26OR 24, pt. 1, 524-25.
27Ibid., 524; Grierson, A Just and Righteous Cause, 159.
28OR 24, pt. 1, 525.
29Ibid.
30Ibid.
31Ibid.
32Ibid.
33Grierson, A Just and Righteous Cause, 159.
34Woodward, “Grierson’s Raid,” 698-99.
35OR 24, pt. 1, 525; “The Great Federal Raid,” Natchez Daily Courier, May 5, 1863.
36OR 24, pt. 1, 525; Grierson, A Just and Righteous Cause, 159; Woodward, “Grierson’s Raid,” 699-700; Jean Strickland and Patrician N. Edwards, Records of Jasper Co. Mississippi: W.P.A. Source Materials, Will Abstracts 1855-1914 (n.p.: n.p., 1995), 42.
37Surby, Grierson Raids, 55-56; Smith, Mississippi in the Confederacy, 125-42. For a modern account of Jones County, see Victoria E. Bynum, The Free State of Jones: Mississippi’s Longest Civil War (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001).
38OR 24, pt. 1, 525.
39Woodward, “Grierson’s Raid,” 701; Grierson, A Just and Righteous Cause, 160.
40OR 24, pt. 1, 525; Grierson, A Just and Righteous Cause, 160.
41Surby, Grierson Raids, 53; OR 24, pt. 1, 525; Forbes, “Grierson’s Cavalry Raid,” 127; 1860 Jasper County, Mississippi, Population and Slave Schedules.
42J. M. Kennedy, History of Jasper County (Bay Springs, MS: Bay Springs Municipal Library, 1957), 23.
43York, Fiction as Fact, 19; Mary S. Robinson, A Household Story of the American Conflict: The Great Battle Year (New York: N. Tibbals & Son, 1871), 52.
44Grabau, Ninety-Eight Days, 120.
45William W. Loring to John C. Pemberton, April 23, 1863, in John J. Pettus Correspondence, MDAH; OR 24, pt. 3, 786.
46William W. Loring to John C. Pemberton, April 23, 1863.
47John C. Pemberton to John J. Pettus, April 25, 1863, and J. H. Campbell to John J. Pettus, May 12, 1863, in John J. Pettus Correspondence, MDAH; OR 24, pt. 1, 546; pt. 3, 781-83, 786-87, 789.
48OR 24, pt. 1, 546; pt. 3, 781-83, 786-87, 789.
49Forbes, “Grierson’s Raid,” 20; OR 24, pt. 1, 531; Forbes, “Grierson’s Cavalry Raid,” 110. The force riding through Newton early on April 25 was Captain Forbes’s Company B, 7th Illinois Cavalry, trying to catch up to Grierson’s column.
50OR 24, pt. 1, 532; pt. 3, 785, 789. Henry Forbes related that as he passed through Newton, “The public ruins . . . were still smoking.”
51OR 24, pt. 1, 538, 544, 553; pt. 3, 782, 789; Timothy B. Smith, James Z. George: Mississippi Great Commoner (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2012), 65-66.
52OR 24, pt. 1, 528, 538, 544; Grierson, A Just and Righteous Cause, 164; Forbes, “Grierson’s Raid,” 20.
53“The Great Federal Raid,” Natchez Daily Courier, May 5, 1863.
54Forbes, “Grierson’s Raid,” 21; OR 24, pt. 1, 528, 538, 544; pt. 3, 781; Grierson, A Just and Righteous Cause, 164-65; “The Grierson Raid,” Weekly Register (Canton, IL), September 7, 1863; Fred L. Hatch to S. A. Forbes, December 1, 1908, in Stephen A. Forbes Papers, UI; Henry Elsey, “The Grierson Raid,” n.d., in Stephen A. Forbes Papers, UI.
55OR 24, pt. 1, 528, 538, 544; pt. 3, 781; Grierson, A Just and Righteous Cause, 164-65; “The Grierson Raid,” Weekly Register (Canton, IL), September 7, 1863; Forbes, “Grierson’s Raid,” 21-22; Elsey, “The Grierson Raid”; Forbes, “Grierson’s Cavalry Raid,” 111-12, 128; Albert Theodore Goodloe, Confederate Echoes: A Voice from the South in the Days of Secession and the Southern Confederacy (Nashville: Publishing House of the M.E. Church, South, 1907), 148-50.
