On the 4th of January, 1863, General McClernand assumed command of the two corps that were commanded by Generals Sherman and George W. Morgan. A fortnight before, a Confederate boat had come out of Arkansas River and captured a mail boat, and it was known that there was a Confederate garrison of five thousand men at Fort Hindman, or Arkansas Post, on the Arkansas. It occurred to Sherman that there could be no safety for boats on the Mississippi near the mouth of the Arkansas till this post was captured or broken up; and accordingly he asked McClernand to let him attack it with his corps, assisted by some of the gunboats. McClernand concluded to go himself with the entire army, and Porter also accompanied in person. They landed on the 10th, below the fort, and drove in the pickets. That night the Confederates toiled all night to throw up a line of works reaching from the fort northward to an impassable swamp. On the 11th the whole National force moved forward simultaneously to the attack, the gunboats steaming up close to the fort and sweeping its bastions with their fire, while Morgan's corps moved against its eastern face, and Sherman's against the new line of works. The ground to be passed over was level, with little shelter save a few trees and logs; but the men advanced steadily, lying down behind every little projection, and so annoying the artillerymen with their sharp-shooting that the guns could not be well served. When the gunboats arrived abreast of the fort and enfiladed it, the gunners ran down into the ditch, a man with a white flag appeared on the parapet, and presently white flags and rags were fluttering all along the line. Firing was stopped at once, and the fort was surrendered by its commander, General Churchill. About one hundred and fifty of the garrison had been killed, and the remainder, numbering forty-eight hundred, were made prisoners. The National loss was about one thousand. The fort was dismantled and destroyed, and the stores taken on board the fleet. McClernand conceived a vague project for ascending the river farther, but on peremptory orders from Grant the expedition returned to the Mississippi, steaming down the Arkansas in a heavy snow-storm.
In accordance with instructions from Washington, Grant now took personal command of the operations on the Mississippi, dividing his entire force into four corps, to be commanded by Generals McClernand, Sherman, Stephen A. Hurlbut, and James B. McPherson. Hurlbut's corps was left to hold the lines east of Memphis, while the other troops, with reinforcements from the North, were united in the river expedition.
McClernand and Sherman went down the peninsula enclosed in the bend of the river opposite Vicksburg, and with immense labor dug a canal across it. Much was hoped from this, but it proved a failure, for the river would not flow through it. Furthermore, there were bluffs commanding the river below Vicksburg, and the Confederates had already begun to fortify them; so that if the canal had succeeded, navigation of the stream would have been as much obstructed as before. Still the work was continued till the 7th of March, when the river suddenly rose and overflowed the peninsula, and Sherman's men barely escaped drowning by regiments.
Grant was surveying the country in every direction, for some feasible approach to the flanks of his enemy. One scheme was to move through Lake Providence and the bayous west of the Mississippi, from a point far above Vicksburg to one far below. This involved the cutting of another canal, from the Mississippi to one of the bayous, and McPherson's corps spent a large part of the month of March in digging and dredging; but this also was a failure. On the eastern side of the Mississippi there had once been an opening, known as Yazoo Pass, by which boats from Memphis made their way into Coldwater River, thence into the Tallahatchie, and thence into the Yazoo above Yazoo City; but the pass had been closed by a levee or embankment. Grant blew up the levee, and tried this approach. But the Confederates had information of every movement, and took prompt measures to thwart it. The banks of the streams where his boats had to pass were heavily wooded, and great trees were felled across the channel. Worse than this, after the boats had passed in and removed many of the obstructions, it was found that the enemy were felling trees across the channel behind them, so that they might not get out again. Earthworks also were thrown up at the point where the Yallabusha and Tallahatchie unite to form the Yazoo, and heavily manned. Here the advance division of the expedition had a slight engagement, with no result. Reinforcements arrived under Gen. Isaac F. Quinby, who assumed command, and began operations for crossing the Yallabusha and rendering the Confederate fortification useless, when he was recalled by Grant, who had found that the necessary light-draught boats for carrying his whole force through to that point could not be had.
