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150 years ago the chase was on. General Pemberton's army was attempting to get back to Vicksburg and the safety of their defensive works, General Grant got his pursuit started in the morning. The last natural barrier was the Big Black River and Pemberton had prepared entrenchments in advance, anticipating the possibility which had now become a reality. Into these entrenchments on the east bank went three rebel brigades. Their job was to hold back Grant while the rest of the army made its escape across the water.
All three of Grant's Corps were closing in on Pemberton's position and in the process of the march, General Sherman's Corps passed over the plantation owned by the brother of Confederate president Jefferson Davis. Sherman arrived to find that his men were already in the process of looting and wrecking the outbuildings of the estate and he felt sorry for Joseph, the older brother of the president. Sherman ordered that the main plantation house was to be spared, but despite this, some soldiers broke into the carriage house and made off with a set of fine horses.
The Federals came upon Pemberton's new defensive position early in the morning and Grant saw that it was only a portion of the rebel army left to delay his progress. It was a strong position and Grant saw no reason to suffer many casualties taking it when it could easily be flanked by the superior numbers of the men in blue. To that end he ordered Sherman to swing to the right, cross the river upstream and come down on the rear of Pemberton's guard force.
General McClernand was worked up this morning. His poor showing at Champion's Hill the day before had generated criticism and the political creature was anxious to redeem himself with greater aggression today. Told that all he needed to do was to hold the rebels in place while Sherman got around to the rear, McClernand instead decided to reap the glory for himself. For once it worked.
His men stormed forward enduring severe fire and 199 casualties in the three minutes it took to close with the defenders. Once there the rebels broke and ran. The day before Pemberton had lost a division when General Loring had wandered away, today the bridge across the Big Black was burned prematurely, leaving one of the defending brigades, 1200 men, trapped and captured. In total Pemberton lost 1751 casualties while Grant's losses were but 279.
Pemberton's army, sans one division and one brigade along with the battle casualties, staggered into Vicksburg that night in a disorganized and demoralized manner. Grant wasted no time getting his army across the Big Black and into siege positions around the city. Having experienced nothing but victories in this campaign, their morale was sky high and they seemed eager to have a go at the defensive works. Grant would give them their chance on the 19th.
It is not difficult to feel a bit sorry for General Pemberton, things had not been going his way. He had complied, against his better judgment, with General Johnston's orders to leave Vicksburg and attempt a link up with Johnston's force. Then Johnston had marched a day away in the other direction, leaving Pemberton to cope with General Grant's army by himself. All that Pemberton accomplished with his compliance was the reduction of his army in two battles with the Yankees. And now he was back where he started in his entrenchments.
150 years ago this morning Pemberton received this dispatch written by Johnston two days before.
Quote:
"If Haines' Bluff is untenable, Vicksburg is of no value and cannot be held.... Evacuate Vicksburg, if not too late, retreating to the northeast."
Johnston then marched his command to the NW to await Pemberton's arrival.
These orders were in conflict with the orders Pemberton had received directly from Richmond which commanded him to hold on to Vicksburg at all costs. Of course by this time Grant's army had arrived before Vicksburg and invested it for a siege, so even if Pemberton was inclined to choose to obey Johnston rather than the Secretary of War, he could not. (Johnston wasn't having much luck with his orders, he also had sent a message to Port Hudson ordering it abandoned, but it arrived a day after it had been invested by General Banks' army.)
While all was gloom for Pemberton, for Grant it was the opposite. He had conducted one of the brilliant campaigns of the war, boldly severing himself from his supply line, profoundly confusing his opponents about his intentions, and striking hard and fast everywhere he went. In three weeks of rapid marching and fighting, they had fought one major and four minor battles and were victorious in them all. They had prevented the junction of the enemy armies, causing one to retreat away from the theater of war and trapping the other inside his defensive works. They had inflicted 7000 casualties on their foes while absorbing fewer than 4500 of their own. Fifty rebel artillery pieces had been captured while the Federals had lost none.
