The Pictorial Field Book of the Civil War in the United States of America

PURSUIT OF THE CONFEDERATES.

611

already moved from the field, leaving his artillery behind, and a large number of his men as prisoners, and was making his way to Johnston's camp at Canton. Seeing this, Pemberton ordered his whole army to retreat toward the Big Black, when Grant, who had been on the field directing his troops. in battle, ordered the fresh brigades of Osterhaus and Carr to follow with all speed to that river, and to cross it if possible. In his flight, and in this instant pursuit, Pemberton lost many of his troops made prisoners. Thus ended THE BATTLE OF CHAMPION HILLS, or Baker's Creek, as it is sometimes called, it having been fought near that stream. It was "fought mainly," Grant said in his report, "by General Hovey's division of McClernand's corps, and Generals Logan and Quinby's divisions (the latter commanded by General M. M. Crocker) of McPherson's corps."

991

a May 17, 1863.

The Confederates were pursued until after dark that night, with a loss of some men, and a train of cars loaded with provisions and ordnance stores captured, and a large quantity of similar and other stores which they themselves burned. McClernand accompanied the pursuing party, with whom he bivouacked that night on the hill overlooking Edwards's Station, and the broad and fertile plain between it and the Big Black. Early the following morning—a beautiful Sabbath morning in May"—the pursuit was resumed, but not continued long, for it was found that the Confederates were well posted on both sides of the Big Black at the railway bridge, and were strongly fortified. On the bottom, near the eastern bank of the stream, they had a line of well-armed works, in front of which, and about a mile from the river, was a bayou that formed an efficient ditch, with a line of rifle-pits behind it. On the opposite side of the river the bank was steep and covered with works, well armed with heavy guns; and back of these, at a little distance, was a forest. Behind the defenses on the eastern side of the river, to meet the first onset of the pursuers, were the brigades of Green, Villepigue, and Cockrell. Just above the railway bridge, Pemberton had constructed a passage-way for troops, composed of steamboat hulks.

General Carr's division occupied the extreme advance of the pursuing columns. A heavy line of skirmishers, supported by two brigades of his division, were deployed in the woods on the right of the road, while Osterhaus's division was similarly posted on the left of it. Very soon Carr's skirmishers were hotly engaged with those of the foe, which had come out to meet them, and speedily a severe battle was raging between the two armies in the thick forest. This continued for about three hours, when General Lawler, commanding Carr's extreme right, discovered a good opportunity for a charge. He gave the order, and right gallantly his brigade, composed

The National loss in the battle, as reported by Grant, was 2.457, of whom 426 were killed, 1,842 wounded, and 189 missing. Hovey's division alone lost 1,202, or one-third of its entire number. The Confederate loss is unknown, as no official account was given. It was estimated in killed and wounded as quite equal to that of the National forces, besides almost 2,000 prisoners, 18 guns, and a large quantity of small arms. Among their killed was General Loyd Tighlman, who was captured at Fort Henry the previous year. He was killed by a shell from one of the guns of the Chicago Mercantile battery. Indiana was more largely represented in the desperate battle of Champion Hills than any other State.

The Twenty-fourth Iowa was called the "Methodist regiment," its principal officers and a large portion of its men being of that denomination. They fought most gallantly, and at evening, after the battle was over, they held a religious meeting, and made the hills resound with the grand air and stirring words of " Old Hundred."

612

BATTLE OF THE BIG BLACK RIVER.

of the Twenty-first, Twenty-second, and Twenty-third Iowa, and Eleventh Wisconsin, sprang forward with cheers, and drove the foe to his intrenchments; not, however, without suffering fearfully from an enfilading fire from a curtain of the Confederate breast-works, which prostrated one hundred and fifty of their number. Undismayed, they waded the bayou, pressed forward, delivered and received heavy volleys of bullets, and rushed upon the foe with fixed bayonets before the latter had time to reload. Meanwhile many of the Confederates within the intrenchments fled to the other side of the river, and communicated to the troops there their own irrepressible panic.

