THE FIRST ATTEMPT ON VICKSBURG.
With the capture of New Orleans the first and vital object of the
expedition had been accomplished. The occupation of Baton Rouge
by a combined land and naval force was the next point indicated in
McClellan's orders to Butler. Then he was to endeavor to open
communication with the northern column coming down the Mississippi.
McClellan was no longer General-in-chief; but this part of his plan
represented the settled views of the government.
On the 2d of May, therefore, Farragut sent Craven with the _Brooklyn_
and six other vessels of the fleet up the river. On the 8th, as
early as the river transports could be secured, Butler sent Williams
with the 4th Wisconsin and the 6th Michigan regiments, and two
sections of Everett's 6th Massachusetts battery, to follow and
accompany the fleet. The next day Williams landed his force at
Bonnet Carré, on the east bank of the river, about thirty-five
miles above the town. After wading about five miles through a
swamp, where the water and mud were about three feet deep, the
troops halted at night at Frenier, a station of the Jackson railway,
situated on the shore of Lake Pontchartrain, about ten miles above
Kenner. A detachment of the 4th Wisconsin, under Major Boardman,
was sent to Pass Manchac. The Confederates made a slight but
ineffective resistance with artillery, resulting in trivial losses
on either side. The bridges at Pass Manchac and Frenier being then
destroyed, on the following morning, the 10th, the troops marched
back the weary ten miles along the uneven trestle-work of the
railway from Frenier to Kenner and there took transport. After
their long confinement on shipboard, with scant rations, without
exercise or even freedom of movement, the excessive heat of the
day caused the troops to suffer severely. The embarkation completed,
the transports, under convoy of the navy, set out for Baton Rouge.
There on the morning of the 12th of May the troops landed, the
capitol was occupied by the 4th Wisconsin, and the national colors
were hoisted over the building. The troops then re-embarked for
Vicksburg.
Natchez surrendered on the 12th of May to Commander S. Phillips
Lee, of the _Oneida_, the advance of Farragut's fleet. On the 18th
of May the _Oneida_ and her consorts arrived off Vicksburg, and
the same day Williams and Lee summoned "the authorities" to surrender
the town and "its defences to the lawful authority of the United
States." To this Brigadier-General Martin L. Smith, commander of
the defences, promptly replied: "Having been ordered here to hold
these defences, my intention is to do so as long as it is in my
power."
On the 19th the transports stopped for wood at Warrenton, about
ten miles below Vicksburg, and here a detachment of the 4th Wisconsin,
sent to guard the working party, became involved in a skirmish with
the Confederates, in which Sergeant-Major N. H. Chittenden and
Private C. E. Perry, of A Company, suffered the first wounds received
in battle by the troops of the United States in the Department of
the Gulf. The Confederates were easily repulsed, with small loss.
Almost at the instant when Farragut was decided to run the gauntlet
of the forts, Beauregard had begun to fortify Vicksburg. Up to
this time he had trusted the defence of the river above New Orleans
to Fort Pillow, Helena, and Memphis.
When Smith took command at Vicksburg on the 12th of May, in accordance
with the orders of Lovell, the department commander, three of the
ten batteries laid out for the defence of the position had been
nearly completed and a fourth had been begun. These batteries were
intended for forty-eight guns from field rifles to 10-inch columbiads.
The garrison was to be 3,000 strong, but at this time the only
troops present were parts of two Louisiana regiments. When the
fleet arrived, on the 18th, six of the ten batteries had been
completed, and two days later twenty-three heavy guns were in place
and the defenders numbered more than 2,600.
The guns of the navy could not be elevated sufficiently for their
projectiles to reach the Confederate batteries on the bluff, and
the entire land-force, under Williams, was less than 1,100 effectives.
Even had it been possible by a sudden attack to surprise and overcome
the garrison and seize the bluffs, the whole available force of
the Department of the Gulf would have been insufficient to hold
the position for a week, as things then stood.
