Thereafter nothing important occurred until the latter part of January, when the troops under General Grant embarked at Memphis and moved down the Mississippi River to Young's Point, on the Louisiana shore, a few miles above Vicksburg. The expected coöperation by his forces with those of Sherman had been prevented by the brilliant cavalry expedition under Van Dorn, which captured and destroyed the vast supplies collected at Holly Springs for the use of Grant's forces in the land movement referred to. This compelled Grant to retreat to Memphis, and frustrated the combined movement which had been projected, in connection with the river campaign, by Sherman, and a new plan of operations resulted therefrom, in which, however, still prominently appears the purpose of turning Vicksburg on the north. After General Grant, descending the Mississippi from Memphis, arrived (2d of February, 1863) in the neighborhood of Vicksburg and assumed command of the enemy's forces, an attempt was made, by removing obstructions to the navigation of the Yazoo Pass and Cold Water, small streams which flow from the Mississippi into the Tallahatchie River, to pass to the rear of Fort Pemberton at the mouth of the latter. The never-to-be-realized hope was to reduce that work, and thus open the way down the Yazoo River to the right flank of the defenses of Vicksburg.
[Illustration: Map of action north of Vicksburg]
At the same time another attempt was made, by means of the network of creeks and bayous on the north side of the Yazoo, to pass around and enter the Yazoo above Haines's Bluff; but our sharpshooters, availing themselves of every advantageous position, picked off the men upon the boats, and Colonel (afterward General) Ferguson, with a few men and a section of field-pieces, so harassed and beset them that they were driven back utterly discomfited.
Admiral Porter had, with his fleet, gone some distance up Deer Creek, and, but for the land-forces sent to sustain him, would probably never have returned, an adventurous party having passed in below him with axes to fell trees so as to prevent his egress. He is described as follows:[76]
"I soon found Admiral Porter, who was on the deck of one of his ironclads, with a shield made of the section of a smoke-stack, and I doubt if he was ever more glad to meet a friend than he was to see me. He explained that he had almost reached the Rolling Fork, when the woods became full of sharpshooters, who, taking advantage of trees, stumps, and the levee, would shoot down every man that poked his nose outside the protection of their armor. . . . He informed me at one time things looked so critical that he had made up his mind to blow up the gunboats, and to escape with his men through the swamp to the Mississippi River."
This attempt to get through to Yazoo, above Haines's Bluff, had so signally failed, that the expedition was ordered back to the Louisiana shore above Vicksburg, where they arrived on the 27th of March, 1863. General Grant was now in command of a large army, holding various positions on the Mississippi River opposite to Vicksburg, extending from Milliken's Bend above to New Carthage below, with a fleet of gunboats in the river above Vicksburg, and another some eight miles below. Lieutenant-General Pemberton's military district included Vicksburg, and Major-General Gardner was in command at Port Hudson. These posts, as long as they could be maintained, gave us some control over the intermediate space of the river, about two hundred and sixty miles in length, and to that extent secured our communication with the trans-Mississippi. The enemy, after his repeated and disastrous attempts to turn the right flank of Vicksburg, applied his attention to the opposite direction. General Grant first endeavored to divert the Mississippi from its channel, by cutting a canal across the peninsula opposite to Vicksburg, so as to make a practicable passage for transport-vessels from a point above to one below the city. His attempt was quite unsuccessful, and, whatever credit may be awarded to his enterprise, none can be given to his engineering skill, as the direction given to his ditch was such that, instead of being washed out by the current of the river, it was filled up by its sediment.
[Illustration: Map of area north of Vicksburg]
Another attempt to get into the Mississippi, without passing the batteries at Vicksburg, was by digging a canal to connect the river with the bayou in rear of Milliken's Bend, so as to have water communication by way of Richmond to New Carthage. These indications of a purpose to get below Vicksburg caused General Pemberton, early in February, 1863, to detach Brigadier-General John S. Bowen, with his Missouri Brigade, to Grand Gulf, near the mouth of the Big Black, and establish batteries there to command the mouth of that small river, which might be used to pass to the rear of Vicksburg, and also by their fire to obstruct the navigation of the Mississippi.
On the 19th of March the flag-ship of Admiral Farragut, with one gunboat from the fleet at New Orleans, passed up the river in defiance of our batteries; but, on the 25th, four gunboats from the upper fleet attempted to pass down and were repulsed, two of them completely disabled.
On the 16th of April a fleet of ironclads with barges in tow, Admiral Porter commanding, under cover of the night ran the Vicksburg batteries. One of the vessels was destroyed, and another one crippled, but towed out of range. Subsequently, on the night of the 26th, a fleet of transports with loaded barges was floated past Vicksburg. One or more of them was sunk, but enough escaped to give the enemy abundant supplies below Vicksburg and boats enough for ferriage uses. On the 20th of April the movement of the enemy commenced through the country on the west side of the river to their selected point of crossing below Grand Gulf.