  Advance of General E. K. Smith.—Advance of General Bragg.—Retreat Operations in the West now claim attention. General Bragg, soon after taking command, as has been previously stated, advanced from Tupelo and occupied Chattanooga. Meantime General E. K. Smith with his force held Knoxville, in East Tennessee. Subsequently, in August, he moved toward Kentucky, and entered that State through Big Creek Gap, some twenty miles south of Cumberland Gap. After several small and successful affairs, he reached Richmond in the afternoon of August 30th. Here a force of the enemy had been collected to check his progress, but it was speedily routed, with the loss of some hundred killed and several thousand made prisoners, and a large number of small-arms, artillery, and wagons were captured. Lexington was next occupied; thence he advanced to Frankfort; and, moving forward toward the Ohio River, a great alarm was created in Cincinnati, then so little prepared for defense that, had his campaign been an independent one, he probably could and would have crossed the Ohio and captured that city. His division was but the advance of General Bragg's, and his duty to coÖperate with it was a sufficient reason for not attempting so important a movement. General Bragg marched from Chattanooga on September 5th, and, without serious opposition, entered Kentucky by the eastern route, thus passing to the rear of General Buell in Middle Tennessee, who, becoming concerned for his line of communication with Nashville and Louisville, and especially for the safety of the latter city, collected all his force and retreated rapidly to Louisville. This was a brilliant piece of strategy on the part of General Bragg, by which he manoeuvered the foe out of a large and to us important territory. By it north Alabama and Middle Tennessee were relieved from the presence of the enemy, without necessitating a single engagement. General Buell in his retreat followed the line of the railroad from Nashville to Louisville. General Bragg moved more to the eastward, so as to unite with the forces under General E. K. Smith, which was subsequently effected when the army was withdrawing from Kentucky. On September 18th General Bragg issued an address to the citizens of Kentucky. Some recruits joined him, and an immense amount of supplies was obtained, which he continued to send to the rear until he withdrew from the State. The enemy, having received reËnforcements, as soon as our army began to retire, moved out and pressed so heavily on its rear, under Major-General Hardee, that he halted and checked them near Perryville. General Bragg then determined there to give battle. Concentrating three of the divisions of his old command, then under Major-General Polk, he directed him to attack on the morning of October 8th. The two armies were formed on opposite sides of the town. The action opened at 12.30 P.M., between the skirmishers and artillery on both sides. Finding the enemy indisposed to advance, General Bragg ordered him to be assailed vigorously. The engagement became general soon after, and was continued furiously until dark. Although greatly outnumbered, our troops did not hesitate to engage at any odds, and, though the battle raged with varying fortune, our men eventually carried every position, and drove the Federals about two miles. The intervention of night terminated the action. Our force captured fifteen pieces of artillery, killed one and wounded two brigadier-generals and a very large number of inferior officers and men, estimated at no lees than four thousand, and captured four hundred prisoners. Our loss was twenty-five hundred killed, wounded, and missing. Ascertaining that the enemy was heavily reËnforced during the night, General Bragg on the next morning withdrew his troops to Harrodsburg. General Smith arrived the next day with most of his forces, and the whole were then withdrawn to Bryantsville, the foe following slowly but not closely. General Bragg finally took position at Murfreesboro, and the hostile forces concentrated at Nashville, General Buell having been superseded by General Rosecrans. Meantime, on November 30th, General Morgan with thirteen hundred men made an attack on a brigade of the enemy at Hartsville. It was found strongly posted on a hill in line of battle. Our line was formed under fire, and the advance was made with great steadiness. The enemy was driven from his position, through his camps, losing a battery of Parrott guns, and finally hemmed in on the river-bank, where he surrendered. The contest was severe, and lasted an hour and a half. The prisoners numbered twenty-one hundred. Late in the month of December General Rosecrans commenced his advance from Nashville upon the position of General Bragg at Murfreesboro. His movement began on December 26th by various routes, but such was the activity of our cavalry as to delay him four days in reaching the battle-field, a distance of twenty-six miles. On the 29th General Wheeler with his cavalry brigade gained the rear of Rosecrans's army, and destroyed several hundreds of wagons loaded with supplies and baggage. After clearing the road, he made the circuit of the enemy and joined our left. Their strength, as we have ascertained, was 65,000 men. The number of fighting men we had on the field on December 31st was 35,000, of which 30,000 were infantry and artillery. Our line was formed about two miles from Murfreesboro, and stretched transversely across Stone River, which was fordable from the Lebanon pike on the right to the Franklin road on the left. As General Rosecrans made no demonstration on the 30th, General Bragg determined to begin the conflict early on the morning of the 31st by the advance of his left. The enemy was taken completely by surprise, and his right was steadily driven until his line was thrown entirely back at a right angle to his first position and