56OR 24, pt. 1, 528, 538, 544; pt. 3, 781; Grierson, A Just and Righteous Cause, 164-65; “The Grierson Raid,” Weekly Register (Canton, IL), September 7, 1863; Forbes, “Grierson’s Raid,” 21-22; Elsey, “The Grierson Raid”; Forbes, “Grierson’s Cavalry Raid,” 111-12, 128; Goodloe, Confederate Echoes, 148-50.
57OR 24, pt. 1, 544.
58Ibid., 544-45; Henry Ewell Hord, “Her Little Flag,” Confederate Veteran (October 1915), vol. 23, no. 10, 474.
59Bettersworth, Mississippi in the Confederacy, 112-14. For Edward Fontaine’s diary, see Edward Fontaine Papers, MSU.
60 OR 24, pt. 1, 532, 553.
61OR 24, pt. 1, 532, 553; pt. 3, 781, 783-87, 791.
62OR 24, pt. 1, 532, 553; pt. 3, 781, 783-87, 791; Larry J. Daniel, “Bruinsburg: Missed Opportunity or Postwar Rhetoric?” Civil War History (September 1986), vol. 32, no. 3, 259; “From Mobile and Ohio Railroad,” Jackson Daily Mississippian, April 28, 1863; “Grierson’s Big Raid,” n.d., in Thomas W. Lippincott Papers, ALPL.
63OR 24, pt. 1, 315-16, 532, 553; pt. 3, 781, 783-87, 791.
64OR 24, pt. 1, 315-16, 532, 553; pt. 3, 781, 783-87, 791.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The Getaway
Mortification engulfed Southern hearts as news of a deep Federal incursion swept across Mississippi during the evening of April 24 and the next morning. The reports from Newton Station traveled quickly along the railroad lines extending east and west from the scene of Grierson’s attack and from there north and south where that line crossed other railroads at Jackson and Meridian.
The April 24 evening edition of the Jackson Daily Mississippian was the first to report the raid at Newton Station. Subsequent editions added details and noted the enemy was heading east toward Enterprise. The paper described all sorts of depredations. The Federals had robbed “every one about Newton Station supposed to have money,” and the people of Garlandville “suffered severely.” It also reported the invaders had hanged a doctor who had been a member of the Mississippi senate in Louisville. The news of the Federal incursion moved more slowly into the inner areas of the state not connected by telegraphy, but by that point almost everyone knew of the Union thrust, and they would soon learn the objective of the expedition.1
Up until this point of the war, Mississippi had suffered but little from Union invasion. Only peripheral areas along the Mississippi River and the Memphis and Charleston Railroad had been occupied, and only slightly more territory had been raided or temporarily marched through. The enemy had taken up residence along the river by occupying Memphis, Tennessee, Helena, Arkansas, and Greenville, Mississippi, as well as many areas around Vicksburg. None of these efforts included the long-term occupation of any Mississippi land along the river, although brief incursions, such as Sherman’s December 1862 Chickasaw Bayou effort, the Yazoo Pass expedition, and Steele’s Bayou attempt moved significant numbers of troops into Mississippi. No inland Mississippi cities such as Greenwood, Yazoo City, or especially Vicksburg had been taken or held.2
Matters were a bit different along the state’s northern border, where a long-term occupation of Corinth at the junction of the Memphis and Charleston and the Mobile and Ohio railroads provided the Federals with a key strategic center. From the Union garrisons at Memphis and Corinth and many points in between, such as La Grange, the Federals had frequently staged raids—some under Grierson—into the state. Each effort was short, temporary, and shallow. The one major campaign into the Magnolia State was Grant’s Mississippi Central advance in November and December 1862, but it, too, turned out to be temporary. The majority of the Federal troops in these efforts had penetrated only about 50 miles into the state, with the deepest advance elements reaching perhaps another 20 miles beyond that.3
As a result, most Mississippians who did not live along the river or in the northern counties felt relatively safe. The belief in safety and security held by most Mississippians crumbled in April 1863, along with some of their faith in the Confederacy, when Grierson’s troopers rode 200 miles into the heart of the state and struck Newton Station. Everyone who heard of the destruction there knew what it meant. “We expect to hear of the destruction of Chunkey Bridge and trestle work, thus cutting us off from Mobile,” warned the Jackson Daily Mississippian in its April 24 evening edition. In an effort to keep up local morale, the paper trumpeted a silver lining when it declared that “at any rate the blue-bellied rascals will be made to suffer
for their boldness.”4
A similar feeling of incredulity engulfed Richmond. “We have bad news from the West,” War Department clerk John B. Jones confessed in his diary. “The enemy (cavalry, I suppose) have penetrated Mississippi some 200 miles, down to the railroad between Vicksburg and Meridian. This is in the rear and east of Vicksburg, and intercepts supplies. They destroyed two trains. This dispatch,” he continued, “was sent to the Secretary of War by the President without remark.”5