The truth is that the northern column with which, following their
orders, Butler and Farragut were now trying to co-operate had
ceased to exist; Jackson meant Beauregard's rear; and, as for any
co-operation between Halleck and Williams, Beauregard stood solidly
between them. On the 17th of April, the day before Porter's mortars
first opened upon Forts Jackson and St. Philip, the whole land
force of this northern column, under Pope, at that moment preparing
for the attack on Fort Pillow, had been withdrawn by imperative
orders from Halleck, and, on the very evening before the attack on
Fort Pillow was to have been made, had gone to swell the great army
assembled under Halleck at Corinth; but as yet neither Butler nor
Farragut knew anything of all this. Save by the tedious roundabout
of Washington, New York, the Atlantic, and the Gulf, there was at
this time no regular or trustworthy means of communication between
the forces descending the Mississippi and those that had just
achieved the conquest of New Orleans and were now ascending the
river to co-operate with the northern column. Thus it was that
a single word, daubed in a rude scrawl upon the walls of the
custom-house, meeting the eyes of Paine's men after they had made
a way into the building with their axes, gave to Butler the first
intelligence of the desperate battle of the 6th and 7th of April,
on which the fate of the whole Union campaign in the West had been
staked, if not imperilled, and which in its result was destined to
change materially the whole course of operations in the Gulf
Department. That word was Shiloh.
By the 26th of May the _Oneida_ had been joined by the rest of the
fleet, under the personal command of the restless and energetic
flag-officer. On the afternoon of this day the fleet opened fire.
The Confederates replied sparingly, as much to economize their
ammunition and to keep the men fresh, as to avoid giving the Union
commanders information regarding the range and effect of their fire.
The river was now falling. The _Hartford_ in coming up had already
grounded hard, and so remained helpless for fifty hours, and had
only been got off by incredible exertions. Provisions of all kinds
were running very low. On the 25th of May, after a thorough
reconnoissance, Farragut and Williams decided to give up the attempt
on Vicksburg as evidently impracticable. Farragut left Palmer with
the _Iroquois_ and six gunboats to blockade the river and to amuse
the garrison at Vicksburg by an occasional bombardment in order to
prevent Smith from sending reinforcements to Corinth.
While Williams was descending the river on the 26th, the transports
were fired into by the Confederate battery on the bluff at Grand
Gulf, sixty miles below Vicksburg. About sixty rounds were fired
in all, many of which passed completely through the transport
_Laurel Hill_, bearing the 4th Wisconsin, part of the 6th Michigan,
and the 6th Massachusetts battery. One private of the 6th Michigan
was killed and Captain Chauncey J. Bassett, of the same regiment,
wounded. The _Ceres_, bearing the remainder of the 6th Michigan
and the 6th Massachusetts battery, was following the _Laurel Hill_
and was similarly treated. After a stern chase of about twenty
miles, the convoy was overhauled, and the gunboat _Kineo_, returning,
shelled the town and caused the withdrawal of the battery. During
the evening Williams sent four companies of the 4th Wisconsin,
under Major Boardman, to overtake the enemy's battery and break up
the camp, about one mile and a half in the rear of the town.
Boardman came upon the Confederates as they were retiring, and
shots were exchanged. The casualties were few, but Lieutenant
George DeKay, a gallant and attractive young officer, serving as
aide-de-camp to General Williams, received a mortal wound.
On the 29th the troops under Williams once more landed and took
post at Baton Rouge. During their absence of seventeen days, the
Confederates had improved the opportunity to remove much valuable
property that had been found stored in the arsenal on the occasion
of the first landing of the Union forces.
On his return to New Orleans Farragut received pressing orders from
the Navy Department to take Vicksburg. He therefore returned with
his fleet, reinforced by a detachment of the mortar flotilla, and
Butler once more despatched Williams, this time with an increased
force, to co-operate. Williams left Baton Rouge on the morning of
the 20th of June with a force composed of the 30th Massachusetts,
9th Connecticut, 7th Vermont, and 4th Wisconsin regiments, Nims's
2d Massachusetts battery and two sections of Everett's 6th
Massachusetts battery. This time a garrison was left to hold Baton
Rouge, consisting of the 21st Indiana and 6th Michigan regiments,
the remaining section of Everett's battery and Magee's Troop C of
the Massachusetts cavalry battalion. On the 22d of June the
transports arrived off Ellis's Cliffs, twelve miles below Natchez,
where Williams found three gunboats waiting to convoy him past the
high ground. Here he landed a detachment consisting of the 30th
Massachusetts regiment and two guns of Nims's battery to turn the
supposed position of two field-pieces said to have been planted by
the Confederates on the bluffs, while a second force, composed of
the 4th Wisconsin, 9th Connecticut, the other two sections of Nims's
battery, and the four guns of Everett's, marched directly forward
up the cliff road. An abandoned caisson or limber was all that
the troops found.
