William Tecumseh Sherman

On January 30, 1863, Ulysses S. Grant officially took command of the expedition against Vicksburg. McClernand’s “Army of the Mississippi” ceased to exist. Grant headed the Department of the Tennessee, and the forces he would lead against Vicksburg became known as the Army of the Tennessee. William Tecumseh Sherman was to command the Fifteenth Army Corps, while James B. McPherson would lead the Seventeenth Corps. McClernand’s authority was limited to command of the Thirteenth Corps, “charged with garrisoning the post of Helena, Arkansas, and any other point on the west bank of the river it may be necessary to hold south of that place.” Grant thus put the Illinois political general in the backwater of the movement against the great Confederate fortress. His key lieutenants would be Sherman and McPherson.¹

Grant minced no words in a message to the Department of War on February 1. “If General Sherman had been left in command here, such is my confidence in him that I would not have thought my presence necessary. But whether I do General McClernand injustice or not,” declared Grant unequivocally, “I have not confidence in his ability as a soldier to conduct an operation of the magnitude of this one successfully.” Grant added, “In this opinion I have no doubt . . . I am borne out by a majority of the officers of the expedition, though I have not questioned one of them on the subject.” Grant knew that Admiral Porter was of like mind, having “written freely [meaning relative to McClernand] to the Secretary of the Navy,” and requesting that his message be shown to Secretary of War Edwin Stanton.2

John McClernand wasted not an instant in protesting Grant’s takeover, although framing his message as a request for clarification. He claimed to have “projected the Mississippi River expedition,” as well as being “assigned to the command of it,” allegedly by the President. Was he now to be “entirely withdrawn from it”? Patiently, briefly and firmly, Grant replied to McClernand the next day, “I will take direct command of the Mississippi River expedition, which necessarily limits your command to the Thirteenth Corps.” McClernand was not ready to give up. Boldly he asserted his “right to command the expedition,” in justice to himself “as its author and actual promoter.” He requested Grant to forward all their correspondence on the subject to “the General-in-Chief, and through him to the Secretary of War and the President.”³

Grant did forward the papers as McClernand, whose attitude bordered on insubordination, had requested. Grant was confident that his assumption of command would be upheld. Back on January 12, General Halleck had instructed Grant, “You are hereby authorized to relieve General McClernand from command of the expedition against Vicksburg, giving it to the next in rank or taking it yourself.” Grant surely was pleased to have such authority, although he realized the timing was not then right to move against the political general. News of the triumph at Post of Arkansas had brought praise of McClernand in Illinois and the Midwest. Also, Grant wanted to gather more information. When he took action, he intended to do so from a position of sufficient strength, and he did. There would be no intervention from Washington.⁴

Sherman was pleased, of course, when he heard the news, having urged Grant, as had Porter, to take command of the Vicksburg expedition. He would have experienced even more satisfaction if McClernand could have been removed altogether from the army. Sherman was concerned that the scheming politician might yet find a way to undermine Grant and reclaim the leadership of the movement against Vicksburg. Moreover, the demotion of McClernand did not resolve other issues that continued to plague Sherman. The lack of discipline among the national volunteers, never far removed from his thoughts, was again brought to the fore in mid-January by the wanton burning of Napoleon, the village at the mouth of the Arkansas River.5

“I went in person to direct the extinguishment of the fire in Napoleon,” Sherman recounted, but “it was impossible to put it out.” It was “impossible to find out the incendiary,” he continued, declaring that “no man in the army has labored harder than I have to check this [unruly] spirit in our soldiers.” He stated that “we all [the army] deserve to be killed unless we can produce a state of discipline when such disgraceful acts can not be committed unpunished.” The defiant troops were still very much on Sherman’s mind when he wrote General Hitchcock a week after Napoleon was burned: “Plunder, arson & devastation mark the progress of our armies,” he said. “Houses are fired under our very feet & though hundreds know . . . who did it, yet the commanding General can not get a clue.” He asserted that soldiers made no distinction between friends or foe. “Even Negroes are plundered of their blankets, chickens, corn meal & their poorest garments.” Sherman wanted a disciplined army, and he certainly was not yet the legendary destroyer of Southern property—the monstrous devil of Georgia and the Carolinas—if indeed he ever actually became that man.⁶

Sherman was also stewing once more about the treatment he received from the newspapers. He did expect the reporters to blame him for the Chickasaw Bayou defeat. He predicted it in numerous letters. Many newsmen sought to assess blame whenever failure attended a mission, both to attract readers, and because they seemingly operated on the premise that defeat meant that the army commander was at fault. These facts Sherman knew. Possibly, however, he was not prepared for the reappearance of the “i” word. While the Chicago Tribune called for Sherman to be removed from command, the New York Times, in mid-January, spoke of the General’s “insane ambition,” his “madness” and the “insane attack” at Chickasaw Bluffs. Equally bad, both because of Sherman’s family connections, and the widespread influence of Cincinnati papers in the lower tier of midwestern free states, the Cincinnati Gazette, quoting another paper, claimed that on the Yazoo expedition Sherman had to be restrained in his stateroom “perfectly insane.”7

Undoubtedly Sherman himself brought on some of the newspaper problems, because of the high-handed manner in which he tried to restrain reporters while characterizing them as liars and spies. On the other hand, the all too frequent bias and inaccuracy of their reporting was deeply upsetting, and reporters sometimes, as Sherman charged, printed information that was valuable to the enemy—which, in Sherman’s definition, made them spies. His continuing personal war with the press, spiking again in early 1863, was yet another reason for the anger that motivated him to talk, once more, about quitting the army.⁸

Both the Ewings and the Shermans were worried that he might do just that. They became even more concerned—Ellen was nearly frantic—upon learning that he had written James Lucas and Henry Turner. “Among all the infamous [newspaper] charges,” Sherman told his two St. Louis friends, “none has give me more pain than the assertion that my troops are disaffected, mutinous and personally opposed to me. This is false, false as hell. My own division will follow me anywhere.” Then came Sherman’s shocking request: “If you see a chance for me to make a living, I would be much obliged for an early notice.” Thomas Ewing wrote his son Hugh Boyle, who by 1863 was serving with Sherman, “General Sherman was badly used by the President in placing that wooden-headed McClernand over him. He talks of resigning, but this will not do.” Such an action, declared Sherman’s father-in-law, would be “a terrible mortification to his family and friends and a triumph to his enemies. See him,” Ewing instructed Hugh, “and tell him how strongly we all feel on the subject.”⁹

John Sherman gave his brother “particular fits,” as the General described John’s reprimands upon hearing the talk of resignation. John said such an action would harm the family, and fail the country, the troops and his fellow officers in a time of crisis. Cump must not be defeated by newspaper correspondents and “the thoughtless interference of a fool President & by the jealousies of a few rivals.” If he resigned from the army, critics would see the act as proof of the incapacity of which they accused him. Ellen was equally straightforward, even more blunt about her husband’s quarrels with the news media and his threats to leave the army. With a level head, but clearly exasperated, she wrote about the newspapers, “You cannot do anything unaided against them & there is not one man in power who will unite with you against them. So dear Cump give up the struggle & suffer them to annoy you no longer.”

Three days later, relative to quitting the army, Ellen demanded, “Do you not see that you would thus be giving your enemies—the correspondents—the triumph they wish. They will then have written you down.” Soon Ellen was writing yet again, expressing an understanding of and sympathy with Sherman’s frustrations about the newsmen, but pleading with him not to leave the army: “If you abandon your country & her cause when so few are competent & willing to serve, I shall then indeed be distressed.” Wisely she reminded her husband that he labored in the service of his country. Admiring how he always had been “guided by duty and principle,” and had long withstood “the combined assaults of the unthinking and the malicious,” Ellen could not bear the thought that now, after all the trials he had weathered, he would succumb. “I tremble lest you have already resigned.” If he had, she begged him to recall his resignation. “I implore you by all that you hold sacred and dear not to encourage [such a] thought one moment longer.”10

Perhaps if Grant had not taken command of the Vicksburg operation and McClernand had been allowed to lead the expedition, Sherman actually would have resigned. Clearly the family took his threats to quit seriously. His loyalty to the Union never wavered, but dealing with McClernand and news reporters may have brought Sherman to the brink of stepping down. He did not leave the army, of course, although he continued mentioning the possibility in several letters into the spring of 1863. He did decide to court-martial a newspaper correspondent, Thomas W. Knox of the New York Herald, on charges of being a spy. The espionage charge was based on the idea that information about the Federal Army, appearing in Northern papers, soon made its way into the Confederate press, becoming readily available to the Rebel army. Sherman sought to make an example of Knox, hoping that other reporters—“the most contemptible race of men that exist”—would be cowed by such an action.11

Knox was chosen because Sherman considered his account of the Chickasaw Bluffs defeat both highly inaccurate, which it was, and particularly damaging, due to his paper’s widespread influence. The New York City papers were the leaders of the industry, and the New York Herald was then the single most important paper in the nation. Sherman harbored a particular dislike of Knox, whom he found arrogant and overbearing.¹²