***
The troopers of the 6th and 7th Illinois Cavalry driving the widespread chaos in Mississippi woke on the cloudy morning of April 25 feeling exhausted and sore. Prior to stopping at the Bender plantation, the cavalrymen had made “80 miles, without scarcely halting,” reported Colonel Prince. The long distance covered in just 40 hours included the lengthy delay to destroy military property and the railroad at Newton. With that station still smoldering and Grierson’s objectives of damaging enemy communications and diverting enemy attention fulfilled, there was just one objective left: returning safely to Union lines.6
Two competing ideas on how to get his men safely out of Mississippi tore at Grierson. On the one hand, he wanted to move away from the scene quickly. That required speed and trickery. On the other hand, the forced marches and the stress of operating deep within enemy territory had exhausted the troopers. A light day to allow the men and horses to recoup some of their strength would be beneficial. Some men were already “too feeble to travel,” observed Colonel Prince. One of them, Sgt. H. C. Allen of Company C, 6th Illinois Cavalry, would be captured and sent to Jackson to be interrogated.7
Grierson concluded the best course was to rest for a short time before climbing back into the saddle. “Our men and horses having become gradually exhausted,” he wrote, “I determined on making a very easy march the next day, looking more to the recruiting of my weary little command than to the accomplishment of any important object.” The brigade commander knew the immediate future would include hard and long riding and perhaps even pitched fighting. His men and horses would need all the strength they could muster, and April 25 was as good a time as any to make a short march and allow the troops to rest up. Hopefully, Confederate attention would remain on Newton and the railroad and on the Macon and Meridian areas. If so, Grierson could make his way west at a pace of his choosing while the Confederates looked for him farther to the east. Although he did not know it at the time, the sudden appearance of Captain Forbes’s troops at Enterprise aided him in this effort.8
After allowing his men to sleep later than their usual dawn departure, Grierson ordered the march to resume at 8:00 a.m. The column spent the next five miles meandering west and northwest before reaching a large plantation in Smith County owned by Elias Nichols. The 39-year-old’s sprawling land was valued at $10,000 in 1860, and Nichols had a net worth of $38,867, much of it vested in his 36 slaves. Grierson allowed the men to feed their horses and themselves and rest. According to the Paulding Clarion, the Federals “robbed [Nichols] of all his mules, a carriage, several of his Negroes, and a greater part of his corn and meat.”9
Grierson moved out around 2:00 p.m., riding west and then south. Around Pineville, the Federals received a solid taste of slavery, Mississippi style. Although they had encountered slaves all along the route, they had not yet witnessed the depredations they saw this day. “We came upon a large plantation, the owner of which was in the field with his whip driving the Negroes,” recorded Grierson, who sent word for the owner to meet him at the house. By that time the Illinoisans were helping themselves to the man’s provisions, including fodder for the horses. The angry planter protested that “he had none to spare. Not[hing] but the Confederate vouchers were good enough, and he was willing to loan his share, but he had fed several squads already and had no more left than he wanted for his own use.” Grierson ignored the man’s pleas and the soldiers continued their work. In one of the outbuildings, troopers “found and released an imprisoned Negro slave, manacled and chained to a ruin in the floor for trying to run away. The irons, an inch thick, had worn the flesh to the bone, inducing gangrene and almost mortification.” Grierson ordered his release, to which the planter made “a very wry face.” The unshackled slave made good on this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and rode out of Pineville with the Federal column. The freed slave “went through with us . . . and never tired of serving his deliverers.”10
Elias Nichols Grave. Grierson’s column stopped to rest and eat at Elias Nichols’ plantation the day after sacking Newton Station. A modern house sits on the original plantation house site, but Nichols and his family are buried just to the south. Author
As the Federals suspected, danger increased by the hour. The people of Paulding, a small Jasper County town 15 miles south and east of Pineville, organized a group of 50 men and rode west in search of the raiders. When they realized the enemy cavalry was leaving their area, however, the civilian soldiers returned home. Grierson’s new direction was west and a bit southwest into Smith County, toward Raleigh, the county seat. The column made another dozen miles before Grierson called a halt around dark just east of the Leaf River at a plantation owned by Dr. Chambers McAdory.11