On the 24th, anticipating more serious resistance from the guns
said to be in position on the bluffs at Grand Gulf, Williams entered
Bayou Pierre with his whole force in the early morning, intending
to strike the crossing, about seventeen miles up the stream, of
the railway from Port Gibson to Grand Gulf, and thence to move
directly on the rear of the town. Half-way up the bayou the boats
were stopped by obstructions and had to back down again. Toward
noon the troops landed and marched on Grand Gulf in two detachments,
one under Paine, consisting of the 4th Wisconsin and 9th Connecticut
regiments and a section of Nims's battery; the other, under Dudley,
embracing the remainder of the force. Paine had a short skirmish
with the enemy near Grand Gulf, and captured eight prisoners, but
their camp, a small one, was found abandoned. The same evening
the troops re-embarked, and on the 25th arrived before Vicksburg.
The orders from Butler, under which Williams was now acting, required
him to take or burn Vicksburg at all hazards. Here, too, we catch
the first glimpse of the famous canal upon which so much labor was
to be expended during the next year with so little result. "You
will send up a regiment or two at once," Butler said, "and cut off
the neck of land beyond Vicksburg by means of a trench, making a
gap about four feet deep and five feet wide."
To accomplish this purpose Williams had with him four regiments
and ten guns, making an effective force in all less than three
thousand, rapidly diminished by hard work, close quarters, meagre
rations, and a bad climate nearly at its worst.
On the 24th of June the _Monarch_, commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel
Alfred W. Ellet, arrived in the reach above Vicksburg. This was
one of the nondescript fleet of rams, planned, built, equipped,
and manned, under the orders of the War Department, by Ellet's
elder brother, Colonel Charles Ellet, Jr., but now acting under
the orders of the Commander of the Mississippi fleet. Ellet promptly
sent a party of four volunteers, led by his young nephew, Medical
Cadet Charles R. Ellet, to communicate with Farragut across the
narrow neck of land opposite Vicksburg. This was the first direct
communication between the northern and southern columns. By it
Farragut learned of the abandonment of Fort Pillow by the Confederates
on the 4th of June, and the capture of Memphis on the 6th, after
a hard naval fight, in which nearly the whole Confederate fleet
was taken or destroyed. There Charles Ellet was mortally wounded.
When the _Monarch_ party went back to their vessel, they bore with
them a letter from Farragut, the contents of which being promptly
made known by Ellet to Davis, brought that officer, with his fleet,
at once to Vicksburg. On the following day, June 25th, a detachment
of the 4th Wisconsin, sent up the river overland by Colonel Paine,
succeeded in establishing a second communication with the _Monarch_,
believing it to be the first.
Farragut's fleet, now anchored below Vicksburg, comprised the
flagship _Hartford_, the sloops-of-war _Brooklyn_ and _Richmond_,
the corvettes _Iroquois_ and _Oneida_, and six gunboats. Porter
had joined with the _Octorara, Miami_, six other steamers, and
seventeen of the mortar schooners. The orders of the government
were peremptory that the Mississippi should be cleared. The
Confederates held the river by a single thread. The fall of Memphis
and the ruin of the famous river-defence fleet left between St.
Louis and the Gulf but a solitary obstruction. This was Vicksburg.
Vicksburg stand at an abrupt turn, where within ten miles the
winding river doubles upon itself, forming on the low ground opposite
a long finger of land, barely three quarters of a mile wide.
Opposite the extreme end of this peninsula, known as De Soto, the
bluff reaches the highest point attained along the whole course of
the river, the crest standing about 250 feet above the mean stage
of water. Sloping slowly toward the river, the bluff follows it
with a diminished altitude for two miles. Here stands the town of
Vicksburg, then a place of about ten thousand inhabitants. Below
the town the bluffs draw away from the river until, about four
miles beyond the bend, their height diminishes to about 150 feet.
For the defence of this line, as has been already seen, a formidable
series of batteries had been constructed, extending from the bluff
at the mouth of Chickasaw Bayou on the north to Warrenton on the
south. These batteries now mounted twenty-six heavy guns, served
by gunners comparatively well trained and instructed, and supported
against an attack by land by about 6,000 infantry under Lovell.