Sherman had already orchestrated a recent, notable court-martial, in which he charged Colonel Thomas Worthington of the Forty-Sixth Ohio Infantry with insubordination and drunkenness. Sherman truthfully claimed that for a while he patiently shielded Worthington, refusing to take action against the officer because of “his West Point name, the sake of his family, & my belief that his own sense of Right” would in time lead to a change in the man’s behavior. But Worthington only grew worse. He was frequently drunk, and his critical pronouncements about Halleck, Grant, Sherman and others became increasingly obnoxious. When Worthington focused on Shiloh and the issue of surprise, and even began to publish his views, Sherman concluded that he “had forborne too long,” and preferred charges against the colonel.¹³

In a letter to his father-in-law, Sherman claimed that he gave Worthington “a good court, 13 high impartial officers,” and that the trial was “long, fair, and perfect,” after which the court found Worthington guilty and he was cashiered. Worthington probably deserved a court-martial, but he hardly received the “fair and perfect trial” that Sherman asserted. Sherman brought the charges, selected the “impartial officers” of the court and himself testified against Worthington. Sherman had become a powerful man, with influential military and family connections, and the members of the court would have known that he wanted Worthington kicked out of the army. When President Andrew Johnson reviewed the case a few years later, he granted Worthington an honorable discharge. The man did not go away quietly, criticizing Sherman to anyone who would listen, even after Sherman became general-in-chief of the army.¹⁴

The Worthington court-martial was a relatively inconsequential affair, however, when compared with Sherman’s action against Thomas Knox. Never before in American history had a newspaper correspondent been subjected to a court-martial—and never again has such a thing occurred. Even though Knox was a civilian, he was in a war zone, where civil courts were not functioning. Before the Civil War, the U.S. Army had devised military commissions to try civilians accused of military crimes in a war zone. Sherman hoped to establish a strong precedent that any civilian following an army was subject to military law. When Knox realized that Sherman was really out to get him—even if Sherman, as he assured both his brother and Admiral Porter, “did not want the fellow shot”—the reporter decided that his situation called for some major groveling.15

First claiming ignorance of Sherman’s order forbidding civilians to accompany the expedition against Vicksburg, Knox said he learned of the prohibition only after the army landed on the banks of the Yazoo. His New York Herald account of the battle at Chickasaw Bluffs admittedly had been based upon “exceedingly limited” sources of information. With later access to the “orders, plans, and reports” of the operation, he had realized “to my regret that I labored under repeated errors,” which had led to a number of “misstatements.” Actually, Sherman’s “plans and orders” could not possibly have been “more full and complete.” Never had Knox seen plans “so admirably calculated to cover every contingency.” The failure to achieve the objective could not possibly be attributed to any shortcoming of Sherman. “Deeply deploring” his errors, in what he grandiosely termed a “history” of the Yazoo operations, Knox stated that he had since become “fully convinced of [Sherman’s] prompt, efficient, and judicious management of the troops . . . from [the expedition’s] commencement to its close.” Altogether, Knox did a fine job of prostrating himself before Sherman. He simply had dug too deep a hole from which to crawl out. Sherman was in no mood to be lenient. Knox’s forthright admission of authoring such a sorry piece may have served to incense Sherman more. Probably Knox could never have appeased Sherman regardless of what he said.¹⁶

Thus the court-martial proceeded, convened at Young’s Point, Louisiana, on February 5, 1863. Three charges were brought against Knox: providing intelligence to the enemy, engaging in espionage and disobedience of Sherman’s orders. Sherman testified against Knox for two days and was the only witness for the prosecution. On February 18, the court acquitted Knox of the first two charges, but found him guilty of violating Sherman’s order banning civilians from the Yazoo expedition. As punishment, Knox was banished outside of army lines and ordered not to return on pain of arrest and imprisonment.17

Sherman was far from satisfied. He had wanted Knox convicted as a spy, and he wanted the man to serve time in prison. Neither happened, and worse, the President decided to revoke Knox’s banishment if Grant, as Sherman’s commanding officer, would approve. Lincoln had received a testimonial from some reporters and congressmen, requesting him to reverse the judgment of Knox’s court-martial. Trying neither to offend the newspapers nor the army—at least not any more than necessary—the President allowed Knox to visit Grant’s headquarters, but whether or not he could stay within army lines was for Grant to determine.¹⁸

Grant responded by immediately taking the offensive against the reporter: “You came here first in positive violation of an order from General Sherman,” Grant charged in his letter to Knox. “You attempted to break down his influence with his command. . . . You made insinuations against his sanity, and said many things which were untrue” about one of “the ablest soldiers and purest men in the country.” Although Grant normally “would conform to the slightest wish of the President,” he declared that “my respect for General Sherman is such that in this case I must decline, unless General Sherman first gives his consent to your remaining.”¹⁹

Grant had chosen to leave the decision to Sherman. It was an action for which Sherman was long grateful, and one that undoubtedly served to bind the two generals ever closer to each other. As for relenting, and permitting Knox to stay within army lines, such a thought was anathema to Sherman. “Come with a sword or musket in your hand . . . and I will welcome you as a brother and associate,” read his message to Knox, “but come . . . as the representative of the press . . . and my answer is, Never.”20

Knox realized that Sherman had won. He was finished as a reporter in the western theater. He soon left Grant’s headquarters and headed to the eastern theater, where he continued to work as a war correspondent. Ironically, if Sherman had not succeeded in banishing him from the Vicksburg campaign, Knox probably would have spent time in prison—a Confederate prison. Within a short time after he was banished, three reporters boarded a Union ship that attempted to run past the Vicksburg batteries. The powerful Rebel guns blasted the vessel apart. The reporters were captured, and spent more than a year and a half in an enemy jail. Knox later said that he certainly would have been accompanying them, except for the wrath of Sherman. When Sherman heard about the fate of the reporters—who initially were thought to have perished—he allegedly exclaimed: “Good! We’ll have news from hell before breakfast.” Such a growling response is the kind of utterance he well might have made.²¹

Sherman remained in a foul mood whenever he spoke of reporters, and he continued to bash them mercilessly in his letters to family. Ellen apparently feared that he might become physically violent with a correspondent. She warned him against losing his temper, and possibly taking the life of “a poor wretch unfit for earth.” Often in home letters, Sherman employed his rapier pen to relieve stress and frustration, but he remained angry that he had not achieved total victory against Knox.²²

Although Knox had escaped prison, Sherman accomplished his general purpose. The reporters had been cowed. They knew henceforward that they had to be very careful when they dealt with Sherman, if they expected to continue their work. In campaigns to come, he would succeed in totally controlling and stifling the press. While he maneuvered to implement his antipress views, Sherman assured Murat Halstead, the editor of the Cincinnati Commercial, who had come out strongly in his favor, “I am no enemy to freedom of thought, freedom of the ‘Press’ and speech.” Sherman’s court-martial of Knox dramatized the danger that war always poses to freedom of the press—all the more so because Sherman sincerely thought of himself as a champion of the United States Constitution. But he could not see, or would not see, that his stand against the press constituted a threat to the nation’s founding document, which he so revered.23

FORTUNATELY FOR SHERMAN and the army, he could not spend all of his time and energy warring against the press. By mid-March, the campaign against Vicksburg, “the hardest problem of the war”—as Sherman characterized the Rebel fortress in a letter to his friend Edward Ord—was heating up once more. Sherman’s Fifteenth Corps, upon the orders of Grant, had been struggling to deepen and widen the canal that Admiral Farragut began digging the year before. When Farragut departed, the canal was hardly more than a shallow ditch traversing the base of De Soto Point, the narrow, low-lying Louisiana peninsula directly across the great river from Vicksburg. The idea was that a formidable ditch, sufficiently wide and deep, would initiate a new channel for the Mississippi River. At some point, so ran the thinking, the mighty current of the river would be drawn to the massive ditch, as if it were a magnet. Thus the force of nature, in the form of the Mississippi, would inevitably take control, and finish the work of scouring out a new channel that would bypass the Vicksburg bastion.²⁴

Sherman never had much faith in the project, although he did loyally try to make it work. In truth, Grant did not think much of the idea either, but the project fascinated Lincoln, who wanted Grant to pursue it. A major difficulty of the scheme was that the canal’s northern end led out of a virtually stagnant backwater, where the Mississippi’s powerful current could have no erosive effect. Furthermore, even if the river had followed the new channel, the issue of the Vicksburg fortress still would not have been resolved. Sherman explained the difficulty in his February 22 letter to Ord: “The canal we are digging here does not Solve the problem, for the lower end of the Canal, although below Vicksburg, is not below the Walnut Hills, which are fortified for four miles below the outlet of the canal.” The outlet was within range of the Vicksburg guns, and nothing could prevent the Rebels from marshaling still more guns farther south along the bluffs, if necessary to continue commanding the river.25