Grierson’s column covered about 17 miles by the time camp was made that evening. That was fewer than usual and significantly fewer than the column had marched the past several few days. The mileage, however, included crossing Otokoochee Creek, one of the major tributaries of the Leaf River, which itself lay ahead. Grierson could have reached it, but he may well have learned his lesson about driving his troopers into swampy areas with darkness approaching, as he had done south of Starkville and again below Louisville.12
Despite the short ride that day, Grierson was pleased. By the end of day, arguably his easiest thus far, his men and mounts were once more well-fed and well-stocked. “Having obtained during this day plenty of forage and provisions,” he wrote, “and having had one good night’s rest, we now again felt ready for any emergency.” He knew the Confederates were slowly but surely reacting and concentrating to cut off and destroy the bold band of Federals that had dared to penetrate the inner sanctum of Confederate Mississippi. They had achieved their main objective, but their position remained perilous at best. One Federal described it this way: “We had marched a solid week straight into the heart of the enemy’s country—were in the center of a large Confederate state, in which, save at Corinth, there was not a camp or fort over which floated the stars and stripes. We were certainly a week’s vigorous march distant from a friendly camp.”13
Just how concentrated and organized were the Confederates? The precise nature of the dangers facing Grierson was anyone’s guess, but he prepared for the worst. The Federal commander kept his scouts well out in every compass direction and sent additional patrols to find out more information and divert the enemy’s attention from his main column. For example, earlier on the morning of April 25, Grierson dispatched a pair of detachments north. One was a small group of troopers bent on wreaking more havoc along the already disrupted Southern Railroad “at Lake Station and other points.” The men did exactly as instructed and rejoined the main body a few hours later with news of Confederates moving east along the broken line. Although they did not know it, the enemy they discovered was John Adams’s men moving along the rail line to secure the escape route to the north.14
Wanting to know more about his surroundings, about midnight while camped at McAdory’s plantation, Grierson sent out a scout, Samuel Nelson. Grierson described the man, who dressed in civilian clothes for the mission, as a “medium sized, muscular man [with] sandy complexion [and] redish hair.” Sometimes, he continued, the trooper was “as honest and harmless-looking as a Presbyterian deacon”—an image Grierson wanted to play up with Nelson dressed as a civilian. Nelson, who had served as one of Surby’s scouts during the long raid, had another quality: “A peculiar impediment, or sort of stutter, in his speech which enabled him to think twice before he answered once any question put to him.”15
> Nelson’s speech impediment was a source of amusement for some of the men. After a particularly long ride, Grierson expressed concern that he was so tired he would not wake even if a crisis befell them. Sure enough, when important news arrived, Adjutant Woodward and other troopers were only able to stir him to consciousness by lightly striking him. With difficulty, the sleepy Grierson mounted his horse and began riding, although everyone thought the colonel was fast asleep. When Grierson and his small party reached a gate where Nelson was keeping watch, the scout asked, “Are there any wu-wu-wu-wagons back there?” A trooper responded, “Yes, there’s wu-wu-wu-one.” Grierson awoke suddenly and roared with laughter, chuckling to himself for the next half mile. “By that time I knew he was wide awake,” said one Illinois trooper.16
When Grierson was sure the scout understood what he wanted, Nelson moved across Leaf River and headed northwest to gain intelligence, cut the telegraph lines, and “if possible, fire a bridge or trestle-work.” The colonel later recalled thinking that “the rebels would not get the best of that singular-looking, but bright and sharp, individual.” His hope was that the Confederates would think the entire Federal command was moving along the railroad, doing more damage, rather than quietly riding west 25 miles farther south. If the enemy believed the destruction was creeping toward Jackson, perhaps they would worry that the state capital was in danger and act accordingly.17
As he moved northwest, Nelson encountered a formation of Confederate cavalry operating out of Brandon. The troops were Capt. R. C. Love’s squadron, sent out by Pemberton himself with orders to “get on his [Grierson’s] rear, and plant ambush and annoy him. See if something can be done.” The civilian-clad Nelson spent several minutes stuttering his way through a conversation with the Confederates. The import of what was transpiring was not lost on Nelson: The enemy was riding on the road leading straight to Grierson’s column camped at McAdory’s plantation.18
The Real Horse Soldiers Page 24
