General Johnston's forces, about 6,000 strong, encamped the night of the 14th, 5 miles from Jackson on the Canton road. As many of the stores as could be run out of the city by railroads to Canton and Brandon, and by wagons, were safely removed, and General Grant's army was free to turn upon General Pemberton.
The situation in Mississippi was so serious that additional troops were ordered from South Carolina, and on May 15th the secretary of war directed General Beauregard to send Evans' brigade with all dispatch to General Johnston. The governor of South Carolina, the mayor of Charleston and General Beauregard all remonstrated with the President against stripping the coast of the State almost bare of infantry, but the President was firm in the belief that the enemy had but a small force in South Carolina; that his troops had gone to Virginia, North Carolina and to the southwest, and that 10,000 of all arms were sufficient for the defense of Charleston and the coast. Accordingly Evans' brigade—Seventeenth, Col. F. W. McMaster; Eighteenth, Col. W. H. Wallace; Twenty-second, Lieut.-Col. J. O'Connell; Twenty-third, Col. H. L. Benbow; Twenty-sixth, Col. A. D. Smith; Holcombe legion, Lieut.-Col. W. J. Crawley—went to Mississippi, and was assigned to the division of Major-General French, in Johnston's little army.
On the 20th of May, General Gist, with the balance of his brigade, joined General Johnston at Canton, and was assigned to Walker's division. Meanwhile the disastrous battles of Baker's Creek and the Big Black had been fought and lost by General Pemberton, and Grant was investing Vicksburg, with his army greatly increased. By the 4th of June, General Johnston had collected at Jackson, Canton and Yazoo City, and on the Big Black, a force of 24,000 infantry and artillery, and 2,800 cavalry under Gen. W. H. Jackson. This force was almost without transportation, and was deficient in ammunition for all arms. The Big Black river, impassable except by bridges, interposed between General Johnston's army and Grant's, and was guarded at every pass by intrenched forces from the army investing Vicksburg.
Johnston decided that an attack on Grant under these circumstances was impracticable, though urged by the secretary of war to make it. Pemberton had 18,000 or 20,000 effective troops in the defenses of Vicksburg, and on the 4th of June, General Johnston wrote him: "All we can attempt to do is to save you and your garrison." He urged a simultaneous attack at the same point with a view of extricating Pemberton, and proposed that it be made north of the railroad. But General Pemberton deemed himself too weak to attack his foe, strongly intrenched, and General Johnston held the same view on his part, so that the siege of Vicksburg progressed, Grant being secured in his intrenchments by his overwhelming numbers and powerful artillery from Pemberton in front, and by the fortified crossings of the Big Black from Johnston in rear.
Finally, on June 29th, General Johnston put his army in motion for the Big Black, the force effective for service being reported, June 25th, at 28,569, of all arms. General Johnston puts it, on the 29th, at a little over 20,000 infantry and artillery, and 2,000 cavalry, supplied with transportation, full equipment of ammunition, and a serviceable floating bridge. "This expedition," General Johnston wrote in his Narrative, "was not undertaken in the wild spirit that dictated the dispatches from the war department." On the 21st of June, the secretary of war had urged Johnston to attack General Grant for the relief of Pemberton, and had said: "The eyes and hopes of the whole Confederacy are upon you, with the full confidence to fail nobly daring, than, through prudence even, to be that you will act, and with the sentiment that it is better inactive."
Johnston moved to the Big Black, not indulging the sentiment of Mr. Seddon, that it was better to dare an attack and fail, than to remain only in observation of the siege. His purpose was to make a reconnoissance along the Big Black to find a point of attack, his hope being to extricate General Pemberton's army and not to raise the siege. These reconnoissances on the 1st, 2d and 3d of July satisfied him that an attack north of the railroad was impracticable, and before he had made his proposed examinations south of the railroad, Vicksburg capitulated. Learning this, General Johnston fell back to the fortified line around Jackson, where he was invested by three corps of Grant's army, under Sherman, which, by the 10th, were intrenched in front of Johnston's semi-circular line. Daily skirmishes took place, and the city of Jackson was well pelted with shot and shell until the night of the 16th, when Johnston crossed Pearl river, saving his stores and public property, and carrying off his entire force, artillery and wagon trains. Ultimately the army was encamped at and near Morton, Miss., on the 20th of July. The enemy did not follow except in small force, and after burning the town of Brandon, destroying the railroad bridges, and setting fire to the city of Jackson, which he utterly destroyed, on the 23d of July the ruined city was left to its distressed inhabitants, and Sherman's army returned to Vicksburg.
In the campaign above described, from May 20th to July 20th, Gist's brigade formed part of Walker's division, Evans' brigade of French's. The marches and countermarches to which they were subjected in the heat of summer, the men for the most of the time badly supplied with shoes and actually, at times, suffering for water fit to drink, fully tested the spirit and discipline of the brigade. In the short siege of Jackson, July 10th to 16th inclusive, Walker's division occupied a position on the left center of the line of defense, with its right on the Clinton road, the brigades posted as follows: Ector's, Gregg's, Gist's and Wilson's. Several casualties occurred in General Gist's brigade on the picket line, and in the trenches, but no return of them is available.
In the retreat from the Big Black, French's division reached Jackson in advance July 7th, and at daylight on the 9th, the troops were put in position in the trenches, Evans' brigade on the right resting on the Clinton road, with the batteries of J. F. Culpeper and B. A. Jeter on its front. On the 11th an effort was made to force in Evans' skirmishers, and handsomely repulsed by the Holcombe legion. The next attack was on Breckinridge, at the left of French, and the 13th was devoted to heavy cannonading. John Waties' battery was put in position at French's left. There was heavy firing all the morning of the 14th, with brisk skirmishing. Evans' line advanced, drove back the enemy, burned several small houses which sheltered the Federal sharpshooters, and then fell back to their line. Gist's brigade remained encamped near Morton until the latter part of August, when, in response to General Bragg's request for troops, Walker's and Breckinridge's divisions were ordered to report to him near Chattanooga.