Almost simultaneously with the arrival of Farragut and Williams,
came Breckinridge with his division, augmenting the effective force
of the defenders to not less than 10,000. On the 30th of May
Beauregard evacuated Corinth and drew back to Tupelo; Halleck did
not follow; and so 35,000 Confederates were now set free to strengthen
Vicksburg. Thus defended and supported Vicksburg was obviously
impregnable to any attack by the combined forces of Farragut and
Williams. On the 28th of June, Van Dorn arrived and took command
of the Confederate forces.
After some preliminary bombarding and reconnoitring Farragut, who
was well informed as to the condition of the defences, determined
upon repeating before Vicksburg his exploit below New Orleans.
Accordingly, on the 28th of July, in the darkness of the early
morning, under cover of the fire of Porter's mortar flotilla,
Farragut got under way with his fleet to pass the batteries of
Vicksburg. The fleet was formed in two columns, with wide intervals,
the starboard column led by the _Hartford_, the port column by the
_Iroquois_. The battle was opened by the mortars at four o'clock,
the enemy replying instantly. By six o'clock the _Hartford_ and
six of her consorts had successfully run the gauntlet, and lay safely
anchored above the bend, while the rest of the fleet, through some
confusion of events or misapprehension of orders, had resumed its
former position below the bend. The losses of the navy in this
engagement were fifteen killed and thirty wounded, including many
scalded by the effect of a single shot that pierced the boiler of
the _Clifton_. The eight rifled guns of Nims's and Everett's
batteries having been landed, were placed in position behind the
levee at Barney's Point, and replied effectively to the fire of
the heavy guns on the high bluff, at a range of about fourteen
hundred yards. This slight service was the only form of active
co-operation by the army that the circumstances admitted; yet all the
troops stood to arms, ready to do any thing that might be required.
On the 1st of July Davis joined Farragut with four gunboats and
six mortar-boats of the Mississippi fleet. On the 9th Farragut
received orders from the Navy Department, dated on the 5th, and
forwarded by way of Cairo, to send Porter with the _Octorara_ and
twelve mortar-boats at once to Hampton Roads. Porter steamed down
the river on the 10th. This was obviously one of the first-fruits
of the campaign of the Peninsula just ended by the withdrawal of
the Army of the Potomac to the James. Indeed, at this crisis, all
occasions seemed to be informing against the Union plan of campaign,
and the same events that drew the Confederate armies together served
to draw the Union armies apart. Just as we have seen Pope called
away from Fort Pillow on the eve of an attack that must have resulted
in its capture, and taken in haste to swell the slow march of
Halleck's army before Corinth, so now, when for a full month Corinth
had been abandoned by the Confederates, Halleck's forces were being
broken up and dispersed to all four of the winds, save that which
might have blown them to the south. Halleck declared himself unable
to respond to Farragut's urgent appeal for help. "I cannot," he
said, when urged by Stanton; "I am sending reinforcements to General
Curtis, in Arkansas, and to General Buell, in Tennessee and Kentucky."
Not only this, but he was being called upon by Lincoln himself for
25,000 troops to reinforce the Army of the Potomac before Richmond.
"Probably I shall be able to do so," Halleck told Farragut, "as
soon as I can get my troops more concentrated. This may delay the
clearing of the river, but its accomplishment will be certain in
a few weeks."
Meanwhile Williams was hard at work on the canal. In addition to
such details as could be furnished by the troops without wholly
neglecting the absolutely necessary portions of their military
duties, Williams had employed a force of about 1,200 negroes, rather
poorly provided with tools. The work was not confined to excavation,
but involved the cutting down of the large cottonwoods and the
clearing away of the dense masses of willows that covered the low
ground and matted the heavy soil with their tangled roots. By the
4th of July the excavation had reached a depth in the hard clay of
nearly seven feet. The length of the canal was about one and a
half miles. By the 11th of July the cut, originally intended to
be four feet deep and five feet wide, with a profile of twenty
square feet, had been excavated through this stiff clay to a depth
of thirteen feet and a width of eighteen feet, presenting a profile
of 234 feet. The river, which, up to this time, had been falling
more rapidly than the utmost exertions had been able to sink the
bottom of the canal, had now begun to fall more slowly, so that at
last the grade was about eighteen inches below the river level.
In a few hours the water was to have been let in. Suddenly the
banks began to cave, and before any thing could be done to remedy
this, the river, still falling, was once more below the bottom of
the cut. Although with this scanty and overworked force he had
already performed nearly twelve times the amount of labor originally
contemplated, Williams does not seem to have been discouraged at
this; his orders were to make the cut, and his purpose clearly was
to make it, even if it should take, as he thought it would, the
whole of the next three months. He set to work with vigor to
collect laborers, wheelbarrows, shovels, axes, carts, and scrapers,
and "to make a real canal," to use his own words, "to the depth of
the greatest fall of the river at this point, say some thirty-five
to forty feet." But this was not to be.