near to the railroad, along which he had massed reserves. Their resistance after the first surprise was most gallant and obstinate. At night he had been forced from every position except the one on his extreme left, which rested on Stone River, and was strengthened by a concentration of artillery, and now seemed too formidable for assault. On the next day (January 1st) the cannonading opened on the right center about 8 A.M., and after a short time subsided. The enemy had withdrawn from the advanced position occupied by his left flank; one or two short contests occurred on the 3d, but his line was unchanged. Our forces had now been in line of battle five days and nights, with little rest, as there were no reserves. Their tents had been packed in the wagons, which were four miles to the rear. The rain was continuous, and the cold severe. Intelligence was received that heavy reËnforcements were coming to Rosecrans by a rapid transfer of all the troops from Kentucky, and for this and the reasons before stated General Bragg decided to fall back to Tullahoma, and the army was withdrawn in good order. In the series of engagements near Murfreesboro we captured over 6,000 prisoners, 30 pieces of artillery, 6,000 small-arms, a number of ambulances, horses, and mules, and a large amount of other property. Our losses exceeded 10,000, and that of the enemy was estimated at over 25,000. After the battle of Shiloh, West Tennessee and north Mississippi were occupied by a force under General Grant. Subsequently this force was increased, and General Rosecrans assigned to its command. Many positions were held in West Tennessee and north Mississippi, extending from Memphis to the northeastern part of the State of Mississippi, with garrisons aggregating about 42,000 men. The most important of these positions was that of the fortified town of Corinth. As part of the plan to subjugate the Southwestern States, extensive preparations were made for an advance through Mississippi and an attack on Vicksburg by combined land and naval forces. A large number of troops occupied Middle Tennessee and north Alabama. To defeat their general plan, and to relieve the last-mentioned places of the presence of the enemy, General Bragg moved his army into Kentucky, which, by this time, the Federal Government thought it needless to overawe by the presence of garrisons. General Van Dorn and General Price commanded the Confederate troops then in north Mississippi. General Bragg, when he advanced into Kentucky, had left them with instructions to operate against the Federals in that region, and especially to guard against their junction with Buell in Middle Tennessee. Though Van Dorn was superior in rank, he had no power to command General Price, unless they should happen to join in the field and do duty together. General Price on this as on other occasions manifested his entire willingness to make a junction with his superior officer, and about the last of August proposed to General Van Dorn to join him, but at that time Van Dorn's available force for the field had been sent with General Breckinridge in his campaign against Baton Rouge. After that force had rejoined General Van Dorn, he wrote to Price, inviting him to unite with him, that, with their two divisions, they might make an attack upon Corinth, by the capture of which main position of the enemy in that section of the country he hoped to be subsequently able to drive him from north Mississippi and West Tennessee. Price felt constrained by his instructions to observe and if possible to prevent Rosecrans's forces in Mississippi from effecting a junction with Buell's in Tennessee; therefore the invitation was unfortunately postponed to a future time. Subsequently General Price learned that Rosecrans was moving to cross the Tennessee and join Buell; he therefore marched from Tupelo and reached Iuka on the 19th of September. His cavalry advance found the place occupied by a force, which retreated toward Corinth, abandoning a considerable amount of stores. On the 24th Van Dorn renewed in urgent terms his request for Price to come with all his forces to unite with him and make an attack upon Corinth. On the same day Price received a letter from General Ord, informing him that "Lee's army had been destroyed at Antietam; that, therefore, the rebellion must soon terminate, and that, in order to spare the further effusion of blood, he gave him this opportunity to lay down his arms." Price replied, correcting the rumor about Lee's army, thanked Ord for his kind feeling, and promised to "lay down his arms whenever Mr. Lincoln should acknowledge the independence of the Southern Confederacy, and not sooner." On that night General Price held a council of war, at which it was agreed on the next morning to fall back and make a junction with Van Dorn, it being now satisfactorily shown that the enemy was holding the line on our left instead of moving to reËnforce Buell. The cavalry pickets had reported that a heavy force was moving from the south toward Iuka on the Jacinto road, to meet which General Little had advanced with his Missouri brigade, an Arkansas battalion, the Third Louisiana Infantry, and the Texas Legion. It proved to be a force commanded by General Rosecrans in person. A bloody contest ensued, and the latter was driven back, with the loss of nine guns. Our own loss was very serious. General Maury states that the Third Louisiana regiment lost half its men, that Whitfield's legion suffered heavily, and adds that these two regiments and the Arkansas battalion of about a hundred men had charged and captured the enemy's guns. In this action General Henry Little fell, an officer of extraordinary merit, distinguished on many fields, and than whom there was none whose loss could have been more deeply felt by his Missouri brigade, as well as by the whole army, whose admiration he had so often attracted