Sherman’s men were also having to battle high water. The river just kept rising, as heavy rains inundated the region. Louisiana bayous were flooding in the rear of Sherman’s corps, and he had to throw up a levee along the west side of his big ditch to prevent being totally washed away. “The canal here is worthless,” he wrote John in early March, “and the Country is so overflowed with water that we are roosting on a narrow levee.” In a letter to Ellen, he deplored the canal’s slow progress, blaming it on “the rain & liquid mud,” and noted the “water above, below, and all round.” The rain at times was torrential, leaving the roads “simply quagmires”; and he told Ord, “We have no ground here even to bury our men save the levee.”²⁶

At least Sherman had been removed from the enemy’s line of fire for several weeks while he pursued the canal project. Ellen had to be pleased about that. Charley Ewing had written her that Sherman unnecessarily exposed himself in battle. Ellen told her husband that Charley said “at Arkansas Post you took the worst possible position for your own preservation.” Sherman responded, “I know better than Charley where danger lies, and where I should be.” At Arkansas Post the enemy could sometimes see him and, he readily admitted, “of course they fired at me.” However, in expressing his responsibilities as an army leader, as well as a sense of fair play, Sherman declared, “Soldiers have a right to See & Know that the man who guides them is near enough to See with his own Eyes, and that he cannot see without being seen.”²⁷

On the lighter side, Sherman seemed rather amused at some of Ellen’s comments about their children, especially the girls. He remarked on his wife’s “excessive vanity about Elly,” who was not yet four years old, and observed that he thought Ellen’s “discussion of their future husbands is a little remote.” Nonetheless, he slipped into a nostalgic, sentimental mood as his mind turned to their oldest child, twelve-year-old Minnie. “It seems but a day since Minnie came to New Orleans a baby, and you went back in the Tecumseh, and I am hourly reminded of the event by seeing the self-same Tecumseh plying about, looking rather old and seedy.”28

As for the war, no doubt Sherman felt like the canal work constituted little more than marking time, until “sooner or later,” as he wrote Colonel Benjamin H. Grierson, “we must get on shore & fight it out.” Grant also pursued two other projects in hope of getting around the Vicksburg guns. One began at Lake Providence, Louisiana, fifty miles upriver from Vicksburg, and only a short distance west of the Mississippi River. The concept was to open a channel from the Mississippi into the lake, from which a number of interconnected streams (and swamps) eventually led into the Red River. If this agonizing route could be made passable for gunboats and transports, then the Federals could steam down the Red River to its mouth, and turn up the Mississippi. Approaching the Rebel fortress from the south, the army could be landed on solid ground east of the river, with a supply line behind it.²⁹

The project was given to James McPherson’s Seventeenth Corps. Like Sherman with his canal, McPherson faced a tough assignment. The roundabout route involved a distance of approximately 450 miles. Securing such a long supply line, assuming the route could be made practicable for ships in the first place, would not be easy. And the project demanded a major construction effort, as much of the distance from Lake Providence to the Red River was filled with trees, which had to be cut down far enough below the water that ships could pass safely over the stumps. Initially Sherman thought the Lake Providence idea more promising than his canal, but after weeks of toil, the route would finally be given up as a lost cause.³⁰

Still another idea called for cutting the Mississippi River levee approximately two hundred miles above Vicksburg, at a place called Yazoo Pass, on the Mississippi side of the river. Union boats could then steam into Moon Lake, from which a narrow, torturous route led to the Coldwater River, which fed into the Tallahatchie, a stream eventually joining the Yalobusha, which in turn finally connected with the Yazoo. The hope was to land the army, after a 250-mile water trek, on solid ground east of the Yazoo, and a relatively short distance north of Vicksburg.

Grant decided to give it a try. When the army engineers blew a hole in the levee, “a miniature Niagara went boiling through Yazoo Pass,” in the words of Bruce Catton, and an impressive expedition headed eastward into the waterway. Navy gunboats were in the lead, followed by transports carrying the infantry. But the route quickly became extremely difficult, filled with snags. The stream turned sharply, frequently and sometimes confusingly, while a powerful current made steering difficult. Rebels were soon at work, felling trees across the route. Swamp areas proved nearly impassable, and the Union vessels, on some days, did well if they made two and one half or three miles. Then, at the confluence of the Tallahatchie and the Yalobusha, the Federals confronted little Fort Pemberton, an unimpressive Confederate structure. Alongside their fort, the Southerners had sunk the captured Star of the West, of Fort Sumter fame, in order to block the Tallahatchie channel. Fort Pemberton mounted only one rifled gun and a few smaller pieces—but they were enough.31

Already the problems presented by the treacherous waterway had nearly stopped the expedition. The tiny fort finished the job. The stream was so narrow that the gunboats could not mass their firepower. They had to approach the fort one at a time, and the Confederate guns more than held their own. The Federal infantry might have stormed the little bastion, except that the water channels and mosquito-infested swamps were deep, and there was no dry ground on which infantry could land and mount an assault. The Union soldiers, who outnumbered the Confederates in the fort by a wide margin, were useless in such exasperating circumstances. Thus the Yazoo Pass idea reached an inglorious end, and the vessels began withdrawing.

In the meantime Admiral Porter, who had been studying his charts and personally exploring several creeks and bayous, had come up with yet another route for landing the army on firm ground east of the Yazoo, from which a short advance on Vicksburg would be feasible. Porter soon sold the project to Grant, taking the general for a reconnaissance run over the first stretch of the proposed waterway. Grant, who had earlier been hopeful for the Yazoo Pass route, now turned his enthusiasm to the Steele’s Bayou expedition, as the project came to be known. He ordered Sherman, more than ever his favorite subordinate, to support the maneuver with a division. Sherman cooperated fully, pleased to get away from the futile canal, “where the Mississippi threatened to drown us.” He continued to think, however, as he told Ellen, “the original plan was best: Grant to come down by Land—Banks to come up and me to enter Yazoo.” Readily admitting the difficulties of “cooperation at such distances and over such long lines,” he still wanted to try the plan again, with more strength and more careful planning. At the moment, however, he threw himself wholeheartedly into the support of Porter’s new idea.32

The plan would take advantage of the remarkably high water flooding the bayous, creeks and rivers. Porter declared, in his naval history of the war, “that land usually dry for miles in the interior . . . had seventeen feet of water over it.” The water was deep enough for the ships, whether gunboats or transports, and could be expected to remain at adequate depth for a sufficiently long period. After first ascending the Yazoo for a few miles, the expedition would turn north into the mouth of Steele’s Bayou, a sluggish stream whose entrance was so dense with overhanging trees that, as Porter wrote, it “could scarcely be made out.” But when the obstructions were cut away, a wide pass “showed itself, lined out with heavy trees.” Proceeding up Steele’s Bayou for some forty miles (and Porter had not reconnoitered beyond Steele’s Bayou), the flotilla would turn eastward through Black Bayou, which soon joined Deer Creek, on which the northward trek was to be resumed, until its confluence with a lazy stream called the Rolling Fork. This bayou led southeastward, and eventually connected with the Sunflower River, which in turn led straight south and finally emptied into the Yazoo. The winding, agonizing course encompassed about two hundred miles, but it avoided Fort Pemberton and reentered the Yazoo well above the powerful Confederate batteries at Haynes’s Bluff.³³

Porter was convinced that he had found the answer to reducing the Vicksburg fortress. On Sunday, March 15, “one of the most remarkable military and naval expeditions that ever set out,” according to Porter’s description, got under way. The admiral himself led the voyage with five of his best ironclads, followed by four mortar boats and four tugs. Porter was aboard his flagship Cincinnati, accompanied by a pilot who claimed to know all about the country. Cheered with hope, Porter declared, “It was all fair sailing at first.” Sherman took his troops up the Mississippi to a point where the river bent eastward to within a short distance of Steele’s Bayou. There disembarking, the infantry tramped across a marshy stretch of land for a mile or so and boarded transports that had followed Porter’s war vessels. Porter was forging ahead with the gunboats, and the transports, once Sherman’s men were on board, steamed northward in the wake of the admiral.34

“The expedition went along finely,” Porter reported, “until it reached Black Bayou.” There the passageway narrowed, the appearance of the water lived up to its ominous name and the trees grew more dense, with thick branches meeting overhead, only a few feet above the gunboats, and banging destructively against their superstructure. Trees blocking the passageway, some of them two feet in diameter, had to be pushed over by the ironclads, while crews worked to cut away the branches above. “It was terrible work,” Porter said. The pilot assured him that once they got a little farther, the route would become better. The admiral observed that “it certainly could not get worse.” But he was wrong: it got a lot worse. The pilot proved to be a fraud, who had never seen the place. The armada’s advance, on March 16, slowed to a crawl.³⁵