Now they surrounded their objective and with their morale so high as to be described as giddy, they were anxious to finish the job. Grant decided to give them their chance, ordering an assault on the trenches by all three of his Corps to commence at 2 pm, 150 years ago today. So confident was Grant of success that the orders included instructions for keeping the men from leaving their units to loot after they had taken the city.
At 2 pm, the Federal artillery fired three shots from every gun, the signal for all units to advance. The men in blue rushed forward with cheers, expecting this to be the final event of the campaign. Instead they received one more lesson in the power of men with rifled guns and protective field works. The charge was shot to pieces and failed within the first twenty minutes of the attack. This was true across all fronts and there was little the Union troops could do but dig into the earth and wait for darkness to permit their retreat. 157 men in blue were killed and another 800 were wounded or captured. Pemberton's force lost but eight dead and 72 wounded.
This brought about an immediate reverse in morale, the rebels cheered by their easy repulse of the attack, the Federals demoralized by the first setback of any kind since they had crossed the river. Grant of course was unperturbed by the failure and immediately set to work planning a second assault on the 22nd.
Lack of preparation. That was what General Grant decided was to blame for the failure of the assault on Vicksburg two days earlier.
This would now be corrected. The next attack would be accompanied by a bombardment from the 200 field guns with Grant's army, as well as a shelling from Rear Admiral Porter's gunboats on the Mississippi. The assault troops would be equipped with scaling ladders and all three Corps would jump off simultaneously. That last aspect was arranged by the first time ever employment of synchronizing watches the night before. In the past, distant units which were supposed to coordinate attacks with others did so by listening for signal guns which told them when to move out. The double bombardments by land and sea before the attack would render that method useless, so Grant had all of his generals gather the night before and set their timepieces in harmony with one anther's. Everything was set for 10 am. 45,000 would be coming after 20,000 defenders in gray.
Right on time the artillery began blasting away and right on time the troops moved out in perfect coordination. General Sherman's Corps was on the right and they were met by a huge volume of fire which drove the attackers to the ground before anyone got close to the defenses. In the center, General McPherson's troops experienced the same fate. The only success of the day was on the left where General McClernand's men managed to make penetrations in the rebel line in two places, establishing a tenuous and partial hold on two forward Confederate forts.
McClernand was eager to convert his small gains into a glorious triumph for his career and he sent a message to Grant overstating his success and promising that if the other Corps could make a second diversionary attack, he could break through here on the left. Grant told Sherman that he "..didn't believe a word of it" but Sherman argued that if there was a chance of success that day, it would be foolish throw it away. He and McPherson agreed to renew their stalled attacks at 3 pm. Grant accepted their advice and detached a division from McPherson to bolster McClernand's promised breakthrough.
And then they all went forward once more and met the same result, blasted back by an intense volume of fire from rebels posted in trenches and ravines. Once more the Union men went to earth and waited for darkness to permit their retreat. While waiting, the Confederates amused themselves by lighting 12 inch shells and rolling them down the ridge to explode among the sheltering men in blue.
When it was all over, Grant had lost nearly 3200, three times the figure from the first failed attack. The casualties from these two fruitless assaults were higher than the total Grant had lost in the three previous weeks of campaigning. Rather ungraciously, Grant made McClernand the scapegoat for the entire misfire, writing to General in Chief Halleck ...
Quote:
The loss on our side was not very heavy at first, but received repeated dispatches from General McClernand, saying that he was hard pressed on his right and left and calling for re-enforcements, I gave him all of McPherson's corps but four brigades, and caused Sherman to press the enemy on our right, which caused us to double our losses for the day. The whole loss for the day will probably reach 1,500 killed and wounded.
General McClernand's dispatches misled me as to the real state of facts, and caused much of this loss. He is entirely unfit for the position of corps commander, both on the march and on the battle-field. Looking after his corps gives me more labor and infinitely more uneasiness than all the remainder of my department.
Grant had halved his actual casualties and glossed over the failure of the attacks by the other two Corps. In reality, the hated politician McClernand had been the only Corps leader to accomplish anything at all that day. The failure was Grant's and he was showing a petty side which was not flattering, and fortunately not frequent.