by gallantry and good conduct. It was afterward ascertained that this movement of Rosecrans was intended to be made in concert with one by Grant moving from the west, but the former had been beaten before the latter arrived. Before dawn Price moved to make the proposed junction with Van Dorn, which was effected at Ripley on the 28th of September, at which time Van Dorn in his report says: "Field returns showed my strength to be about 22,000. Rosecrans at Corinth had about 15,000, with about 8,000 additional men at outposts from twelve to fifteen miles distant." In addition to this force, the enemy had at Memphis, under Sherman, about 6,000 men; at Bolivar, under Ord, about 8,000; at Jackson, Tennessee, under Grant, about 3,000; at bridges and less important points, 2,000 or 3,000—making an aggregate of 42,000 in West Tennessee and north Mississippi. Corinth, though the strongest, was from its salient position the point it was most feasible to attack, and, under the circumstances, the most important to gain. Van Dorn, therefore, decided to move so rapidly upon it as to take it by surprise, and endeavor to capture it before reËnforcements could arrive. In a previous chapter notice has been taken of the character and conduct of General Price; here it is proposed in like manner to say something of General Van Dorn, rendered the more appropriate because of the criticism to which his attack upon Corinth has been subjected. He was an educated soldier, had served with marked distinction in the war with Mexico; indeed, had been quite as often noticed in official reports for gallantry and good conduct as any officer who served in that war. After its close he had served on the Western frontier, and in Indian warfare exhibited a like activity and daring as that shown in the greater battles with Mexico. Immediately on the secession of his native State, Mississippi, he resigned from the United States Army, and, together with his veteran commander in Texas, General Twiggs, commenced recruiting men for the anticipated war. He was among the first to leave the service of the United States, and came to offer his sword to Mississippi. In the military organization there authorized, he was appointed a brigadier-general, and, when the State troops were transferred to the Confederacy, he entered its service. Gentle as he was brave, and generous, freely sharing all the dangers and privations to which his troops were subjected, he possessed, like his associate Price, both the confidence and affection of his men. Without entering into details of the disposition of his troops in the attack on the works at Corinth, the result shows that they were skillfully made, and, though final success did not crown the effort, the failure was due to other causes than the defect of plan or want of energy and personal effort on the part of Van Dorn. His opponent, Rosecrans, was an engineer of high ability, and proved himself one of the best generals in the United States Army. He had materially strengthened the works around Corinth, and had interposed every possible obstacle to an assault. Our army had moved rapidly from Ripley, its point of junction, had cut the railroad between Corinth and Jackson, Tennessee, and at daybreak on the 3d of March was deployed for attack. By ten o'clock our force confronted the enemy inside his intrenchments. In half an hour the whole line of outer works was carried, the obstructions passed, and the battle opened in earnest; the foe, obstinately disputing every point, was finally driven from his second line of detached works, and at sunset had retreated to the innermost lines. The battle had been mainly fought by Price's division on our left. The troops had made a quick march of ten miles over dusty roads without water; the line of battle had been formed in forests with undergrowth; the combats of the day had been so severe that General Price thought his troops unequal to further exertion on that day, and it was decided to wait until morning. Of this, General Van Dorn says: "I saw with regret the sun sink behind the horizon as the last shot of our sharpshooters followed the retreating foe into their innermost lines. One hour more of daylight, and victory would have soothed our grief for the loss of the gallant dead who sleep on that lost but not dishonored field." During the night batteries were put in position to open on the town at 4 A.M. At daybreak the action was to begin on the left, to be immediately followed by an advance on the extreme right. The order was not executed, the commander of the wing which was to make the attack failed to do so, and another officer was sent to take his place. In the mean time the center became engaged, and the action extended to the left. The plan had been disarranged; nevertheless, the center and left pushed forward and planted their colors on the last stronghold of the enemy; his "heavy guns were silenced, and all seemed about to be ended, when a heavy fire from fresh troops that had succeeded in reaching Corinth was poured into our thin ranks," and, with this combined assault on Price's exhausted corps, which had sustained the whole conflict, those gallant troops were driven back. The day was lost. The enemy, reËnforced, was concentrated against our left, and Lovell's division, which was at this time advancing, pursuant to orders, and was on the point of assaulting the works, was ordered to move to the left to prevent a sortie, and cover their retreat. Our army retired during the day to Chewalla without pursuit, and rested for the night free from molestation. Our loss was very heavy of gallant men and officers. In the fierce conflicts the officers displayed not only daring, but high military skill, their impetuous charges being marked by judicious selection of time and place. Colonel William S. Barry, who, as commander of the burial party, visited General Rosecrans, was