The next day saw more of the same. If Porter chanced to remember that it was St. Patrick’s Day, he well might have wondered, when snakes dropped onto the Cincinnati’s deck from the low-lying branches as the ironclad ran into them, if that grand saint of the Emerald Isle who drove the serpents from Ireland had subsequently inflicted the reptiles upon the Mississippi Valley. The gunboats, in fact, knocked loose many creatures that had taken to the trees in an effort to avoid the high water. Coons, rats, mice, lizards and even wild cats landed on the decks from time to time. A few sailors drew duty with brooms, ordered to sweep the animal life over the side of the boats, as well as to remove the limbs of decayed trees, which often fell on the decks. An officer on the Cincinnati who was keeping a private journal observed that “the first dry land . . . since we left the Yazoo is now on our right.” Soon black people by the hundreds, according to Porter, flocked to see the novel sight of the gunboats struggling through the trees. They said the whites had fled their plantations upon the approach of the Federal vessels.36

The situation continued to get worse as the gunboats kept doggedly at their excruciating voyage up Deer Creek. Porter, at best, made no more than half a mile an hour. Then the Rebels began setting fire to thousands of bales of cotton that were piled on both sides of the stream. The passageway between the burning cotton became obscured with smoke and extremely hot. Told by a black man that the cotton would likely burn two days, maybe three, Porter decided to press on. The heat was so intense that paint on the boat blistered, and the admiral sought relief inside a small deckhouse covered with iron. He said breathing the smoke “was even worse than the heat.” Some of the crew who failed to find shelter were scorched. About the time the Cincinnati had passed through the cotton fires, there was a startling crash, which some first thought was an earthquake. In the dense, stifling smoke, no one had seen the span of a partially submerged bridge, laying directly ahead. The heavy gunboat had smashed right through it.³⁷

Eventually the ironclads took out three or four more bridges. Finally approaching Rolling Fork, the admiral found that, “for a distance of 600 yards, a bed of willows blocked the way.” Steaming ahead and hoping for the best, because Porter realized that “it would have taken weeks to remove the willows,” the Cincinnati was soon brought to a halt, with willow withes snagged in her rough iron, and also fouling the paddle wheels. Crewmen worked day and night with saws, knives, chisels and cutlasses to cut the ship loose. As the Federals slowly extricated themselves from the willows, with “the Negroes helping us eagerly,” according to the Cincinnati officer’s journal, the Rebels were gathering strength, hoping to capture the gunboats.³⁸

Confederate sharpshooters armed with Whitworth rifles began picking off sailors. The Southerners also felled trees across the channel ahead of the gunboats to block their advance. A Union patrol captured a handful of enemy soldiers, who claimed the Rebels were landing two batteries and a large party of infantry only a few miles away. Porter was already experiencing enemy artillery fire, and scouts sent ashore confirmed that Rebel infantry were approaching. “I was also informed that the enemy were cutting down trees in our rear to prevent . . . our escape. This,” reported the admiral, with remarkable understatement, “looked unpleasant.”39

He now faced the very real possibility of being trapped—unless Sherman, miles behind with the infantry, could somehow come up in time to ward off disaster. The more vulnerable wooden transports, with a superstructure taller than the gunboats, had fallen behind, as they experienced great difficulty in navigating the clogged waterways. But Sherman appeared to be Porter’s only chance of saving his valuable ironclads. The admiral could no longer go forward and, unless help came quickly, his gunboats would have to be scuttled. Along with other problems, he had been, as he afterward expressed his plight, “checkmated by the willows.”⁴⁰

Porter obviously needed to get word of his predicament to Sherman at once. A black man volunteered to carry the message (unfortunately, the courageous fellow is known today only as “Mr. Tub,” the name recorded by Porter). The admiral scribbled a brief note on a piece of paper, gave his messenger directions and hoped that somehow he would get through to Sherman. He did, delivering Porter’s plea for help after dark, probably sometime around midnight. “The Admiral stated,” Sherman recalled, “that he had met a force of infantry and artillery which gave him great trouble . . . killing the men who had to expose themselves outside the iron armor [in order] to shove off the bows of the boats, which had so little headway that they would not steer. He begged me,” Sherman continued, “to come to his rescue.”⁴¹

Sherman responded instantly. He had about 800 men with him, under command of Colonel Giles A. Smith, brother of Morgan Smith—with whom he had pushed on for some distance ahead of the main body of his division. He ordered Colonel Smith, with his troops, to start at once, rapidly work his way along the east bank of Deer Creek to the gunboats and to then assure Porter that he would be “coming up with every man I could raise” as fast as possible.42

Sherman said “the night was absolutely black” as he took a canoe and paddled some four or five miles down Black Bayou, until “luckily” he came up on the transport Silver Wave, which was bringing up two regiments of his infantry. Also gathering several parties of soldiers, who had been at work along the bayou, Sherman loaded them into an empty coal barge, towed by a navy tugboat, and headed back up the bayou, with the tug and barge leading the way, and the Silver Wave following. It was a wild ride in the early morning darkness, at a speed faster than normally would have been attempted during daylight, with the transport “crashing through the trees, [which carried] away pilot-house, smoke stacks, and everything above deck,” according to Sherman. Even so, the pace was slowing as more obstacles were encountered. He decided to put his men ashore and push through the canebrakes on foot, “carrying lighted candles in our hands,” until the dawn.⁴³

Meanwhile, Admiral Porter prepared for the worst. Guns were loaded with grapeshot and canister. The men were to sleep at the guns, ready to repel Confederates when they attempted to board. “Everything outside,” ordered Porter, should be “covered with slush [to make it as slick as possible], save our shot for the artillery.” The vessels must be defended “to the last,” he declared, “and when we can do no better, we will blow them up.” Whatever happened, Porter knew his ironclads must not fall into the hands of the enemy. Such a fate would be far more than an embarrassment. The ironclads would give the Rebels a naval strength never before enjoyed, put a new complexion on the war for control of the Mississippi, and delay the reduction of Vicksburg for weeks, possibly months. The survival of the gunboats very likely depended upon Sherman bringing up his infantry in time to drive off the enemy.⁴⁴

Through the morning hours, “knowing that moments were precious,” as Sherman said, he and his troops generally moved at double-quick time, occasionally resting briefly, as they followed the same route that Giles Smith had taken. “Being on foot myself,” Sherman declared, “no man could complain.” More than once the pace was slowed when they had to wade through swamps, where Sherman said the water came above his hips. He thought that the soldiers “were glad to have their general and field officers afoot, but we gave them a fair specimen of marching, covering about twenty-one miles by noon.” The time must have been around 1:00 p.m. when at last they neared the gunboats. Porter wrote that just then “a large body of Confederate troops were seen advancing directly through the woods . . . while the sharpshooters in redoubled numbers opened fire on the fleet not more than fifty yards distant.” Porter steeled himself for a desperate defensive stand, when suddenly a great din of musketry arose from the woods, as the head of Sherman’s column came upon the Confederates. The enemy seemed to be taken totally by surprise, and soon began pulling back. “Sherman arrived,” wrote Porter, as he generously gave credit where credit was due, “just in the nick of time.”45

Only moments before, an officer who had found a horse and realized that his commander ought to have a mount, had offered it to Sherman. The General swung up on the animal bareback and rode triumphantly along the levee, while sailors who gathered on the decks cheered him “most vociferously” as he went by. Porter thought that the sailors received Sherman “with the warmest cheers he ever had in his life.” For a general who loved the theater, it had to be thrilling, as well as satisfying, that he had been able to bring the army up before it was too late. But Sherman had also exposed himself to enemy sharpshooters, if any were still within range. One wonders if Ellen, always concerned about her husband unnecessarily placing himself in harm’s way, ever learned about that climactic ride.⁴⁶

He got away with it safely though and approaching Porter, according to the admiral, demanded how he ever “got into such an ugly scrape?” The General also demanded, although of course he already knew, “Who in thunder proposed such a mad scheme?” He declared, according to Porter, “This is the most infernal expedition I was ever on.” It probably was but, with the infantry at hand for protection, Porter was able, having unshipped the rudders, to back his ironclads downstream until eventually, upon reaching a broader channel, he succeeded in turning them around and heading back to the Yazoo.⁴⁷

On Tuesday, March 24, as the retreat continued, rain came down hard, as it did throughout much of the night. Some enemy troops followed the gunboats for a time, occasionally shooting at them from a distance, but with no hope of penetrating Sherman’s defensive screen. Many blacks were following, too. A naval officer observed that they “form a motley group indeed, of all ages and sexes, the lame, the halt, and the blind, as well as the stalwart and active.” They were “in high glee—‘going to freedom, sure,’ they say.” Their presence troubled Porter, who wrote, “I much fear that terrible scenes will be enacted in the district through which we went. The slave there has been told that he is free, and more than any place . . . [they] seem determined to maintain what, to them, seems a most precious boon. I do not blame them, for slavery exists in the worst form in the valley of the Mississippi.”48

By Wednesday the twenty-fifth, the Rebel pursuers had given up, and the Union infantry, knowing they had gotten away safely, were for a time “strewed all along the bank,” some cooking and others amusing themselves in various ways. Aboard the Cincinnati, the journal keeper described one of the infantry “games,” in which a soldier upon the back of a mule—and in the buff—would first attempt to force the animal to swim the stream, then “endeavor to climb a steep bank upon the opposite side; some twenty of them have already tried this feat and failed, still others try.” Without a doubt, both army and navy were thankful to see the futile Steele’s Bayou expedition come to an end.⁴⁹