Despite the day's calamity, the strategic situation was unaltered and Vicksburg remained invested, cut off entirely from any sort of resupply and doomed to surrender when food supplies were exhausted, whether or not any more assaults were made. Their only hope was for General Johnston to assemble a force sufficiently large to attack Grant's lines from the rear and break up the siege. Given Johnston's day late and a dollar short performance so far in the campaign, this was not a brightly burning hope.
Despite the failures of his assaults on the Vicksburg defenses, General Grant did have the city in a vise and time was on his side. 150 years ago today, 150 miles to the South, the other remaining rebel bastion on the Mississippi suffered the same fate.
While Grant's campaign to enclose Vicksburg had been a dazzling display of hard marching and fighting, General Banks had a less glamorous path to achieving a siege. Rear Admiral Farragut had fired and fallen back the previous March, demonstrating that he could pass the forts with his fleet, but not damage them in any material manner. It was going to be up to Banks.
The Federals massively outnumbered the defenders, Banks had about 35,000 troops at his disposal to the 7000 who defended Port Hudson under General Franklin Gardner. The terrain was on the side of the rebels, swampy and crossed with multitudes of creeks and ravines. Banks set his newly formed black troops to work constructing a network of bridges to allow a three pronged enclosing advance. It took from May 11th to the 22nd to advance from Baton Rogue to Port Hudson. With so small a force, Gardner limited his defensive efforts to trying to guard the possible escape routes from the fortress, but a cavalry attack by Colonel Grierson's brigade, accompanied by an infantry brigade, drove back the 600 rebels defending the Springfield Road on the 21st, and now there was no way in or out of Port Hudson by land which wasn't occupied by approaching blue troops.
150 years ago today Banks' army was in place and digging siege works. Like Grant, Banks hoped to end the siege in a hurry via an assault. He set to work studying the defenses, looking for a weak point. His attack would be launched on the 27th.
Since the arrest, rapid military trial and conviction of former Congressman and leading Copperhead, Clement Vallandigham, all sorts of political hell had broken loose. Leading the outrage were the Copperhead Democrats, but even some of the war Democrats joined with the fury being expressed.
A huge protest rally was organized in Albany New York with state governor Horatio Seymour being the features speaker. Freedom for Vallandigham was demanded in Democrat newspapers across the Union.
President Lincoln appeared to be faced with a lose/lose scenario. If he freed Vallandigham he undermined the authority of General Burnside, military commander of the Department of the Ohio, as well the authority of the Federal Circuit court which upheld Burnside's actions. Worst of all, it would outrage the Radical Republicans, the major supporters of the war. If the president sustained Vallandigham's incarceration, he would lose the support of the war Democrats and likely lose the next election as a consequence. Worse, while in jail Vallandigham was using his time blasting the administration to every newspaperman who came by, and they all came by.
So being the clever politician that he was, Lincoln did neither. He came up with the novel solution of an executive order commuting Vallandigham's sentence to banishment. 150 years ago today a Federal cavalry detachment escorted Vallandigham to the Confederate lines near Tullahoma, Tennessee and under a flag of truce, handed him over to a surprised rebel outpost.
It was all very awkward, Vallandigham had been against prosecuting the war against the South, but he had never been in favor of the South winning the war. He was told he could remain if he swore an oath of allegiance, and this he declined to do. He was a citizen of the United States and intended to remain one.
Ultimately he made his way to Canada and from there he ran for his old Congressional seat in Ohio. He later crossed back into the country clandestinely, went about in disguise for a time, and eventually abandoned the masquerade when it turned out that no one seemed to care very much. Lincoln ordered that he be left alone by the government and the military.
When General Joseph Johnston had sent his arrived-too-late orders to General Pemberton to abandon Vicksburg and march to unite with his army, he also sent the same order to General Gardner at Port Hudson. This message never got through because the messenger arrived to find the installation completely invested by General Banks' 35,000 strong army.
