About 12.45 A.M. one our steamers, the Henry Clay, took fire, and burned for three quarters of an hour. The Henry Clay was lost by being abandoned by her captain and crew in a panic, they thinking her to be sinking. The pilot refused to go with them, and said if they would stay they would get her through safe. After they had fled in the yawls, the cotton bales on her deck took fire, and one wheel became unmanageable. The pilot then ran her aground, and got upon a plank, on which he was picked up four miles below.
The morning after Admiral Porter had run the Vicksburg batteries I went with General Grant to New Carthage to review the situation. We found the squadron there, all in fighting condition, though most of them had been hit. Not a man had been lost.
As soon as we returned to Milliken's Bend Grant ordered that six transport steamers, each loaded with one hundred thousand rations and forty days' coal, should be made ready to run the Vicksburg batteries. The order was executed on the night of the 22d. The transports were manned throughout, officers, engineers, pilots, and deck hands, by volunteers from the army, mainly from Logan's division. This dangerous service was sought with great eagerness, and experienced men had been found for every post. If ten thousand men had been wanted instead of one hundred and fifty, they would have engaged with zeal in the adventure. In addition to bulwarks of hay, cotton, and pork barrels, each transport was protected by a barge on each side of it. Orders were to drop noiselessly down with the current from the mouth of the Yazoo, and not show steam till the enemy's batteries began firing, when the boats were to use all their legs. The night was cloudy, and the run was made with the loss of one of the transports, the Tigress, which was sunk, and a few men wounded.
The day after these transports with supplies ran the Vicksburg batteries General Grant changed his headquarters to Smith's plantation, near New Carthage. All of McClernand's corps, the Thirteenth, was now near there, and that officer said ten thousand men would be ready to move from New Carthage the next day. McPherson's corps, which had been busy upon the Lake Providence expedition and other services, but which had been ordered to join, was now, except one division, moving over from Milliken's Bend. Sherman's corps, the Fifteenth, which had been stationed at Young's Point, was also under marching orders to New Carthage.
Grant's first object now was to cross the Mississippi as speedily as possible and capture Grand Gulf before it could be re-enforced; but first it was necessary to know the strength of this point. On the 22d Admiral Porter had gone down with his gunboats and opened fire to ascertain the position and strength of the batteries. He reported them too strong to overcome, and earnestly advised against a direct attack. He suggested that the troops either be marched down the west side from New Carthage to a point where they could be ferried over the Mississippi just below Grand Gulf, or that they be embarked on the transports and barges and floated past the batteries in the night.
The day after Grant changed his headquarters to Smith's plantation he went himself with General Porter to reconnoiter Grand Gulf. His reconnoissance convinced him that the place was not so strong as Admiral Porter had supposed, and an attack was ordered to be made as soon as the troops could be made ready, the next day, April 26th, if possible.
An irritating delay occurred then, however. McClernand's corps was not ready to move. When we came to Smith's plantation, on the 24th, I had seen that there was apparently much confusion in McClernand's command, and I was astonished to find, now that he was ordered to move across the Mississippi, that he was planning to carry his bride with her servants, and baggage along with him, although Grant had ordered that officers should leave behind everything that could impede the march.
On the 26th, the day when it was hoped to make an attack on Grand Gulf, I went with Grant by water from our headquarters at Smith's plantation down to New Carthage and to Perkins's plantation below, where two of McClernand's divisions were encamped. These troops, it was supposed, were ready for immediate embarkation, and there were quite as many as all the transports could carry, but the first thing which struck us both on approaching the points of embarkation was that the steamboats and barges were scattered about in the river and in the bayou as if there was no idea of the imperative necessity of the promptest movement possible.
We at once steamed to Admiral Porter's flagship, which was lying just above Grand Gulf, and Grant sent for McClernand, ordering him to embark his men without losing a moment. In spite of this order, that night at dark, when a thunderstorm set in, not a single cannon or man had been moved. Instead, McClernand held a review of a brigade of Illinois troops at Perkins's about four o'clock in the afternoon. At the same time a salute of artillery was fired, notwithstanding the positive orders that had repeatedly been given to use no ammunition for any purpose except against the enemy.
When we got back from the river to headquarters, on the night of the 26th, we found that McPherson had arrived at Smith's plantation with the first division of his corps, the rear being not very far behind. His whole force would have been up the next day, but it was necessary to arrest its movements until McClernand could be got out of the way; this made McClernand's delay the more annoying. General Lorenzo Thomas, who was on the Mississippi at this time organizing negro troops, told me that he believed now that McPherson would actually have his men ready to embark before McClernand.