Steele’s Bayou was the last attempt to get around the guns of Vicksburg by some convoluted water route. Admiral Porter, in a portion of his report to Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles, which he marked confidential, declared, “There is but one thing now to be done, and that is to start an army of 150,000 men from Memphis via Granada,^* and let them go supplied with everything required to take Vicksburg. Let all minor considerations give way to this and Vicksburg will be ours.” While praising Sherman—“No other general could have done better or as well as Sherman”—Porter commented bluntly, and a bit unfairly: “Had General Grant not turned back when on the way to Granada he would have been in Vicksburg before this.”50

Sherman was of like mind about the water routes, as he reported to army headquarters. Regarding the original objective of “finding a practicable point on the east bank of the Yazoo whereon to disembark my corps, I pronounce it impossible by any channel communicating with Steele’s Bayou.” In a letter to Ellen from “near Vicksburg,” on April 10, he stated, “The only true plan was the one we started with. This Grand Army should be on the Main land, moving south along the Road & Roads from Memphis, Holly Springs, and Corinth, concentrating on Granada, thence towards Canton where the Central Road crosses Big Black, and then on Vicksburg.” He thought that the gunboats and a smaller army should be at Vicksburg, “and on the first sign of the presence of the main force inland . . . should attack here violently.” This had been the plan at Oxford “in December last, is my plan now, and Grant knows it is my opinion.” Cautioning that only Ellen and her father should know his judgment, he warned that Thomas Ewing “must not write to the War Department as from me.” Sherman closed the topic forthrightly: “It is my opinion that we shall never take Vicksburg by operations by River alone.”⁵¹

GENERAL GRANT HAD no intention of returning the army to Memphis, however. Politically, he considered such a move unacceptable. Politicians, reporters, indeed the general public, would view it as a retreat—even worse, a defeat. John McClernand’s political clout might finally bring about the removal of Grant from command. A representative of the War Department, Charles A. Dana, arrived in early April, officially to investigate the paymaster department of the western theater, but actually to report on Grant for the benefit of Stanton and Lincoln. This Grant fully realized, as did Sherman, who wrote his brother John that Dana “is here I suppose to watch us all.”⁵²

Both Grant and Sherman received the man cordially, cultivating his goodwill. Dana was an intelligent fellow who, once he got to know the generals, and understood what had been occurring and why, soon became one of their strongest supporters. Adjutant General Lorenzo Thomas had shown up about the same time as Dana, on a mission to recruit blacks for the army, although rumors spread that he too was present to observe Grant. Undoubtedly Thomas—if he developed a negative view of Grant, and whether he had been instructed to keep an eye on the General or not—could be expected to express his opinions to Washington. As for recruiting blacks to serve in the Union Army, Sherman, predictably, was not pleased. “I would prefer to have this a white man’s war, & provide for the negro after the Storm has passed,” he told Ellen, “but we are in a Revolution and I must not pretend to judge. With my opinions of negros, and my experience, yea prejudice, I cannot trust them yet.” At the moment, though, dealing with Vicksburg remained Sherman’s number one concern.53

Of course Grant knew that conventional military strategy was exactly what Sherman and others advocated. But with good reason, he feared that going back to Memphis, arguably a sound military maneuver, well might result in his being relieved of command. Sherman’s thinking was more along the lines that politicians, newsmen and the public “would just have to take their medicine,” to employ a common expression. He seemed unwilling to acknowledge the political reality. Yet had McClernand—that “dirty dog, consumed by a burning desire for personal renown,” as Sherman referred to him in a letter to John—been summoned to replace Grant, Sherman would have been enraged. If Grant and Sherman could have been given an IQ test, Sherman would have scored higher than Grant. Nor did Grant possess the fund of knowledge that Sherman had amassed. But Grant, fortunately, evaluated the political situation more rationally than his chief lieutenant. Additionally, Grant’s perception of the Vicksburg campaign’s military intangibles, which involves a phase of intelligence difficult if not impossible to measure even today, was about to be proven superior, if success be the test, to that of Sherman.⁵⁴

Grant’s decision was to march the army south on the Louisiana side of the river and cross the Mississippi some twenty-five or thirty miles downstream from Vicksburg, in the vicinity of Grand Gulf. While the Army of the Tennessee marched, Admiral Porter would daringly run a number of his gunboats and transports down the Mississippi, directly past the Vicksburg batteries under the cover of darkness. The losses from the powerful, well-positioned Confederate guns might be heavy, but considering the end to be achieved, they would be justifiable. Porter agreed to make the run, although emphasizing to Grant that once south of Vicksburg, there could be no return for any reason. To ply slowly north against the strong current while taking scores, and possibly hundreds of hits from the Confederate guns, would ensure disaster, even for ironclads. Grant was not concerned about a return trip. He believed that enough vessels would succeed in making the run to ferry the army across the river, from which point, operating on dry ground, the infantry at last would be able to close in on Vicksburg from the south and east.

Sherman fully expected the plan to fail, and again urged Grant to take the bulk of the army back to Memphis and march on Vicksburg by way of Granada. He also wanted Grant to call upon McPherson and McClernand to express their strategy as well—and in writing. Knowing that the highly regarded McPherson opposed Grant’s plan, Sherman probably hoped that if he and “Mac,” as he fondly called McPherson, were both on record against the move, then Grant might reconsider. Even if not, at least John McClernand, whom Sherman believed had no real plan of action in mind, would be on record, whatever his opinion, and unable to later claim that he had favored a different strategy. However, Grant had made his decision. Sherman supported him fully, telling John that “it is my duty to cooperate with Zeal and I shall.”55

By mid-April, Grant was ready to make the move. On the night of April 16, “the desperate and terrible thing,” as Sherman memorably characterized the daring mission, got under way. Stealth was the key word, when Admiral Porter gave the signal to move out on that moonless but starry night. Orders had been issued that lights must be extinguished aboard all the ships, and the coal in the furnaces should be “well ignited, so as to show no smoke, that low steam should be carried, that not a wheel was to turn except to keep the vessel’s bow down river, and to drift past the enemy’s works fifty yards apart.” Six ironclads headed the procession, with Porter’s flagship Benton in the lead. The single wooden gunboat, for its own protection, was lashed to the starboard side of an ironclad. Three transports, loaded with supplies, followed the ironclads, with a seventh ironclad bringing up the rear. Most of the vessels had coal barges lashed to their starboard side. Concluding the parade was an ammunition barge. If blown up by enemy fire, it was hoped that damage to the ships ahead would be avoided.56

Porter’s flagship silently drifted past the first Confederate battery “without receiving a shot,” recalled the admiral, but as she came up on the next battery, the Vicksburg, Shreveport & Texas Railroad station, located on the right bank of the Mississippi, was set afire, with more fires soon blazing forth on both sides of the river, and lighting up the ships, “as plainly as if it was daylight.” Still the Rebel batteries did not open fire for several precious moments. The Confederates had been taken by surprise, as a number of artillery officers were attending a ball in one of Vicksburg’s finest mansions. Once alerted, they got to the river defenses as fast as they could. Just as Porter was beginning to think that he might have somehow gotten incredibly lucky, a spectacular, hellish scene—“grand in the extreme,” he said—suddenly burst upon him.⁵⁷

The guns of Vicksburg had come alive, and soon were thundering all along the waterfront. Porter’s flotilla, as ordered, headed at once to the Mississippi shore, increasing speed and returning fire, as they blasted the buildings along the docks. The admiral’s tactic caused many of the Rebel heavy guns, positioned thirty or forty feet above the river, to overshoot his vessels. It was difficult to depress the muzzles enough to strike boats hugging the Vicksburg shoreline. For all the sound and fury, Porter said that the damage was relatively minor, as the weak points on the sides of the boats “were mostly protected by heavy logs, which prevented many shots and shells going through the iron.” Sherman had taken up a position on a yawl, “out in the stream” below Vicksburg, and a little beyond range of the enemy guns. Fearful that a great many casualties would be suffered, he had ordered that four yawls should be “hauled across the swamps, to the river below Vicksburg, and manned with soldiers,” ready and waiting to pick up the wounded. The scene he witnessed was unforgettable. He thought the fires on both sides of the river, the roar of cannon, the bursting of shells and the transport Henry Clay, which became a blazing, floating wreck, drifting helplessly with the current before she went to pieces and sank, “made up a picture of the terrible not often seen.”58

Actually, the run past the batteries was a great success. Not a gunboat had been lost, even if some were rather badly beaten up, and only the Henry Clay was sunk. Another that had been disabled was taken under tow by an ironclad and pulled safely through. Only fifteen men, according to Porter, were wounded, and no one was killed. Sherman picked up the pilot of the downed transport, who was clinging to a piece of wreckage. When Porter’s flagship arrived beyond the guns, Sherman climbed aboard, yelling, “Are you alright, old fellow?” Learning both that Porter was fine and that the crew had suffered only minimal injuries, he enthusiastically offered congratulations and observed that Porter had done much better in front of Vicksburg than when he had been “grounding on willow-trees” during the Steele’s Bayou expedition. Sherman then proceeded to visit the other ships, extend his congratulations and express his pleasure that they had come through safely. After all, particularly since Steele’s Bayou, he had become rather a favorite of the navy, as well as the army. He was a tough and demanding general, but he seemed to like mingling with the men, and he conveyed a genuine concern for their well-being. He was on his way to becoming the military’s beloved “Uncle Billy.”⁵⁹