A West Pointer, Gardner, like Pemberton, was Yankee born and raised, but had married into a prominent Louisiana family (his father in law would serve a term as governor) and when secession took place, Gardner went with his in laws. He commanded six thousand infantry and one thousand artillerymen to hold back Banks who enjoyed a 5-1 superiority. On the other hand Gardner was defending what was probably the strongest defensive terrain of the war. Port Hudson sat on a bluff which was a nightmare for attackers. It was swampy, sliced with ravines, covered in undergrowth to eye level and laced with every form of man made obstruction Gardner's imagination could produce. It would be impossible for attacking units to maintain any sort of cohesion over this broken land. Worst of all, the enemy could not be seen, hidden by the dense undergrowth or tucked inside the natural trenches of ravines, their enemies would learn that they were there only when they began to get hit by their bullets.
Like Vicksburg, Port Hudson was completely isolated. Rear Admiral Farragut's fleet prevented any escape attempt via crossing the river in their rear, and 35,000 men in blue sealed all of the land exits to their front. Though Banks knew he could prevail via the starvation of the defenders, like General Grant, he wanted to end it all in a blaze of glory right now. 150 years ago this morning he completed the 11 paragraphs of instructions to his sub commanders, had all of his artillery rolled forward, and in conjunction with Farragut's ships, opened a tremendous bombardment.
After two hours of these fireworks, the advance went forward. The men in blue plunged into the thickets and swamps, got lost, got bogged down, got cut off from their supporting units, and when isolated pockets would fight their way clear to the front, they would be bushwhacked by rifle and artillery fire from masked positions. The assault was an instant failure, but the battle would go on for most of the day. Banks ordered his artillery moved even closer and the attacking troops wound up hugging the ground as a long artillery duel took place over their heads.
Around noon Banks first became aware that there was no fighting taking place on the left. He mounted and rode over to investigate and found General Thomas Sherman and his command enjoying their lunch. Despite all of Banks' care and lengthy instructions, somehow they had never been delivered to Sherman. This was the trigger for another miscalculation by Banks. He decided that the reason the attacks failed on the Union right and center was that the rebels had no pressure applied to their other flank by Sherman. Banks would just restart his attack, this time with everyone.
At mid afternoon Sherman's men went forward and duplicated the chaotic failures of the earlier charges. Sherman was shot in the left leg and it would be amputated later that day. On the right and center, the renewed attacks were broken up instantly, as soon as the Union men rose and tried to reform, they were shot to pieces.
Participating in this final attack were the two regiments of the Louisiana Native Guards. These black troops had been used as fatigue troops throughout the advance to Port Hudson, and had been held in reserve until this point. They plunged into the hellish killing zone and were repulsed like all the others, but not before experiencing 25 % casualties and impressing all who saw them in action with their courage and discipline. The question as to whether or not black troops could fight as well as whites was now settled. In his report of the action Banks was to write that they met all expectations and that their conduct was heroic.
With dark the Federals crawled back through the undergrowth and over the obstructions. It had been a one sided affair, just under 2000 casualties for Banks, only 235 losses for Gardner. Banks reported to Washington that he would be making "careful examinations with reference to future operations" which could mean anything.
As with Grant's failed assaults on Vicksburg, the tactical setbacks did not alter the strategic situation. Port Hudson remained invested and unless rescued by an outside force, would have to fall sooner or later.
Defender's Delight....Artist Depiction of the Assault
Last edited by Grandstander; 05-26-2013 at 06:56 PM..
The Army of the Potomac was recovering from the epic battle at Chancellorsville, The Army of the Tennessee was besieging General Pemberton's force in Vicksburg and the Army of the Gulf had invested Port Hudson on the Mississippi.
Peacefully standing on the sidelines through all this movement and bloodletting were General Rosecrans Army of the Cumberland, and General Bragg's Army of Tennessee. The former was parked at Murfreesboro, the latter was occupying Tullahoma.