They expected the Nationals would immediately cross the river and assail them, and so they burned the two bridges, cut off the retreat of their com rades who were yet fighting, and fled pell-mell toward the safer region of the defenses around Vicksburg, making the inhabitants of that city pale with affright, and forebodings of the greatest calamities impending. Pemberton and his staff, it is said, tried to prevent the incendiarism and stop the flight. but in vain. The assailed garrison, about fifteen hundred strong, were cap tured, with seventeen guns (a part of them taken from Grant the day before), several thousand stand of arms, and a large quantity of commissary stores, and losing, besides, twenty killed and two hundred and forty-two wounded. Thus ended THE BATTLE OF THE BIG BLACK RIVER, in which Osterhaus was wounded, when his command devolved temporarily upon Brigadier-General A. L. Lee.

McClernand could not immediately follow the fugitives toward Vicksburg. Their retreat was covered by the batteries and sharp-shooters on the high western bank of the river, who for hours kept the Nationals from constructing floating bridges. Grant's only pontoon train was with Sherman, who, under his chief's orders, and while the events we have just been considering were occurring, had been making his way from Jackson to Bridgeport, on the Big Black, a few miles above the railway bridge. He arrived there

This was the appearance at the passage of the railway travel between Jackson and Vicksburg, over the Big Black River, as it appeared to the writer when he made the sketch, in April, 1866, from the eastern side of the stream, while on his way from Vicksburg to Jackson. The passengers had crossed the river on the pontoon bridge seen in the sketch, and while waiting for the cars to start, the drawing was made. On the left are seen the piers of the railroad bridge destroyed by the Confederates, and beyond the stream are the high banks, with the forest near, on which the Confederate batteries were planted.

PORTER AGAIN ON THE YAZOO.

613

a May 19, 1868.

during the afternoon of the 17th, and prepared to cross the stream in the morning. The Confederates at the railway bridge, finding themselves. flanked, fled to Vicksburg. Then McClernand's men constructed a floating bridge there and just above, over which his and McPherson's corps crossed the next morning at about eight o'clock. Sherman crossed at the same hour, and all pressed on over the wooded and broken country toward Vicksburg. Three miles and a half from that city Sherman turned to the right and took possession of the Walnut Hills, near the Chickasaw Bayou,' without opposition, and cutting off the Confederates at Haines's Bluff. McPherson followed Sherman's track some distance to the point where he turned to the right, and halted, while McClernand, advancing on the line of the retreat of the Confederates, on the direct highway from Jackson to Vicksburg, bent his course a little to the left, and took position at Mount Albans, so as to cover the roads leading out of Vicksburg on the southeast. So, on the morning of the 19th of May, Grant's army, which for more than a fortnight had subsisted off the country in which it was moving, completely invested Vicksburg on the land side, and, by a successful movement of Admiral Porter, his base of supplies was changed from Grand Gulf to the Yazoo.

8 May.

Let us see what Porter did. On the morning of the 16th' he went to the Yazoo. He left several of his iron-clad steamers below Vicksburg, while others in the Yazoo were ready for co-operation with Grant. When on the 18th he heard the booming of guns in the rear of the city, he knew that the army was approaching, and very soon he saw through his glass National troops on the Walnut Hills. These were Sherman's men. Porter immediately sent Lieutenant-Commander Breese up the Yazoo with the De Kalb, Choctaw, Romeo, and Forest Rose, to open communication with the army, which was accomplished

PEMBERTON'S HEAD-QUARTERS IN VICKSBURG.2

with fifteen hundred sick soldiers in the hospital.

Other public prop

erty which the Confederates had not destroyed Walker burned, and then

1 See map on page 578.

2 This is a view of the fine residence of C. A. Manlove, on Cherry Street, Vicksburg, when the writer sketched it, in 1866, which was occupied by General Pemberton as his head-quarters during the siege of Vicksburg. It is a brick building, stuccoed, with a pleasant garden in front of it.