Soon Grant prepared for another run down the river, this time with six unescorted transports, which were loaded with hay, corn, medical supplies and other provisions. Only a few nights later, with army volunteers manning the vessels because their civilian crews refused to take the risk, the ships drifted south with the current until the enemy opened fire. Then they poured on the steam. Some of the ships were badly mauled, although all except one got through: the Tigress, former headquarters ship of Grant at Shiloh, and McClernand more recently, went down. Nevertheless, all the other vessels were usable, if only as barges to be towed across the river as ferryboats for Grant’s soldiers. Meanwhile, the Army of the Tennessee, McClernand’s corps in the lead, laboriously advanced through swamps and bayous, on the west side of the river, for nearly fifty miles to the vicinity of New Carthage. It was slow going, as the troops worked, slogged and tramped along, moving toward a rendezvous with Porter’s transports. McPherson’s corps was to follow McClernand, with Sherman bringing his corps up last.60

After Porter’s gunboats and transports had run past the Vicksburg batteries, Grant hurried south in order to be at hand when the army began crossing the river to the Mississippi shore. The general also continued his efforts to confuse John Pemberton, who remained in charge of defending Vicksburg. Already Sherman, acting upon Grant’s order, had sent Frederick Steele’s division far up the Mississippi, on an expedition through the Delta to Greenville. The objective was to divert Confederate attention from the army’s march south. It was also another chance to show the enemy what to expect when U.S. vessels traveling the Mississippi were fired upon. “Greenville has been a favorite point from which to assail our passing boats, and one object of your expedition,” Sherman instructed Steele, “is to let the planters and inhabitants on Deer Creek see and feel that they will be held accountable for the acts of guerrillas and Confederate soldiers who sojourn in their country for the purpose of firing on our passing boats.” By the time Steele departed from Greenville some three weeks into April, little was left of the town other than charred remains. Much of the outlying area was devastated, too.⁶¹

Sherman and Steele both believed that “the stores necessary for a family should be spared,” and Sherman, always concerned about military discipline, thought that “it injures our men to allow them to plunder indiscriminately the inhabitants of the country.” He said that soldiers “will become absolutely lawless unless this can be checked.” Yet he himself continued to employ a policy that was difficult, if not impossible to control. He wrote Steele, who wanted to aid the suffering at Greenville: “Whatever restitution you may make to the families along Deer Creek . . . will meet my hearty satisfaction.”⁶²

The foray into the Delta, which did get Pemberton’s attention, was not the only diversion that Grant inaugurated. On April 27, the Union commander sent a message to Sherman suggesting that he create a diversion up the Yazoo River. The Rebels still had strong fortifications along the Yazoo, at Snyder’s Bluff, Drumgould’s Bluff, and Haynes’s Bluff. If Pemberton should think that there was no longer any danger on the Yazoo, he just might send reinforcements south to Grand Gulf. A convincing feint by Sherman, up the Yazoo, would probably hold those Confederates in place. But Grant said he was “loth” to order his friend to carry out the diversion, explaining that “it would be so hard to make our own troops understand that only a demonstration was intended, and our people at home would characterize it as a repulse. I therefore leave it to you whether to make such a demonstration.” Grant had expressed his wishes with sensitivity—and perhaps with cunning.63

Sherman’s response the next day was exactly what Grant wanted. Did Grant think that Sherman cared what the newspapers might say! He assured his commander that he would “make as strong a demonstration as possible.” He would ensure that the troops fully understood the purpose, so as not to be disturbed when they were pulled out. As for the people back home, they could find out the truth “as they best can; it is none of their business.” Grant was engaged in “a hazardous enterprise, and for good reasons, wished to divert attention; that is sufficient to me, and it shall be done.” In cooperation once more with the navy, K. Randolph Breese commanding the flotilla, Sherman took Frank Blair’s division up the Yazoo aboard ten transports, accompanied by eight gunboats, for an “ostentatious” foray at Haynes’s Bluff.

For two days the gunboats dueled with the Rebel artillery, while Sherman’s soldiers engaged in animated skirmishing, after which Sherman returned his men to Young’s Point for the march to join up with Grant. Sherman claimed that the Yazoo diversion, “made with . . . pomp and display . . . completely fulfilled its purpose.” Bruce Catton agreed, writing that “Confederate Pemberton was completely taken in,” believing he was about to be attacked from the north. Recently historian Michael Ballard concluded that “Sherman’s troops did a poor job of selling their attack, and the Confederates suspected a diversion.” At the least, Sherman presented Pemberton with yet another enemy movement to ponder. He was already sorely confused, earlier thinking that Union ships heading south from Memphis, together with the abandonment of the Yazoo Pass and Steele’s Bayou expeditions, signified Grant was pulling back to Tennessee.64

By the time that Porter ran the Vicksburg batteries, another Union diversion was under way. In mid-April, Colonel Benjamin Grierson, commanding about 1,700 cavalry, rode out of La Grange, Tennessee, heading south into the heart of Mississippi. A thirty-six-year-old of average size, Grierson had been a music instructor and band organizer before the war. He disliked horses, having been kicked in the face by a pony when he was a boy, which left a lifelong disfigurement. After unsuccessfully protesting his assignment to the cavalry (for he hoped to serve in the infantry)—and unlikely as it might seem—he became an outstanding commander.

Grierson’s daring operation developed into one of the truly spectacular raids of the war, and well may have been the single most effective diversion in aid of Grant’s crossing downriver from Vicksburg. For more than two weeks, the Union troopers rode, passing east of Jackson, tearing up over fifty miles of railroad track, cutting telegraph wires, destroying bridges and all manner of war supplies, while generally wreaking havoc and successfully avoiding Confederate efforts to run them down. After covering approximately 500 miles, they arrived safely within Federal lines at Baton Rouge, having suffered only minimal casualties. Grierson, like Lord Byron, he wrote his wife, had awakened one morning “to find myself famous.” The real significance of Grierson’s ride was not the damage his troopers inflicted upon the enemy, but rather the impact the bold foray had on General Pemberton’s thinking. For several crucial days, Pemberton seemed to be focused as much on Grierson’s cavalry as he was on Grant’s army.⁶⁵

And Grant needed a few extra days. Plans to cross the Mississippi River were not proceeding as fast as he and Admiral Porter had intended. If Pemberton should awake to the imminent danger he faced and mass his forces to resist a Union landing in the Grand Gulf region, the Army of the Tennessee could be in serious trouble. The delay, in no small degree, was attributable to John McClernand, commanding the lead corps in the Union advance. He seemed not to grasp the necessity of hurrying, which frustrated Porter. Writing Grant that the run past the Vicksburg guns had been demoralizing to the Rebels, Porter warned, “Don’t give them time to get over it.” Pointedly he stated: “I wish twenty times a day that Sherman was here, or yourself.” When Grant joined up with Porter, he was not at all pleased by what he observed of McClernand’s performance. With Grant was Charles Dana, who reported, “The first thing which struck us on approaching the points of embarkation [for the crossing to the east bank] was that the steamboats and barges were scattered about in the river and in the bayou as if there were no idea of the imperative necessity of the promptest possible movements.”66

Furthermore, although Grant had ordered that officers must leave behind their horses and baggage, “McClernand carries his bride along with him,” Dana wrote the secretary of war, “with her servants and baggage.” Grant at once sent for McClernand, discussed with him the proposed attack “and ordered him to embark his men without losing a moment.” Grant then departed to deal with other business. Yet, by dark the next evening, “not a single man or cannon had been embarked.” Instead, McClernand had held an afternoon review of the Illinois troops in honor of visiting Governor Richard Yates, who delivered a speech—as did McClernand, naturally. “At the same time,” observed Dana, “a salute of artillery was fired, notwithstanding that positive orders had repeatedly been given to use no ammunition for any purpose except against the enemy.”⁶⁷

The problem was that John McClernand, although he wore shoulder straps, was a politician. He consistently manifested an arrogant sense of entitlement which often—the author is inclined to say usually—characterizes that profession. McClernand differed from others of the breed only in setting an exceptionally high degree of self-centered conduct. Perhaps if the man had been a competent military officer, Grant, Sherman, McPherson, Porter and others might have been more tolerant of his obnoxious behavior. But as Dana observed, McClernand’s “exceeding incompetency” became ever more evident. Dana eventually reported to Stanton that McClernand was not fit even to command a regiment. By that time, the Illinois politician had proven beyond a doubt that he was not qualified to command a corps.68