Bragg believed his army understrength for conducting offensive operations and contented himself by spreading his divisions around to protect the several possible approaches to Chattanooga. General Johnston, the theater commander had requested that Bragg detach some units to send to Pemberton's aid, but Bragg insisted that Rosecrans might move at any minute and he he needed his entire force to counter that. President Davis backed Bragg over Johnston.
Bragg need not have feared. Rosecrans, despite an ongoing stream of telegrams from President Lincoln, Secretary of War Stanton and General in Chief Halleck, refused to budge until all his preparations were perfected and the weather was cooperative. Lincoln was losing patience and 150 years ago today wrote to Rosecrans with another plea.
Quote:
WASHINGTON, May 28, 1863.
MAJOR-GENERAL ROSECRANS, Murfreesborough, Tenn..
I would not push you to any rashness, but I am very anxious that you
do your utmost, short of rashness, to keep Bragg from getting off to
help Johnston against Grant.
But Rosecrans had a ready reply. He informed the president that if he moved against Bragg, it would throw him out of Tennessee and into Mississippi where he would be in closer proximity to Grant and able to work against him there. By remaining in place, he was also fixing Bragg in place.
At any rate, Rosecrans did not respond by launching an offensive and true to his convictions, would not move until he was ready.
When his sub commanders were back biting and complaining about him behind his back, General Burnside had gone to Washington with a plan to rid himself of these disloyal officers. He had announced to President Lincoln that he wanted several officers dismissed from the service, others transferred or demoted. If not, Burnside would resign.
The president had surprised Burnside by immediately accepting his resignation and replacing him with one of the back biters.
Demonstrating that he was a slow, or perhaps non-learner, 150 years ago today Burnside tried petulance again. He had been infuriated by the president's commutation of Clement Vallandigham's sentence and stated that if his authority was to be undermined in this manner, then he had no authority. He submitted his resignation by way of protest.
Once more Burnside did not get what he wanted, but this time he kept his job. Lincoln wrote to him and reminded him that personal concerns must be put on the back burner in favor of focus on the larger cause. He refused to accept Burnside's resignation. Lincoln smoothed Burnside's anger by telling him that he agreed that the arrest had been necessary, Burnside had acted properly, but his duties in the matter ended after Vallandigham's conviction. After that it became a political question and that was for presidents to decide, not generals.
The two major questions on General Robert E. Lee's mind were: 1) What do we do next? Sit and wait for the next campaign by the Army of the Potomac? Launch a campaign of our own? Remain on the defensive and detach troops to the west to try and salvage Vicksburg? and 2) Who to raise to Corps command to replace the fallen Stonewall Jackson.
That first question would be addressed tomorrow when Lee traveled to Richmond for a strategy conference with President Davis. The second he settled 150 years ago today.
In truth Lee could not replace Jackson, only Lee was his peer as a military leader in the South, so Lee did not truly try and replace Stonewall. Instead he reorganized the Army of Northern Virginia from two Corps into three. General Longstreet would retain command of one, General Richard Ewell would take the second, and General A.P. Hill the third.
Ewell was a Virginian and West Pointer, gained promotion for heroism in the Mexican War and was later seriously wounded fighting against Cochise's Apaches. He had been a very able division commander under Jackson, distinguishing himself in the Seven Days Battle and again at Second Mananas where he was wounded and lost his left leg below the knee.
Hill took the same path, a Virginian, West Pointer and noted fighter in the Mexican War. He had led the most successful attacks during the Seven Days Battle and was most famous for his 11th hour nick of time arrival at Antietam which broke up General Burnside's assault on the rebel right. Hill had an excessively argumentative nature and had run afoul of both Longstreet and Jackson when he served under them.
Both Hill and Ewell were returning to action following wounds. Neither man enjoyed good health. As well as missing a leg, Ewell was subject to periodic seizures of nausea and vertigo which would fell him for hours or sometimes days. Hill was a magnet for every disease which existed in an army camp and he seemed to have as many sick days as well ones.
Though the Army of Northern Virginia would continue to fight with great courage and skill, they would never again fight with as much success as they enjoyed when Jackson was involved.