Until toward the end of June, the _Polk_ and _Livingston_, the last
vestiges of the Confederate navy on the Mississippi spared from
the general wreck at Memphis, lay far up the Yazoo River, with a
barrier above them, designed to cover the building of the ram
_Arkansas_. This formidable craft was approaching completion at
Yazoo City. The Ellets, uncle and nephew, with the _Monarch_ and
_Lancaster_, steamed up the Yazoo River to reconnoitre. The rams
carried no armament whatever, but this the Confederate naval
commander in the Yazoo did not know; so, unable to pass the barrier,
he set fire to his three gunboats immediately on perceiving Ellet's
approach. On the 14th of July, Flag-Officers Farragut and Davis
sent the gunboats _Carondelet_ and _Tyler_, and the ram _Queen of
the West_, on a second expedition up the Yazoo to gain information
of the _Arkansas_. This object was greatly facilitated by the fact
that the _Arkansas_ had at this very moment just got under way for
the first time, and was coming down the Yazoo to gather information
of the Federal fleet. The _Arkansas_, which had been constructed
and was now commanded by Captain Isaac N. Brown, formerly of the
United States Navy, was, for defensive purposes, probably the most
effective of all the gunboats ever set afloat by the Confederacy
upon the western waters. Her deck was covered by a single casemate
protected by three inches of railroad iron, set aslant like a gable
roof, and heavily backed up with timber and cotton bales. Her
whole bow formed a powerful ram; the shield, flat on the top, was
pierced for ten guns of heavy calibre, three in each broadside,
two forward, and two aft. Had her means of propulsion proved equal
to her power of attack and defence, it is doubtful if the whole
Union navy on the Mississippi could have stood against her
single-handed. The situation thus strangely recalls that presented by
the _Merrimac_, or _Virginia_, in Hampton Roads before the opportune
arrival of the _Monitor_. On board the _Tyler_ was a detachment
of twenty sharpshooters of the 4th Wisconsin regiment, under Captain
J. W. Lynn, and on the _Carondelet_ were twenty men of the 30th
Massachusetts regiment, under Lieutenant E. A. Fiske. About six
miles above the Yazoo the Union gunboats encountered the _Arkansas_.
The unarmed ram _Queen of the West_ promptly fled. After a hard
fight the _Carondelet_ was disabled and run ashore, and the _Tyler_
was forced to retire, with the _Arkansas_ in pursuit. The
sharpshooters of the 4th Wisconsin suffered more severely than if
they had been engaged in an ordinary pitched battle, Captain Lynn
and six of his men being killed and six others wounded.
The _Queen of the West_, flying out of the mouth of the Yazoo under
a full head of steam, gave to the fleet at anchor the first
intimation, though perhaps a feeble one, of what was to follow.
Not one vessel of either squadron had steam. The ram _Bragg_,
which might have been expected to do something, did nothing. The
_Arkansas_, so seriously injured by the guns of the _Carondelet_
and _Tyler_ that the steam pressure had gone from 120 pounds to
the square inch down to 20 pounds, kept on her course, and proceeded
to run the gauntlet of the Union fleet, giving and taking blows as
she went. Battered, but safe, she soon lay under the guns of
Vicksburg.
This decided the fate of the campaign, and extinguished in the
breast of Farragut the last vestige of the ardent hope he had
expressed to the government a few days earlier that he might soon
have the pleasure of recording the combined attack of the army and
navy, for which all so ardently longed. The river was falling;
the canal was a failure. Of the officers and men of the army, two
fifths, and of the effective force of the army nearly three fourths,
were on the sick-list. There was no longer any thing to hope for
or to wait on. The night that followed the exploit of the _Arkansas_
saw Farragut's fleet descending the river and once more running
the gauntlet of the batteries of Vicksburg. A flying attempt was
made by each vessel in succession, but by all unsuccessfully, to
destroy the offending _Arkansas_.
On the 24th of July, Williams, with his small force, under convoy
of Farragut's fleet, sailed down the river. So ended the second
attempt on Vicksburg, usually called the first, when remembered.
Its sudden collapse gave the Confederates the river for another
year.