courteously received by that officer, who, while declining to admit the command within his lines, sent assurance to General Van Dorn that "every becoming respect should be shown to his dead and wounded. . . . He had the grave of Colonel Rodgers, who led the Second Texas sharpshooters, inclosed and marked with a slab, in respect to the gallantry of his charge. Rodgers fell before Gates called on me to reËnforce him on the edge of the ditch of Battery Robbinet." [75] This officer, W. P. Rodgers, was a captain in the First Regiment of Mississippi Rifles in the war with Mexico, and the gallantry which attracted the admiration of the enemy at Corinth was in keeping with the character he acquired in the former service referred to. Of this retreat, that able soldier and military critic, General Dabney H. Maury, in a contribution to the "Annals of the War," wrote: "Few commanders have ever been so beset as Van Dorn was in the forks of the Hatchie, and very few would have extricated a beaten army as he did then. One, with a force stated at ten thousand men, headed him at the Hatchie Bridge; while Rosecrans, with twenty thousand men, was attacking his rear at the Tuscumbia Bridge, only five miles off. The whole road between was occupied by a train of nearly four hundred wagons, and a defeated army of about eleven thousand muskets. But Van Dorn was never for a moment dismayed. He repulsed Ord, and punished him severely; while he checked Rosecrans at the Tuscumbia, until he could turn his train and army short to the left, and cross the Hatchie by the Boneyard road, without the loss of a wagon." He then moved near Holly Springs, Mississippi, to await farther developments. In the mean time General Grant massed a heavy force, estimated at eighty thousand men, at various points on the Memphis and Charleston Railroad. Thence he moved south, through the interior of Mississippi, until he encamped near Water Valley. The country was teeming with great quantities of breadstuffs and forage, and he accumulated an immense depot of supplies at Holly Springs, and hastened every preparation necessary to continue his advance southward. Unless his progress was arrested, the interior of the State, its capital, Jackson, Vicksburg, and its railroads, would fall into his possession. As we had no force in front sufficient to offer battle, our only alternative was to attack his communications. For this purpose. General Van Dorn, on the night of December 15th, quietly withdrew our cavalry, amounting to less than twenty-five hundred men, from the enemy's front, and marched for Holly Springs. That place was occupied by a brigade of infantry and a portion of the Seventh Illinois Cavalry. The movement of Van Dorn was so rapid that early on the morning of the 19th he surprised and captured the garrison, and before eight o'clock was in quiet possession of the town. The captured property, amounting to millions of dollars, was burned before sunset, with the exception of the small quantity used in arming and equipping his command. General Grant was thus forced to abandon his campaign and to retreat hastily from the State. After the battle of Murfreesboro, which closed in the first days of 1863, there was a cessation of active operations in that portion of Tennessee, and attention was concentrated upon the extensive preparations which were in progress for a campaign into Mississippi, with Vicksburg as the objective point. The plan, as it was developed, was for a combined movement by land and river, the former passing through the interior of Mississippi to approach Vicksburg in rear, the latter to descend the Mississippi River and attack the city in front. General Pemberton, with the main body of his command, held the position on the Tallahatchie and Yazoo Rivers, and among the various devices to turn that position was one more ingenious than ingenuous. It was an offer to furnish, at prices lower than ruled in our markets, provisions of which we stood in need, to be sent through the Yazoo Pass and transported in boats through to the Yazoo River if we should desire. I had, some time before, directed that cypress rafts, as far as practicable, of sinking timber, should be thrown into the main channel leading down from the Yazoo Pass; and saw that, if it was not the purpose of the proposer, the effect of accepting the proposition would be to open a water line of approach from the Mississippi, below Memphis, then in the hands of the enemy, to the interior in rear of Vicksburg: for that reason, I resisted much importunity in favor of allowing the supplies to be brought in that manner. In the latter part of December General Sherman, having descended the Mississippi River, entered the Yazoo with four divisions of land troops and five gunboats, the object being to reduce our work at Haines's Bluff and turn Vicksburg so as to attack it in rear. The first point at which the range of hills extending from Vicksburg up the Yazoo approaches near to the river is at Haines's Bluff, some twenty miles by the course of the Yazoo from the Mississippi River. Here the troops were landed the 26th of December to attack the redoubts which had been built upon the bluff. On the 27th little progress was made. On the 28th the attempt, by one division, to approach the causeway north of the Chickasaw Bayou, was repulsed with heavy loss. The troops were withdrawn and moved down the river to a point below the bayou, there to unite with the rest of the command. At daylight on the 29th the attack was resumed and continued throughout the most of the day; the enemy were again repulsed with heavy loss. On the next day there was firing on both sides without conclusive results. On the 31st General Sherman sent in a flag of trace to bury the dead. [Illustration: Map of action of December 26-31] 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. On the 29th the enemy's gunboats came down