CHAPTER XX

THE VICKSBURG ADVENTURE

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E left Grant in Mississippi, where he spent the last six months of 1862 in holding on to the territory

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that the Union forces occupied after the battle of Shiloh. While he was establishing himself in northern Mississippi and western Tennessee he was contemplating an attack on Vicksburg, the last remaining Confederate foothold on the great river. In the fall of 1862 he moved down from Memphis through the state of Mississippi toward the Confederate river fortress. This was his first attempt at Vicksburg. It was brought to an end by the Confederates breaking his communications by the destruction of the Memphis railroad in his rear, and by their raid on his great supply depot at Holly Springs, Mississippi.

Mrs. Grant was at Holly Springs at that time, on her way to spend Christmas with her husband. She was accompanied by her slave maid Julia and her son Jesse-then a child of four. Jesse Grant says that his earliest recollection of the war "is the escape of mother and myself from Holly Springs, Mis

sissippi. . . . I remember now, as though it were yesterday, the young officer coming to tell us that the enemy was close upon the town, and the confusion of our hurried departure, at night, in a box car. I can see the dim, shadowy interior of the empty box car, with mother sitting quietly upon a chair, while I huddled fearfully upon a hastily improvised bed upon the floor. . . ."

Grant considered himself in a very serious situation. His

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army was without anything to eat, and the Confederates had demolished the only railroad over which he could obtain fresh supplies from the North. It went against his grain to turn back, but he did; and as he retreated he began to live on the country. The northern counties of Mississippi were rich in food, and the Union foragers took nearly everything that could be eaten in a belt of farming country about thirty miles wide. The army lived better than it had when it depended on government rations.

Grant said later that if he had known how easy it was to support an army in a food-growing country he would have disregarded the destruction of his supplies and continued on his way toward the south.

Before the disaster at Holly Springs there had appeared on the scene a general who did not belong to the Grant and Sherman group, or even to the clan of West Point. He had a letter from Lincoln in his pocket, a talkative tongue in his mouth, and some military ability in his head, mingled with a highly developed egotistical outlook on things. John A. McClernand was his name, Illinois was his home, and his intention was to capture Vicksburg with an army of his own.

Before the war McClernand had served in Congress and was popular with his fellow-citizens. When the war broke out he entered the army, and was soon made a major-general. His military elevation was not due wholly to political reasons. He had shown courage and considerable resourcefulness as a commander of troops at Belmont, Fort Donelson and Shiloh.

McClernand went to Washington in October, 1862, and conferred with the President. He was a fellow-townsman of Lincoln, and knew him well. He told the President that if he were given a free hand he felt sure he could take Vicksburg, and that he would personally raise an army in the Middle West for that

purpose.

Lincoln gave him a free hand, so McClernand thought, but there was a little unobtrusive string tied to his authority. He

was instructed, in a formal order, to proceed to Illinois, Indiana and Iowa, for the purpose of raising an army of volunteers, "to the end that, when a sufficient force not required by the operations of General Grant's command shall be raised, an expedition may be organized, under General McClernand's command, against Vicksburg.

McClernand's instructions were secret, and were to be shown only to the governors of the three states mentioned. Although his contemplated operations against Vicksburg fell within Grant's military district, no copy of the order was sent to Grant. This is perhaps indicative of the lack of confidence that was beginning to be felt in Grant in the lofty councils of Washington.

When McClernand left Lincoln he carried away the impression that he had been designated by the higher powers to besiege and capture Vicksburg. But the words "a sufficient force not required by the operations of General Grant's command"-inserted in his instructions like a piece of careless verbiage, vitiated the entire import of the document.

The appointment of McClernand had been opposed by Halleck, who was then acting as general-in-chief at Washington. Through some internal evolution of his own mentality Halleck had become friendly to Grant. He may have seen that Grant was the coming man.

In some way Grant, far down on the Mississippi, heard of the projected McClernand expedition. The news had an ominous sound. It looked as if Grant was about to be laid on the shelf of dusty generals. If he had seen McClernand's instructions from the War Department he would not have been alarmed, for in that case he would have ended the episode by needing all the troops McClernand could raise. But he was not sure what the administration intended, so he turned over his command to Sherman and took a steamer to Cairo to visit Admiral Porter and try to find out what had happened.

Porter told Grant that he had been to Washington, and had

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heard Lincoln say: "I have a greater general now than either Grant or Sherman. I have commissioned McClernand to raise an army and capture Vicksburg by way of the Mississippi.” And Porter added that he did not like McClernand, even if Lincoln did.

Grant reflected a moment. If he could get to Vicksburg ahead of McClernand, would not that give him a sort of right of way, so to speak? Of course it would, but he would have to move fast. He would need the help of the navy, and there was Porter, willing to coöperate in anything.

"How soon can you start down the river with your gunboats?" Grant asked, and Porter replied: "To-morrow morning." Grant then said that he intended to leave at once, having been in Cairo about an hour, and that as soon as he got back to Memphis he would send Sherman and as many troops as he could spare to the vicinity of Vicksburg.

"Well, I'll be there with the gunboats," Porter assured him.

McClernand's fate was settled. It would have been better for him if he had never seen Lincoln, for Lincoln's letter in his pocket, coupled with his pretensions and self-assurance, served to write his name in large letters on the black list of Grant and his friends. He stood next to Grant in rank, and was obviously hoping to step into Grant's shoes. The Grant-Sherman combination considered him a formidable menace. We shall now turn our attention to Vicksburg and come back to McClernand later.

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The town of Vicksburg stands on a bluff two hundred feet high on the east bank of the Mississippi. Before the town the huge river bends in a hairpin curve. From the edge of the bluff the view is magnificent. The western bank—and the land within the hairpin-is so low that any one standing on Vicks

burg hill can see across land and water to a far, dim-blue horizon. The smooth yellow Mississippi comes out of the West, sweeps in mighty grandeur before the town, and flows toward the West again. Batteries placed on this elevation commanded the river for miles in each direction when the Confederates had finished their fortifications in the spring of 1863.

The place was impregnable to any attack that could be made by way of the river. Iron-clad steamers might possibly run past the batteries, but they could do little or no damage to the Confederate works, on account of their inability to elevate their guns sufficiently.

The northern approach to Vicksburg by land was equally difficult, but in a different fashion. A few miles north of the town the Yazoo river, coming from the east, empties itself into the Mississippi. Its miles of swamps and shallow creeks-a wilderness of mud and fallen trees-formed a natural and impassable line of defense, except in one or two places, which the Confederates had fortified with batteries and rifle-pits.

From the east Vicksburg was approachable over a map full of ravines and broken hills, but it was not practicable for an armed force to advance from that direction without coming down through the center of the state of Mississippi, and through Jackson-the capital of the state-which lies about forty miles east of Vicksburg. This detour was necessary to avoid the Yazoo creeks and mud.

Grant's first attempt was made along this line. Sherman was sent up the Yazoo with 32,000 men, while Grant himself marched southward into Mississippi. Sherman landed at Chickasaw Bluffs, a few miles above Vicksburg. This is one of the places where an army might emerge from the Yazoo morass. The plan was that Sherman, landing at Chickasaw Bluffs, would keep the Confederate garrison occupied while Grant approached from the east. It was a thoroughly unsound piece of strategy. In the first place, the two coöperating columns were too far apart to be of assistance to one another;