By April 29, Grant finally was ready to go, having succeeded in getting about 10,000 men of McClernand’s corps aboard the transports and barges. The plan was to have the navy silence the guns at Grand Gulf, then rapidly land the infantry under cover of Porter’s guns and carry the enemy fortifications by storm. Grant was mounting a formidable amphibious endeavor. For nearly 5½ hours, according to Grant, Porter pressed the attack, but to no avail. When Grant afterward went aboard Porter’s flagship to confer with the admiral, he remembered that “the sight of the mangled and dying men which met my eye as I boarded the ship was sickening.” Situated upon a high bluff, Grand Gulf appeared “as defensible upon its front as Vicksburg and . . . would have been just as impossible to capture by a frontal attack.”⁶⁹

Grant and Porter soon agreed upon another plan. The invasion force would move several miles farther south, while Porter’s gunboats, transports and barges would run past the Grand Gulf defenses under cover of darkness. Porter would then carry the infantry across the river some distance below Grand Gulf. The question was where to land, and Grant sent an intelligence gathering patrol across the river, with sharp-eyed staff member James Wilson among the group. The soldiers found a sympathetic slave. The man said that Bruinsburg, a little village about forty miles south of Vicksburg, was the best landing spot, because it provided a good road leading eastward to Port Gibson and on to Jackson. Grant was convinced.⁷⁰

On the morning of April 30, McClernand’s corps and one division of McPherson’s corps, a total of approximately 25,000 men, landed on the east bank of the Mississippi River and began tramping inland toward Port Gibson. “I felt a degree of relief scarcely ever equaled since,” explained Grant in his memoirs. “I was now in the enemy’s country, with a vast river and the stronghold of Vicksburg between me and my base of supplies. But I was on dry ground on the same side of the river with the enemy.” Grant won a battle near Port Gibson, defeating a detachment of Rebels from Grand Gulf, and called for Sherman to join him.71

VICKSBURG MAY 18–JULY 4, 1863

On May 19, and again on May 22, Grant attempted to take Vicksburg by assault. Map by Jim Moon Jr.

His redheaded friend did not share Grant’s sense of relief. Sherman still feared that Grant’s plan would fail. While he did expect Grant to make a safe lodgment on the Mississippi shore, “the real trouble,” he wrote Ellen, “will be the maintenance of the army there.” If the Confederate destruction of Grant’s supply depot at Holly Springs had caused him to pull back into Tennessee in December, “how much more precarious is his position now below Vicksburg, with every pound of provision, forage and ammunition to float past the seven miles of batteries at Vicksburg, or be hauled thirty-seven miles along a narrow, boggy road.” If Grant failed, Sherman believed that McClernand, a man possessing an “over-towering ambition and utter ignorance of the first principles of war,” would be left in command. In that case, Sherman assured Ellen, “you may expect to hear of me at St. Louis, for I will not serve under McClernand.”72

But Sherman also assured Ellen, “I will do all I can to aid Grant.” With his commander and a substantial part of the army already across the river, while many more troops were moving to join them, Sherman knew there must be no turning back, even if there were “great difficulty in the matter of food.” He fully anticipated this in a warning to Brigadier General James M. Tuttle, who was commanding one of his divisions. He cautioned Tuttle to “give the subject your whole attention [because] every ounce of food must be economized.” Like Sherman, Grant also was certainly concerned about supplies for the troops and, contrary to popular myth, Grant never intended to cut loose completely from a supply line.⁷³

On May 3, Grant reported to General Henry Halleck from near Grand Gulf: “The country will supply all the forage required for . . . an active campaign, and the necessary fresh beef. Other supplies will have to be drawn from Milliken’s Bend. This is a long and precarious route, but I have every confidence in succeeding in doing it.” The very same day, Grant instructed Sherman to send a wagon train to Grand Gulf, filled with rations. “The road to Vicksburg is open,” he told Sherman, and all they needed were “men, ammunition, and hard bread—we can subsist our horses on the country, and obtain considerable supplies for the troops.” On May 6, Grant informed Halleck: “I will move as soon as three days’ rations are received, and send wagons back to the Gulf for more to follow.” Three days later, Grant wrote Major T. S. Bowers, acting assistant adjutant general, that he “wished to impress upon the generals remaining on the Louisiana side of the Mississippi . . . that the wagon road from Milliken’s Bend . . . should be shortened by every possible means. . . . Meanwhile, all possible exertion should be made to keep the army supplied by the present route.” Grant ordered that “hard bread, coffee, and salt should be kept up anyhow, and then the other articles of the rations as they can be supplied.”74

When Sherman arrived east of Grand Gulf, and saw the situation firsthand, he sent Grant an urgent message to hold up, declaring on May 9 that “this road will be jammed as sure as life if you attempt to supply 50,000 men by one single road.” Grant responded, “I do not calculate upon the possibility of supplying the army with full rations from Grand Gulf. I know it will be impossible without constructing additional roads. What I do expect, however, is to get up what rations of hard bread, coffee, and salt we can, and make the country furnish the balance.” Grant had decided that the army would live partially off the land, with wagon trains bringing up such essential supplies as medicine, ammunition and some rations. As the thing turned out, the army lived in great part off the land, Sherman later reported, “and received little or nothing till our arrival” in front of Vicksburg. Grant’s offensive maneuver had taken Pemberton by surprise. Grant now possessed the initiative and he fully intended to keep it. “A delay,” he told Sherman, “would give the enemy time to reinforce and fortify.” Grant planned to move rapidly, and that is why he also decided not to cooperate with Nathaniel Banks, whose roundabout campaigning—whether he meant to join forces with Grant, invest Port Hudson or pursue some other objective—seemed lacking in focus.⁷⁵

And move Grant did, quickly advancing northeast toward Jackson, about sixty miles distant. General Pemberton, perhaps more confused than ever, anticipated that Grant would march at once on Vicksburg. Instead the Union commander swept between Pemberton’s army and the Confederate forces assembling at the capital. On May 13, Confederate General Joseph Johnston arrived from Tennessee to take command at Jackson, but his 6,000 men were not nearly enough to hold back Sherman and McPherson, who drove the Southerners out. Grant had successfully interposed his army between Pemberton and Johnston. He aimed to keep their forces separated, and he did.

After destroying railroads and war installations in Jackson, including “the arsenal buildings, the Government foundry, the gun-carriage establishment . . . and a very valuable cotton factory,” according to Sherman’s report, Grant turned the army westward, marching against Pemberton, whom he planned to force back into Vicksburg. Grant had approximately 30,000 men up, and Pemberton fought him twice, with a strength of about 20,000, first at Champion’s Hill, and again the next day at the Big Black River. Afterward the Confederate general retreated into the Vicksburg fortifications, where his total forces then numbered some 31,000.

By May 19, Grant had Vicksburg surrounded, holding a line from the Mississippi south of the town, to the Chickasaw Bluffs and the Yazoo River on the north. A full supply line was at once reestablished with the Mississippi River via the Yazoo, and all of the troops soon had rations issued to them. The strength of the Union Army would shortly reach 40,000, with more troops arriving from Memphis. Sherman’s Fifteenth Corps held the right of the line of investment; McPherson’s Seventeenth Corps was in the center; and McClernand, with the Thirteenth, held the left. It was too late for Johnston and Pemberton to unite their forces. Grant seemed to have everything going his way, and Sherman could at last join with his commander in experiencing a sense of relief.76

Riding with Grant along the Chickasaw Bluffs, from which the two generals gazed down upon the muddy Yazoo, Sherman said that, as Grant recalled the substance of his remarks, “up to this minute he had felt no positive assurance of success.” But now he had come to believe that this “was . . . one of the greatest campaigns in history.” While Vicksburg was not yet captured, “and there was no telling what might happen before it was taken,” nevertheless, “whether captured or not,” Sherman declared that Grant had conducted “a complete and successful campaign.” He accomplished what Sherman had believed could not be done; indeed, Grant possessed the essential qualities of an outstanding commander.77

But taking Vicksburg did prove difficult, more so than either Sherman or Grant expected when first they invested the Rebel citadel. Supposing that Vicksburg’s defenders were demoralized after the defeats suffered at Champion’s Hill and the Big Black River, General Grant ordered an assault on May 19. One vigorous attack just might break the Confederates decisively and conclude the campaign. The Rebels held high ground, however, along terrain naturally contoured for defense, with deep ravines and gullies running in varying directions, while their entire position had been strengthened by excellent fieldworks. In many places the Southerners could lay down a heavy crossfire, as well as frontal fire. Nevertheless, Grant had seen the Rebels break at the Big Black, despite fortifications, and he hoped for the same result. Sherman’s Fifteenth Corps, located northeast of Vicksburg, and closer to the enemy line than either McPherson or McClernand, would make the main effort.⁷⁸

The objective was Stockade Redan, a Confederate strongpoint blocking the grimly named Graveyard Road at the point where the road entered the Vicksburg defenses. For several hours Union artillery blasted both sides of the triangular-shaped bastion, the apex of which faced toward Sherman’s troops. The Yankee bombardment enshrouded the area with smoke but did little damage to the target. The guns ceased firing about two o’clock, and the cheering Federal infantry advanced on both sides of Graveyard Road. Courageously struggling forward against a lethal enemy fire, they got within less than a hundred yards of the redan, but could go no farther. Pinned to the ground, the Union soldiers blazed away at the Rebels during a long afternoon.