and took their stations in front of our batteries and rifle-pits at Grand Gulf. A furious cannonade was continued for many hours, and the fleet withdrew, having one gunboat disabled, and otherwise receiving and inflicting but little damage. Among the casualties on our side was that of Colonel William Wade, the chief of artillery, an officer of great merit, alike respected and beloved, whose death was universally regretted. In a short time the fleet reappeared from behind a point which had concealed them from view. The gunboats now had transports lashed to their farther side, and, protected by their iron shields, ran by our batteries at full speed, losing but one transport on the way. On the evening of the 29th of April the enemy commenced ferrying over troops from the Louisiana to the Mississippi shore to a landing just below the mouth of Bayou Pierre. General Green with his brigade moved thither, and, when the enemy on the night of the 30th commenced his advance, General Green attacked him with such impressive vigor as to render their march both cautious and slow. As additional forces came up, Green retired, skirmishing. In the mean time Generals Tracy and Baldwin, with their brigades, had by forced marches joined General Green, and about daylight a more serious conflict occurred, lasting some two hours and a half, during which General Tracy, a distinguished citizen of Alabama, of whom patriotism made a soldier, fell while gallantly leading his brigade in the unequal combat in which it was engaged. Step by step, disputing the ground, Green retired to the range of hills three miles southwest of Port Gibson, where General Bowen joined him and arranged a new line of battle. The enemy's forces were steadily augmented by the arrival of reËnforcements from the rear. Our troops continued most valiantly to resist until, between nine and ten o'clock, outflanked both on our right and left, their condition seemed almost hopeless, when, by a movement to which desperation gave a power quite disproportionate to the numbers, the right wing of the enemy was driven back, and our forces made good their retreat across the bridge over Bayou Pierre. General Cockerell, commanding our left wing, led this forlorn hope in person, and to the fortune which favors the brave must be attributed the few casualties which occurred in a service so hazardous. General Bowen promptly intrenched his camp on the east side of Bayou Pierre and waited for future developments. The relative forces engaged in the battle of the 1st of May were, as nearly as I have been able to learn, fifty-five hundred Confederates and twenty thousand Federals. Fresh troops were reported to be joining Grant's army, and one of his corps had been sent to cross by a ford above so as to get in rear of our position. The reËnforcements which were en route to Bowen had not yet approached so near as to give him assurance of coÖperation. To divert notice from this movement to get in the rear of Bowen, on the morning of the 2d, Grant ordered artillery-fire to be opened on our intrenchments across Bayou Pierre. It was quite ineffectual, and probably was not expected to do more than occupy attention. During the forenoon Bowen sent a flag of truce to ask suspension of hostilities for the purpose of burying the dead. This was refused, and a demand made for surrender. That was as promptly as decidedly rejected, and, as the day wore away without the arrival of reËnforcement, Bowen, under cover of night, commenced a retreat, his march being directed toward Grand Gulf. General Loring with his division soon joined him. Directions were sent to the garrison at Grand Gulf to dismantle the fortifications and evacuate the place. On the morning of the 3d General Grant commenced a pursuit of the retreating force, which, however, was attended with only unimportant skirmishes; Bowen, with the reËnforcements which were marching to his support, recrossed the Big Black at Hankinson's Ferry, and all, under the orders of General Pemberton, were assigned to their respective positions in the army he commanded. While the events which have just been narrated were transpiring, Colonel Grierson with three regiments of cavalry made a raid from the northern border of Mississippi through the interior of the State, and joined General Banks at Baton Rouge in Louisiana. Among the expeditions for pillage and arson this stands prominent for savage outrages against defenseless women and children, constituting a record alike unworthy a soldier and a gentleman. Grant with his large army was now marching into the interior of Mississippi, his route being such as might either be intended to strike the capital (Jackson) or Vicksburg. The country through which he had to pass was for some distance composed of abrupt hills, and all of it poorly provided with roads. There was reasonable ground to hope that, with such difficult communications with his base of supplies, and the physical obstacles to his progress, he might be advantageously encountered at many points and be finally defeated. In such warfare as was possible, that portion of the population who were exempt or incapable of full service in the army could be very effective as an auxiliary force. I therefore wrote to the Governor, Pettus, a man worthy of all confidence, as well for his patriotism as his manhood, requesting him to use all practicable means to get every man and boy, capable of aiding their country in its need, to turn out, mounted or on foot, with whatever weapons they had, to aid the soldiers in driving the invader from our soil. The facilities the enemy possessed in river transportation and the aid which their iron-clad gunboats gave to all operations where land and naval forces could be combined were lost to Grant in this interior march which he was making. Success gives credit to military enterprises; had this failed, as I think it should, it