Grant's plan was to make an assault landing at Grand Gulf, a fortified
road junction on the bluffs at the mouth of the Big Black River. On
April 29, the Union gunboats pounded the Grand Gulf fortifications for 6
hours, seeking to neutralize the defenses and clear the landing for
10,000 Federal infantry aboard transports just beyond range of the
Confederate cannon. The naval attack failed to reduce the Confederate
works, and that night Grant marched southward along the Louisiana shore
to a landing opposite Bruinsburg. There he was met by the fleet which
then slipped downstream under cover of darkness. By noon of the
following day, April 30, Grant was across the Mississippi, experiencing
a degree of relief scarcely ever equaled since.... 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. All the campaigns, labors,
hardships, and exposures, from the month of December previous to this
time, that had been made and endured, were for the accomplishment of
this one object.
Grant's landing was unopposed, partly because of two diversionary
movements and partly because of Pemberton's decision to hold his army
close to Vicksburg and fight a defensive campaign. Both diversions were
completely successful. On April 17, the day after Porter's running of
the batteries had indicated Grant's strategy of striking from the south,
Col. B. H. Grierson with 1,000 cavalrymen moved out from southwestern
Tennessee on one of the celebrated cavalry raids of the war. They rode
entirely through the State of Mississippi behind Pemberton's army to a
junction with Union forces at Baton Rouge, La. In 16 days Grierson
covered 600 miles, interfering with Confederate telegraph and railroad
communications and forcing Pemberton to detach a division of infantry to
protect his supply and communication lines. Sherman, whose corps had not
yet made the march from Milliken's Bend, made an elaborate feint above
Vicksburg. Loading his men aboard every available gunboat, transport,
and tug, he landed at Haynes' Bluff, north of Vicksburg, leading
Pemberton to expect the real attack from that direction. Both moves
helped screen Grant's true objective.
The events immediately following Grant's landing revealed a basic
difference in tactical concepts between Pemberton, commanding the Army
of Vicksburg, and Gen. Joseph E. Johnston, his superior, who was in
charge of Confederate operations in the West. Johnston believed that to
defeat Grant it would be necessary for Pemberton to unite his whole
force in order to smash the Union Army, preferably before Grant could
consolidate his position on the east bank. Accordingly, he wired
Pemberton on May 2 "If Grant's army crosses, unite all your troops to
beat him; success will give you back what was abandoned to win it."
It was Pemberton's concept that holding Vicksburg was vital to the
Confederacy and that he must primarily protect the city and its
approaches. To have marched his army to meet Grant "would have stripped
Vicksburg and its essential flank defenses of their garrisons, and the
city itself might have fallen an easy prey into the eager hands of the
enemy." This inability of Pemberton and Johnston to reach agreement upon
the tactics that might thwart Grant's invasion seriously affected
subsequent Confederate operations and prevented effective cooperation
between the two commanders in the Vicksburg campaign.
[Illustration: _Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman, commanding the
Union XV Corps._ Courtesy National Archives.]
[Illustration: _Gen. Joseph E. Johnston, commanding Confederate
military operations in the West._ Courtesy National Archives.]