When they began running low on ammunition, both enemy fire and the rough terrain made it difficult to bring up more. The dire need for ammunition led to a dramatic act of heroism by one of the youngest soldiers in the Federal forces. When fourteen-year-old Orion P. Howe, a drummer boy with the Fifty-Fifth Illinois regimental band, realized that ammunition was desperately needed at the front, he gathered up all he could carry and successfully dashed forward to supply it. He made more than one trip, and was stopped only when, having been wounded in the leg, he spotted Sherman astride his horse on the Graveyard Road, and shouted to the General that the Fifty-Fifth Illinois needed more ammunition. Sherman ordered the boy to the rear at once, for treatment of his injury, also assuring the youngster that he would get the ammunition forward to the regiment. In recognition of his actions in that critical situation, Howe was awarded the Medal of Honor, the youngest recipient during the Vicksburg campaign.

But Sherman’s assault had failed; his Fifteenth Corps suffered more than 900 casualties. Neither McPherson nor McClernand accomplished anything of importance. The Southerners, behind strong fortifications, had fought with renewed determination. During the next two days the Union troops edged in closer to Vicksburg’s defenses. Perhaps the next attack, across a shorter distance, with less time under fire, would be triumphant. This time the entire army, deployed on a three-mile front, would simultaneously advance against the Rebel fortress.

The new assault, with Grant, Sherman, McPherson and McClernand synchronizing their watches, began at 10:00 a.m. on May 22. Once again, the primary objective for Sherman’s forces was Stockade Redan. Instead of advancing in line of battle, however, Sherman attempted a different tactic. His men were to charge in narrow column, as fast as possible, up Graveyard Road toward the Rebel fortification. Leading the assault were 150 volunteers, carrying scaling ladders, planks and other equipment. They were to cross the protective ditch in front of the redan and put the scaling ladders in position for the soldiers following, whose assignment was to climb the right side of the citadel. At the same time, a diversionary attack would be launched some distance farther away. The volunteers were engaged in a virtual suicide mission, and Sherman properly called them the “forlorn hope.”

They did manage, at a terrible cost of blood and life, to lay planks across the ditch, and place the scaling ladders against the side of the redan, but a murderous fire from the defenders prevented the attack from succeeding. Among the Medals of Honor awarded at Vicksburg, more than half went to members of the “forlorn hope.” Despite a “gallant” attempt (Grant’s word), the Union effort to storm the Vicksburg defenses had been thrown back all along the lines. Sherman was with Grant when a staff officer from McClernand rode up with a message. McClernand reported that “he had gained the enemy’s entrenchments at several points,” needed reinforcements and called for Sherman and McPherson to renew their attacks. Grant was very skeptical about McClernand’s claim, but when he repeated his request, Grant sent a reinforcing division from the Seventeenth Corps, and ordered Sherman and McPherson to attack again.79

Sherman said he then ordered another assault at 3:00 p.m., which proved “equally unsuccessful and bloody.” McPherson’s renewed effort met with the same result. McClernand’s report was false; he had gained nothing of significance, and the new attacks cost hundreds of additional casualties. Sherman and McPherson were furious, as was Grant. The commander thought seriously of relieving McClernand immediately but then decided to wait until Vicksburg fell. While siege operations progressed—for Grant did not intend to attack again—he would closely supervise all of McClernand’s operations, and “place no reliance upon his reports,” according to Charles Dana, “unless otherwise corroborated.” It was following the May 22 fiasco that Dana wrote Stanton that McClernand was not even capable of commanding a regiment.⁸⁰

As events developed, McClernand, ever full of himself, finally went too far, even for Grant’s patience. Near the end of May, McClernand issued an order, which actually was not an order at all, but a congratulatory address to the Thirteenth Corps—which soon appeared in the newspapers, first in St. Louis. McClernand credited his corps with spearheading the Vicksburg campaign, and in essence accused “General McPherson and myself,” as Sherman wrote Grant, “with disobeying the orders” of the commanding general on May 22, in not assaulting and allowing the enemy “to mass his forces against the Thirteenth Army Corps alone.” Sherman pronounced the accusation a “monstrous falsehood,” which it was.81

On June 18, Grant relieved McClernand of command, and assigned Edward O. C. Ord to take charge of the Thirteenth Corps. Sherman did not exaggerate when he wrote his brother that the “riddance” of McClernand “was a relief to the whole army.” Charles Dana made sure that Secretary of War Stanton understood that while “the congratulatory address . . . is the occasion of McClernand’s removal, it is not its cause.” The cause was “his repeated disobedience of important orders, his general insubordinate disposition, and his palpable incompetence for the duties of the position.” All the more was Grant’s action fully justified, Dana pointed out, because if Grant should be disabled and McClernand ascend to command the Army of the Tennessee, the result would be “the most pernicious consequences to the cause.”⁸²

FOR SIX WEEKS following the May 22 assault, the Union army besieged Vicksburg, steadily pressing the approach trenches closer and closer to the Rebel defenses. General Grant drew more troops from Memphis, bolstering his total forces to some 75,000. Food inside the enemy lines grew increasingly scarce, and the suffering became intense. “All day and night,” Sherman informed Ellen, “continues the sharp crash of the Rifle and deep sound of mortars & cannon hurling shot & shells at the doomed city.” Sherman wrote that he pitied “the poor families in Vicksburg,” where women and children “are living in caves and holes underground whilst our shot & shells tear through their houses overhead.” Vicksburg had to be “a horrid place,” he said, “yet the People have been wrought up to Such a pitch of enthusiasm that I have not yet met one but would prefer all to perish rather than give up.”⁸³

One day in the latter part of June, while visiting his outposts and pickets, Sherman came up on a farm where he found “a bevy of women,” awaiting the fate of their husbands and sons who were penned up in Vicksburg. He gave Ellen a brief summary of the encounter: “Do, oh do General Sherman spare my son, in one breath and in another,” the mother proclaimed “that Lincoln was a tyrant and we only Murderers, Robbers, plunders and the defilers of the houses and altars of an innocent & outraged People.” She and all the women “were real secesh, bitter as gall & yet Oh do General Sherman protect my son.” Several of the women began crying, “and Dolly [Sherman’s horse] & I concluded to go into the more genial atmosphere out in the Fields & Woods.” Sherman expressed his doubt that “History affords a parallel of the deep & bitter enmity of the women of the South. No one who sees & hears them but must feel the intensity of their hate.”84

Meanwhile, Grant had been troubled by rumors that Confederate General Joe Johnston was accumulating forces with which to come to the aid of Vicksburg. Grant sent Sherman to deal with the Johnston threat—if it should actually develop. On June 27, Sherman wrote Ellen from Bear Creek, twenty miles northeast of Vicksburg: “I am out here studying a most complicated Geography and preparing for Joe Johnston if he comes to the relief of Vicksburg.” Sherman sounded confident, saying that he had been riding “a great deal” as he examined the terrain, “and think I know pretty well the weak and strong points of this Extended Line . . . and if Johnston comes I think he will have a pretty hard task to reach Vicksburg.”⁸⁵

Johnston did not come, and by July 1, Grant’s lines had been pushed so close to the enemy that in some places only a few yards separated the antagonists. Grant gave orders to prepare for an assault on July 6, with good reason to believe that this time the army would be successful in smashing through the Confederate fortifications. It did not come to that, as the starving and demoralized enemy, some almost in mutiny, surrendered on July 4. Three days later, the Rebels at Port Hudson, upon learning that the Vicksburg bastion had capitulated, surrendered to Nathaniel Banks, who had finally arrived to place that fortification under siege. Sherman regretted that he did not have the opportunity to march into Vicksburg with Grant for the surrender ceremony, but he immediately sent hearty congratulations when Grant informed him on July 3 that Pemberton was about to capitulate. “Telegraph me the moment you have Vicksburg in possession,” he instructed. “If you are [already] in Vicksburg, Glory Hallelujah, the best fourth of July since 1776.” On July 4, he wrote Grant, “The telegraph has just announced to me that Vicksburg is ours. . . . I can hardly contain myself,” declared the effervescent general, “on this most glorious anniversary of the birth of a nation.”86

And to Ellen he soon wrote, “I want to hear from you after you hear of the fall of Vicksburg. I have bet you will get tight on the occasion. . . . Well I confess a saint would be justified in sinning on such a Fourth of July as we have just passed through.” Also, in his letter to Grant on July 4, Sherman victoriously declared that “the river of our greatness is free as God made it.” With the United States totally possessing the Mississippi, the hardest problem of the war, in Sherman’s assessment, had at long last been resolved, and he obviously felt that his wife, devout Catholic though she was, should “get tight” in celebration of the inimitable triumph.⁸⁷

* Spelled Grenada in the twenty-first century.