PARTNERS IN COMMAND by Joseph T. Glatthaar

Author:Joseph T. Glatthaar
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: SOC035000
Publisher: The Free Press
Published: 1994-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

THE VICKSBURG AREA

Grant, meanwhile, had resolved some important questions in his own mind about the upcoming Vicksburg Campaign. Since McClernand lacked fitness to command, Grant would assume the burden and supervise operations himself. McClernand, Sherman, and a Grant protegé named James B. McPherson, a personable engineer officer who had graduated first in the West Point class of 1853, would each command a corps. Grant also decided that the approach overland from the north offered little possibility for success. Due to the bluffs that shielded Vicksburg to the north and west, an army had to advance on the city from the east. The logical approach, south along the Mississippi Central Railroad to Jackson and then west following the Vicksburg & Jackson Railroad into the city, had failed once before. By hugging the railroad, too, Grant would have to peel off critical manpower to protect his lengthening supply line, and the Confederates still might break it as they had done in December.

To get at Vicksburg, Grant undertook a variety of schemes, from digging a canal that would bypass Vicksburg to cutting a levee and flooding bayous for navy transport that would land troops on the high ground northeast of Vicksburg. None proved successful, but all served a purpose. The public, the army, and the Lincoln administration could not endure idleness. All demanded action. At least these creative projects occupied public attention while the floods subsided and the roads dried a bit.

When the last effort to turn Vicksburg on the right failed, a “perplexed” Grant had come to the forlorn conclusion that only an assault at Haynes’ Bluff, near where Sherman had failed last December, offered any chance of success. “Heretofore I have had nothing to do but fight the enemy,” a dejected Grant commented to his wife. “This time I have to overcome obstacles to reach him.” 21 He, Sherman, and Porter had even reconnoitered the area to select the best places to land troops and storm the works. Despite projections of massive losses, Grant viewed it as his sole option to conquer Vicksburg. 22

Almost in a flash, several separate strands came together in Grant’s mind that provided him with a fresh option. Throughout the entire campaign, he had only considered approaches that would turn the Confederate right flank. But perhaps he could swing around the left of the Vicksburg works! For months authorities in Washington had urged unity of action between Grant and Maj. Gen. Nathaniel P. Banks, Federal commander in Louisiana, who was attempting to capture Port Hudson, also on the Mississippi River. Yielding to War Department wishes, Grant had offered to send down a corps to assist Banks. Then Banks’s entire command could sweep up from the south and turn the Confederates out of their strong works on high ground near Vicksburg. To transfer the corps, Grant’s men had toiled strenuously to clear a water route west of the Mississippi River that would link them with Banks’s forces. It suddenly dawned on Grant: rather than supporting Banks, could he

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