surely would have been pronounced an egregious blunder. Other efforts made to repel the invader will be noticed in the course of the narrative. After the retreat of Bowen which has been described. General Pemberton, anticipating an attack on Vicksburg from the rear, concentrated all the troops of his command for its defense. All previous demonstrations indicated the special purpose of the enemy to be its capture. Its strategic importance justified the belief that he would concentrate his efforts upon that object, and this opinion was enforced by the difficulty of supplying his army in the region into which he was marching, and the special advantages of Vicksburg as his base. The better mode of counteracting his views, whatever they might be, it would be more easy now to determine than it was when General Pemberton had to decide that question. The superior force of the enemy enabled him at the same time, while moving the main body of his troops through Louisiana to a point below Vicksburg, to send a corps to renew the demonstration against Haines's Bluff. Finding due preparation made to resist an attack there, this demonstration was merely a feint, but, had Pemberton withdrawn his troops, that feint could have been converted into a real attack, and the effort so often foiled to gain the heights above Vicksburg would have become a success. When that corps retired, and proceeded to join the rest of Grant's army which had gone toward Grand Gulf, Pemberton commenced energetically to prepare for what was now the manifest object of the enemy. From his headquarters at Jackson, Mississippi, he, on the 23d of April, directed Major-General Stevenson, commanding at Vicksburg, "that communications, at least for infantry, should be made by the shortest practicable route to Grand Gulf. The indications now are that the attack will not be made on your front or right, and all troops not absolutely necessary to hold the works at Vicksburg should be held as a movable force for either Warrenton or Grand Gulf." On the 28th Brigadier-General Bowen, commanding at Grand Gulf, reported that "transports and barges loaded down with troops are landing at Hard-Times on the west bank." Pemberton replied by asking: "Have you force enough to hold your position? If not, give me the smallest additional number with which you can." At this time the small cavalry force remaining in Pemberton's command compelled him to keep infantry detachments at many points liable to be attacked by raiding parties of the enemy's mounted troops, a circumstance seriously interfering with the concentration of the forces of his command. Instructions were sent to all the commanders of his cavalry detachments to move toward Grand Gulf, to harass the enemy in flank and rear, obstructing, as far as might be, communications with his base. A dispatch was sent to Major-General Buckner, commanding at Mobile, asking him to protect the Mobile and Ohio Railroad, as Pemberton required all the troops he could spare to strengthen General Bowen. A dispatch was also sent to General J. E. Johnston, at Tullahoma, saying that the Army of Tennessee must be relied on to guard the approaches through north Mississippi. To Major-General Stevenson, at Vicksburg, he sent a dispatch: "Hold five thousand men in readiness to move to Grand Gulf, and, on the requisition of Brigadier-General Bowen, move them; with your batteries and rifle-pits manned, the city front is impregnable." At the same time the following was sent to General Bowen: "I have directed General Stevenson to have five thousand men ready to move on your requisition, but do not make requisition unless absolutely necessary for your position. I am also making arrangements for sending you two or three thousand men from this direction in case of necessity." The policy was here manifested of meeting the enemy in the hills east of the point of his debarkation, yet all unfriendly criticism has treated General Pemberton's course on that occasion as having been voluntarily to withdraw his troops to within the intrenchments of Vicksburg. His published reports show what early and consistent efforts he made to avoid that result. After General J. E. Johnston had recovered from the wound received at Seven Pines, he was on the 24th of November, 1862, by special order No. 275, assigned to the command of a geographical department including the States of Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, and parts of Louisiana, Georgia, and North Carolina. The order gives authority to establish his headquarters wherever, in his judgment, will best secure facilities for ready communication with the troops of his command; and provides that he "will repair to any part of said command whenever his presence may for the time be necessary or desirable." While the events which have been described were occurring in Pemberton's command, he felt seriously the want of cavalry, and was much embarrassed by the necessity for substituting portions of his infantry to supply the deficiency of cavalry. These embarrassments and the injurious consequences attendant upon them were frequently represented. In his report he states, after several other applications for cavalry, that on March 25th he wrote to General Johnston, commanding department, "urgently requesting that the division of cavalry under Major-General Van Dorn, which had been sent to the Army of Tennessee for special and temporary purposes, might be returned." He gives the following extract from General Johnston's reply of April 3d to his request: "In the present aspect of affairs, General Van Dorn's cavalry is much To this Pemberton rejoined that cavalry was dispensable, stating the positions where the enemy was operating on his communications, and the impossibility of defending the railroads by infantry. Referring to the advance of the enemy from Bruinsburg, Pemberton, in his report, makes the