Among the vessels on the stocks at Yazoo City was the Republic, a ram three hundred and ten feet in length and seventy-five in width. Also another called the Mobile, which was ready for plating. The navyyard was well supplied with machinery and workshops, and such as were not on fire when he arrived, Walker committed to the flames.

614

VICKSBURG CLOSELY INVESTED.

returned without opposition, excepting by some ambushed riflemen and a battery at Liverpool Landing, where he was fired upon, and lost one killed and eight wounded. Before Walker's return Porter had forwarded to Grant's

army inuch needed supplies.

Now, with nothing to fear on rear or flank, excepting the troops under General Johnston, beyond the Big Black, Grant closely invested Vicksburg, and commenced the siege proper, with Sherman occupying the right of his line, McPherson the center, and McClernand the left. Pemberton had reorganized his shattered army within his defenses, with General Martin L. Smith on his left, General Forney in the center, General Stevenson on the right, and General Bowen in reserve. He had received a letter from Johnston, written on the 17th, saying: "If Haines's Bluff be untenable, Vicksburg is of no value and cannot be held... If it be not too late,

evacuate Vicksburg and its dependencies, and march to the northeast."

It was indeed "too late," and Pemberton, perplexed by conflicting orders from General Johnston and Jefferson Davis,' was compelled to remain and see the commencement of a close siege of his position, when he had only sixty days' rations for his troops.

1 Davis appears to have been exceedingly anxious to keep the horrors of war from his own State, without regard to the sufferings of others. He had sent Johnston to Tennessee in November previous, with full powers to control the armies under Bragg, E. Kirby Smith, and Pemberton, and yet he was continually interfering with his plans of campaign, and making every thing bend to the defense of his own State of Mississippi. When Bragg, menaced by Rosecrans in December, needed strengthening, he ordered Stevenson's brigade of ten thousand men to be detached from Bragg's command, and sent, without sufficient transportation, six hundred miles, to re-enforce Pemberton. Johnston had earnestly protested against the measure, but in vain, and Davis, stimulated by his inordinate conceit, and reveling in power, treated Johnston's opinions almost with contempt. And now, when Johnston was more intent upon saving Pemberton's army than Vicksburg or Port Hudson, and directed him to unite his forces and beat Grant, saying, "Success will win back all you will abandon to gain it," Davis, without Johnston's knowledge, telegraphed to Pemberton (May 7, 1868) to hold both Vicksburg and Port Hudson. It was this order that made Pemberton so weak that he could not avoid being finally shut up in Vicksburg by Grant.

POSSESSION OF VICKSBURG DESIRABLE.

615

of pickets.

CHAPTER XXIII.

SIEGE AND CAPTURE OF VICKSBURG AND PORT HUDSON.

N immediate assault upon the defenses of Vicksburg seemed to Grant an imperative necessity. His army was not strong enough to invest the post so absolutely as to make a sortie by Pemberton, for the purpose of joining his forces with Johnston, in Grant's rear, an impossibility. He was holding a line almost twenty miles in extent, from the Yazoo to the Mississippi at Warrenton, and so thin on its extreme left that it was little more than a series Johnston was at Canton, receiving re-enforcements from Bragg's army, in Tennessee, for his five thousand troops with whom he fled from Jackson.' He was making every exertion in his power to collect a force sufficient to warrant him in falling upon Grant's rear, and endeavoring to compel him to raise the siege. That danger was imminent, and there seemed but one way to avert it, and that was by a speedy capture of the post and garrison. If Grant could possess himself of Vicksburg immediately, he might turn upon Johnston and drive him from the State of Mississippi, and, holding all of the railroads, and practical military highways, effectually secure to the Nationals all territory west of the Tombigbee River, thereby saving the Gov