Although faced with serious shortages in a number of critical areas, one thing the Confederacy did not lack at this point was war winning plans.
From his post in Charleston, General Beauregard submitted what were, unsurprisingly, the most grandiose and unrealistic of the programs for winning the war. He concocted a campaign proposal which called for uniting General Bragg's and General Johnston's forces, reinforcing them to 150,000 men by drawing units from all other rebel forces, and re staging the invasion of Kentucky, where, once more tens of thousands of volunteers were expected to be found to inflate this massive Confederate army.
After destroying General Rosecrans' army and ranging unopposed into Kentucky, they would turn west and take Memphis, cutting General Grant off from his main supply base and forcing him to withdraw from Vicksburg. Then the immense rebel force would fall on Grant as he retreated north and destroy his army. After Grant was handled, the big rebel force would split in two, half going south to join Kirby Smith in liberating Arkansas and Louisiana, the other half joining General Lee's army in Virginia where the Army of the Potomac would be destroyed and the war won. Beauregard did not neglect the naval aspects either, his plan also called for the construction of a dozen special ironclad torpedo boats in England which would break the blockade while the gigantic army was vanquishing the northern troops.
That none of the above was remotely possible, and that all of the above depended upon the Yankees standing still and waiting for Beauregard's moves, as well as the inventing of naval weapons which currently did not exist, did not dampen the Creole's enthusiasm.
In the East, General Longstreet, now back with Lee after his didn't-accomplish-much campaign in the southern part of Virginia, had a different and more realistic idea. Longstreet determined that the weak link in the Federal war effort was in the middle, General Rosecrans' front. Longstreet advocated the Army of Northern Virginia going over to a defensive mode only, using their interior lines to rapidly meet whatever threat General Hooker might mount. Meanwhile, Longstreet's Corps would be detached and sent to Bragg where their combined might would drive Rosecrans out of Tennessee, back through Kentucky and into Ohio. When Bragg's force threatened that state, Grant would be forced to abandon his siege to come to the defense of the Buckeyes.
Lee dismissed Beauregard's preposterous undertaking, recognizing it was an extreme over reach and not within the capacity of the South. He also opposed Longstreet's plan, insisting that it was an either/or approach. Adopt it and Vicksburg might be saved, but at the cost of losing Virginia. Further, Lee's nature was not the sort which would be contented with his role in Longstreet's proposal, which was standing on the defensive. Lee believed in aggression, believed in seizing and holding the initiative at all times, believed in maneuver and attack.
So when 150 years ago today Lee met with President Davis, Secretary of War Seddon and other members of the cabinet, he presented his idea for what should happen. Lee wanted another invasion of the North. He explained that his previous raid, the one which had ended with the drawn battle at Antietam and subsequent retreat, had failed because of the need to stop and take Harper's Ferry. That and the unfortunate lost order had vexed the campaign, but the idea was still valid. Lee thought that continuing to fight the war on Virginian soil could only lead to ultimate collapse no matter how many times he turned back attempts to take Richmond.
Lee believed that without foreign help, the South was doomed, and that the only way that they would receive any help would be to impress England and France with the idea that the rebels could win. Nothing would be so persuasive to that end as a major victory on Northern soil, followed by the capture of Philadelphia, Baltimore or perhaps Washington itself.
Davis had been leaning toward Longstreet's plan, but such was the stature of Lee following the twin victories at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, that not even the rebel president was willing to contradict him. It wasn't a hard decision for Davis, like Lee he favored an aggressive approach to the war and none of the cabinet members felt that they were in a place to deny Lee his vision.
So confident had been Lee going into this conference, that before he attended he had already began the preparations for the movement north. That optimism was validated when he received the green light for the invasion. Thus was born the Gettysburg campaign, but of course at the time the town of Gettysburg had not entered anyone's thinking apart from being a place they would pass through on their way to their actual destinations. The planned first target of the movement was to be the Pennsylvania capitol of Harrisburg.
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