following statement: "With a moderate cavalry force at my disposal, I am firmly convinced that the Federal army under General Grant would have been unable to maintain its communication with the Mississippi River, and that the attempt to reach Jackson and Vicksburg would have been as signally defeated in May, 1863, as a like attempt from another base had, by the employment of cavalry, been defeated in December, 1862." Pemberton commenced, after the retreat of Bowen, to concentrate all his forces for the great effort of checking the invading army, and on the 6th of May telegraphed to the Secretary of War that the reËnforcements sent to him were very insufficient, adding: "The stake is a great one; I can see nothing so important." On the 12th of May he sent a telegram to General J. E. Johnston, and a duplicate to the President, announcing his purpose to meet the enemy then moving with heavy force toward Edwards's Depot, and indicated that as the battle-field; he urgently asked for more reËnforcements: "Also, that three thousand cavalry be at once sent to operate on this line. I urge this as a positive necessity. The enemy largely outnumbers me, and I am obliged to hold back a large force at the ferries on Big Black." This was done to prevent the foe passing to his rear. Large bodies of troops continued to descend the river, land above Vicksburg, and, to avoid our batteries at that place, to move on the west side of the river to reËnforce General Grant. This seemed to justify the conclusion that the main effort in the West was to be made by that army, and, supposing that General Johnston would be convinced of the fact if he repaired to that field in person, as well as to avail ourselves of the public confidence felt in his military capacity, he was ordered, on the 9th of May, 1863, to "proceed at once to Mississippi and take chief command of the forces, giving to those in the field, as far as practicable, the encouragement and benefit of your personal direction. Arrange to take, for temporary service, with you, or to be followed without delay, three thousand good troops," etc. On the 12th, the same day General Pemberton had applied for reËnforcements, he instructed Major-General Stevenson as follows: "From information received, it is evident that the enemy is advancing in force on Edwards's Depot and Big Black Bridge; hot skirmishing has been going on all the morning, and the enemy are at Fourteen-Mile Creek. You must move with your whole division to the support of Loring and Bowen at the bridge, leaving Baldwin's and Moore's brigades to protect your right." In consequence of that information, Brigadier-General Gregg, who was near Raymond, received cautionary instruction; notwithstanding which, he was attacked by a large body of the enemy's forces, and his single brigade, with great gallantry and steadiness, held them in check for several hours, and then retired in such good order as to attract general admiration. Meantime, bodies of the enemy's troops were sent into the interior villages, and much damage was done in them, and to the defenseless, isolated homes in the country. General Johnston arrived at Jackson on the 13th of May, 1863, and telegraphed to J. A. Seddon, Secretary of War, as follows: "I arrived this evening, finding the enemy in force between this place and General Pemberton, cutting off the communication. I am too late." In the order assigning General Johnston to the geographical Department of the West, he was directed to repair in person to any part of his command, whenever his presence might be for the time necessary or desirable. On the 9th of May, 1863, he was ordered to proceed at once to Mississippi and take chief command of the forces in the field. When he reached Jackson, learning that the enemy was between that place and the position occupied by General Pemberton's forces, about thirty miles distant, he halted there and opened correspondence with Pemberton, from which a confusion with consequent disaster resulted, which might have been avoided had he, with or without his reËnforcements, proceeded to Pemberton's headquarters in the field. What that confusion or want of co-intelligence was, will best appear from citing the important part of the dispatches which passed between them. On May 13th General Johnston, then at Jackson, sent the following dispatch to General Pemberton, which was received on the 14th: "I have lately arrived, and learn that Major-General Sherman is between us, with four divisions at Clinton. It is important to reestablish communications, that you may be reËnforced. If practicable, come up in his rear at once—to beat such a detachment would be of immense value. Troops here could coÖperate. All the troops you can quickly assemble should be brought. Time is all-important." On the same day, the 14th, General Pemberton, then at Bovina, replied: "I have the honor to acknowledge receipt of your communication. I moved at once with whole available force, about sixteen thousand, leaving Vaughan's brigade, about fifteen hundred, at Big Black Bridge; Tilghman's brigade, fifteen hundred, now at Baldwin's Ferry, I have ordered to bring up the rear of my column; he will be, however, from fifteen to twenty miles behind it. Baldwin's Ferry will be left, necessarily, unprotected. To hold Vicksburg are Smith's and Forney's divisions, extending from Snyder's Mills to Warrenton, numbering effectives seven thousand eight hundred men. . . . I do not think that you fully comprehend the position that Vicksburg will be left in; but I comply at once with your order." On the same day, General Pemberton, after his arrival at Edwards's Depot, called a council of war of all the general officers present. He placed General Johnston's dispatch before them, and stated his own views against the propriety of an advance, but expressed the opinion that the only possibility of success would be by a