One more attempt in this direction was made before the effort to flank Vicksburg on the north was given up. It was proposed to ascend the Yazoo a short distance from its mouth, turn into Steele's bayou, ascend this, and by certain passes that had been discovered get into Big Sunflower River, and then descend that stream into the Yazoo above Haines's Bluff. Porter and Sherman took the lead in this expedition, and encountered all the difficulties of the Yazoo Pass project, magnified several times—the narrow channels, the felled trees, the want of solid ground on which troops could be manoeuvred, the horrible swamps and canebrakes, through some of which they picked their way with lighted candles, and the annoyance from unseen sharp-shooters that swarmed through the whole region. Porter at one time was on the point of abandoning his boats; but finally all were extricated, though some of them had to back out through the narrow pass for a distance of thirty miles.
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REAR-ADMIRAL HENRY WALKE. (Commander of the "Tyler" and "Carondelet.") |
In March, Farragut with his flagship and one gunboat had run by the batteries at Port Hudson, but the remainder of his fleet had failed to pass. Several boats had run by the batteries at Vicksburg; and Grant now turned his attention to a project for moving an army by transports through bayous west of the Mississippi to a point below the city, where Porter, after running by the batteries with his iron-clads, was to meet him and ferry the troops across to the eastern bank. The use of the bayous was finally given up, and the army marched by the roads. The fleet ran by the batteries on the night of April 16. As soon as it was discovered approaching, the Confederates set fire to immense piles of wood that they had prepared on the bank, the whole scene became as light as day, and for an hour and a half the fleet was under a heavy fire, which it returned as it steadily steamed by; but beyond the destruction of one transport there was no serious loss.
Bridges had to be built over bayous, and a suitable place discovered for crossing the Mississippi. New Carthage was tried, but found impracticable, as it was nearly surrounded by water. Grand Gulf was strongly fortified, and on the 29th of April seven of Porter's gunboats attacked it. They fired five hundred shots an hour for five hours, and damaged the works somewhat, but only killed or wounded eighteen men, while the fleet lost twenty-six men, and one boat was seriously disabled. Grant therefore gave up the project of crossing here, moved his transports down stream under cover of darkness, and at daylight on the 30th began the crossing at Bruinsburg. McClernand's corps was in the advance, and marched on Port Gibson that night. At dawn the enemy was found in a strong position three miles west of that place. There was sharp fighting all day, the Confederate force numbering about eight thousand, and contesting every foot of the ground; but the line was finally disrupted, and at night-fall they made an orderly retreat, burning bridges behind them. The National loss had been eight hundred and forty-nine men, killed, wounded, or missing; the Confederate, about one thousand. Grant's movements at this time were greatly assisted by one of the most effective cavalry raids of the war. This was conducted by Col. Benjamin H. Grierson, who with seventeen hundred men set out from La Grange, Tenn., on the 17th of April, and rode southward through the whole State of Mississippi, tearing up railroads, burning bridges, destroying supplies, eluding every strong force that was sent out to stop him, defeating several small ones, floundering through swamps, swimming rivers, spreading consternation by the celerity and uncertainty of his movements, and finally riding into Baton Rouge at the end of sixteen days with half his men asleep in their saddles. He had lost but twenty-seven.
The fortifications at Grand Gulf were abandoned. Porter took possession of them, and Grant established his base there. A bridge had to be rebuilt at Port Gibson, and then Crocker's division pushed on in pursuit of the retreating Confederates, saved a burning bridge at Bayou Pierre, came up with them at Willow Springs, and after a slight engagement drove them across the Big Black at Hankinson's Ferry, and saved the bridge. There was a slight delay, for Sherman's corps and the supplies to arrive, and then Grant pressed on resolutely with his whole army. He had with him about forty-one thousand men, subsequently increased to forty-five thousand; and Pemberton at this time had about fifty thousand.