Although Grant had made every effort to navigate the bayous and reach Vicksburg, he was later to record that little hope had been entertained that success would greet these ventures. While waiting for the dry season which would permit land operations, however, he had determined to exhaust every possibility and to retain the fighting edge of his army by keeping it constantly on the move. As April arrived and the roads began to emerge from the slowly receding waters, Grant prepared to execute the movement which he had believed from the first to be the logical approach against Vicksburg—marching down the west bank of the Mississippi through Louisiana, crossing the river south of the city, and laying siege to it from the rear.
PORTER RUNS THE VICKSBURG BATTERIES.
Grant’s Vicksburg campaign officially began on March 29, 1863, when he ordered McClernand’s Corps to open a road for the army from Milliken’s Bend to the river below the city. Considerable work had been done previously when it was contemplated that a canal from Duckport to the river below Vicksburg might offer passage to the fleet. Falling waters had finally defeated this plan and, during April, McClernand’s engineers labored to bridge streams, corduroy roads, and build flatboats to cross areas still covered by flood waters. During that month also, elements of the Army of the Tennessee accomplished the 70-mile march and assembled at a small hamlet appropriately named, Hard Times, in view of Grant’s unpleasant bayou experiences. Here they were across the river from the Confederate stronghold of Grand Gulf, 25 miles below Vicksburg.
Adm. David Dixon Porter, commanding the Union naval operations on the inland waters. Courtesy National Archives.
Porter’s gunboats running the Vicksburg batteries on the night of April 16, 1863. From a wartime sketch.
This remarkable wartime photograph, taken by a Confederate Secret Service agent, shows Grierson’s cavalrymen near the end of their 600-mile raid behind the Confederate lines. From Photographic History of the Civil War.
To ferry the Union Army across the Mississippi, it was necessary for Porter’s fleet, in anchorage north of Vicksburg, to run the batteries and rendezvous with Grant below. While naval craft singly and in groups had, on occasion, passed these batteries successfully before, it was still a formidable undertaking for which careful preparation was required. As protection against shellfire, each vessel had its port side, which would face the Vicksburg guns in passage, piled high with bales of cotton, hay, and grain. Coal barges were lashed alongside as an additional defense.