movement on the enemy's communications. A majority of the officers present expressed themselves favorable to the plan indicated by General Johnston. The others, including Major-Generals Loring and Stevenson, "preferred a movement by which the army might attempt to cut off the enemy's supplies from the Mississippi River." General Pemberton then sent the following dispatch to General Johnston: EDWARDS'S DEPOT, May 14, 1863. "I shall move as early to-morrow morning as practicable, with a column of seventeen thousand men, to Dillon's, situated on the main road leading from Raymond to Port Gibson, seven and a half miles below Raymond, and nine and a half miles from Edwards's Depot. The object is to cut the enemy's communication and to force him to attack me, as I do not consider my force sufficient to justify an attack on the enemy in position, or to attempt to cut my way to Jackson. At this point your nearest communication would be through Raymond." The movement commenced about 1 P.M. on the 15th, General Pemberton states that the force at Clinton was an army corps, numerically greater than his whole available force in the field; that— "The enemy had at least an equal force to the south, on my right flank, which would be nearer Vicksburg than myself, in case I should make the movement proposed. I had, moreover, positive information that he was daily increasing his strength. I also learned, on reaching Edwards's Depot, that one division of the enemy (A. J. Smith's) was at or near Dillon's." On the morning of the 16th, about 6.30 o'clock, Colonel Wirt Adams, commanding the cavalry, reported to General Pemberton that his pickets were skirmishing with the enemy on the Raymond road in our front. At the same moment a courier arrived and delivered the following dispatch from General Johnston: "CANTON ROAD, TEN MILES FROM JACKSON,"May 15, 1863, 8.30 o'clock A.M. "Our being compelled to leave Jackson makes your plan impracticable. Pemberton reversed his column to return to Edwards's Depot and take the Brownsville road, so as to proceed toward Clinton on the north side of the railroad, and sent a reply to General Johnston to notify him of the retrograde movement and the route to be followed. Just as the reverse movement commenced, the enemy drove in the cavalry pickets and opened fire with artillery. The continuance of the movement was ordered, when, the demonstrations of the enemy becoming more serious, orders were issued to form a line of battle, with Loring on the right, Bowen in the center, and Stevenson on the left. Major-General Stevenson was ordered to make the necessary dispositions for protecting the trains on the Clinton road and the crossing of Baker's Creek. The line of battle was quickly formed in a position naturally strong, and the approaches from the front well covered. The enemy made his first demonstration on the right, but, after a lively artillery duel for an hour or more, this attack was relinquished, and a large force was thrown against the left, where skirmishing became heavy. About ten o'clock the battle began in earnest along Stevenson's entire front. About noon Loring was ordered to move forward and crush the enemy in his front, and Bowen to coÖperate. No movement was made by Loring; he said the force was too strongly posted to be attacked, but that he would seize the first opportunity to assault if one should offer. Stevenson soon found that unless reËnforced he would be unable to resist the heavy and repeated attacks along his line. Aid was sent to him from Bowen, and for a time the tide of battle turned in our favor. The enemy still continued to move troops from his left to his right, thus increasing on that flank his vastly superior forces. General Pemberton, feeling assured that there was no important force in front of Loring, again ordered him to move to the left as rapidly as possible. To this order, the answer was given that the enemy was in strong force and endeavoring to turn his flank. As there was no firing on the right, the order was repeated. Much time was lost in exchanging these messages. At 4 P.M. a part of Stevenson's division broke badly and fell back. Some assistance finally came from Loring, but it was too late to save the day, and the retreat was ordered. Had the left been promptly supported when it was first so ordered, it is not improbable that the position might have been maintained and the enemy possibly driven back, although his increasing numbers would have rendered it necessary to withdraw during the night to save our communications with Vicksburg unless promptly reËnforced. The dispatch of the 15th from General Johnston, in obedience to which Pemberton reversed his order of march, gave him the first intelligence that Johnston had left Jackson; but, while making the retrograde movement, a previous dispatch from Johnston, dated "May 14, 1863, camp seven miles from Jackson," informed Pemberton that the body of Federal troops, mentioned in his dispatch of the 13th, had compelled the evacuation of Jackson, and that he was moving by the Canton road; he refers to the troops east of Jackson as perhaps able to prevent the enemy there from drawing provisions from that direction, and that his command might effect the same thing in regard to the country toward Panola, and then asks these significant questions: "Can he supply himself from the Mississippi? Can you not cut him off from it? Above all, should he be compelled to fall back for want of supplies, beat him? As soon as the reËnforcements are all up, they must be united to the rest of the army. . . . If prisoners tell the truth, the force at Jackson must be half of Grant's array. It would decide the campaign to beat it, which can only be done by concentrating, especially when the remainder of the eastern troops arrive. They are to be twelve or thirteen thousand." |
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