius and the patience of the authorities, in his efforts to reach Vicksburg, should go the help of Banks, and make Port Hudson the objective of the combined armies. Then, communications down the Mississippi being open, a northward movement of the combined armies might effect the reduction of Vicksburg. But Grant regarded the distance between the two armies as too great, and the intermediate

obstacles as too insurmountable, to make this combination, practicable. He was once more suffering from political clamor. Vicious correspondents were reviving their old slanders. All the McClernand influence was against him. The cry went up in Washington for his removal. Lincoln said: "I rather like the man. I think we'll try him a little longer." Rosecrans had gotten no further than Murfreesborough, Tenn., in his efforts against Bragg. Banks had achieved no military results with his mammoth expedition. Burnside had met with disaster at Fredericksburg. Grant's efforts on Grenada, up the Yazoo, and to canal the peninsula opposite Vicksburg, had all failed. There had really been nothing to relieve the gloom of the country since Corinth and Iuka. The swamps, the intricate bayous, the sickly climate, the rains, the high waters, indeed entire nature seemed to conspire with the Confederates on the line of the Mississippi and to mock the genius of the Union generals and the strength of the Union forces.

Sherman had taken occasion to put his views of the capture of Vicksburg, by a rear movement, starting from Memphis and carried down to the Tallahatchie and Yallabusha, on paper, and to submit them to Col. Rawlins, Grant's chief of staff. His letter was able and showed that he had good military reasons for his convictions. It was most courteous in tone and its conclusion ran: "I make these suggestions with the request that General Grant simply read them and give them, as I know he will, a share of his thoughts. I prefer he should not answer them, but merely give them as much or as little weight as they deserve. Whatever plan of action he may adopt will receive from me the same zealous coöperation and energetic support as though I had conceived it myself."

As already said, Grant had determined on his move to

the south of Vicksburg, and nothing shook his plans. He found no more faithful and able subordinate than Sherman, who merged all conceptions in those of his superior, and fought the harder to convert them into success. Grant's first grand step was to throw all of his army below Vicksburg. In the last week in March, 1863, he ordered all his forces to concentrate at Milliken's Bend on the west side of the

Mississippi, above Vicksburg. McPherson's corps came thither from Lake Providence and Sherman's from Steele's Bayou. McCleruand's corps was already there. Hurlbut's corps was stripped of all its strength, except what was barely necessary for a rear guard. Boats and floats of every kind were collected from Cairo and St. Louis.

On March 29th, McClernand was ordered to move by way of Richmond to New Carthage, twenty-seven miles below, and on the west bank of the river. Sherman and McPherson were to follow, as fast as rations and supplies arrived. The roads were low and much overflowed, and the march was slow, but New Carthage was occupied on April 6th. It was soon surrounded by water, and the remainder of Grant's columns were forced to rendezvous at Perkins's, twelve miles below, which point they only reached by a continuation of boat bridges across bayous and overflowed flats.

At this juncture Grant started Grierson, with 1,700 cavalry, on that memorable raid from La Grange, during which he traversed the entire State of Mississippi, destroying the main lines of railroad leading to Vicksburg, and arriving at Baton Rouge, La., with 500 prisoners, having lost but three killed and seven wounded of his own men. Grant ordered this raid not more as a diversion in favor of his own contemplated movement to the south of Vicksburg,