The Real Horse Soldiers

by Timothy B Smith

  All in all, summed up an Illinois newspaper, “It is one of the most daring feats of the war; and the best feature of it all is, that the Jackson papers compliment them highly for the polite manners they have displayed among the citizens.”14

  ***

  Newspapers across the Confederacy offered outright praise for Grierson’s bold accomplishment. While it was still underway, the Appeal in Jackson, Mississippi, editorialized that the raid “will be recorded as one of the gallant feats of the war, no matter whether the actors escape or are captured.” The Magnolia State’s Columbus Republic admitted that “the boldest, and we may say one of the most successful, raids of cavalry that has been known since the war began, has been made (we say it with shame) through the very center of Mississippi.” The editor added, as if surprised: “We can learn no serious damage done or any ill treatment to the inhabitants personally.” The Jackson Mississippian agreed: “It is stated that they committed no depredation, but on the contrary were particularly polite and compliant to all the people on their route.” Still, the raid did not sit well with the editor, who used the word humiliation several times in his column. Even the Augusta (Georgia) Constitutionalist expressed embarrassment for its sister state when it described the raiders riding through Mississippi “as leisurely and with as much nonchalance as our country people would ride into town on a gala day.”15

  Other Mississippians also admitted Grierson’s obvious success. A Federal spy near Yazoo City wrote that the “people were greatly troubled about Grierson’s raid on the Jackson and New Orleans Railroad, and thought it surpassed anything done by Morgan or Forrest.” A Smith County resident summed it up well when he stated, “Tis a bold move certainly for the enemy.”16

  Some people blamed their fellow Mississippians, especially those who had guided the enemy. A newspaper reported that a man named Hammond had guided Grierson to Newton Station. The man had grown up in the area, explained the paper, but had vanished for 18 months before turning up after the attack. Citizens captured him and “he confessed to having acted as pilot to the Grierson expedition.” The man was in a dire situation, continued the paper, “his fate had not been determined on when our informant left Saturday afternoon, but the general voice very properly called for his summary execution, and it was expected to take place that evening.”17

  The Confederate response to what had just transpired within Mississippi was no different. Most knew the raid had been enormously successful, and they could only tip their hats to the bold and daring Union raiders. One planter who stood watching as his stores were ravaged remarked: “Well, boys, I can’t say I have anything against you. I don’t know but on the whole I rather like you. You have not taken anything of mine except a little corn and fodder for your horses and that you are welcome to. You are doing the boldest thing ever undertaken. But you’ll be trapped though. Yes you’ll be caught yet, mark me.” Grierson thought the planter then contemplated what he was saying and added, perhaps for his own protection, “but I really trust that no harm will come to you in any event.”18

  Confederate military personnel from generals to privates knew a military success when they saw one, even if it was at their expense. An enlisted man in Vicksburg took pen in hand to scribble in his journal, “Our regiment was greatly excited over reports of a Federal raid led by Col. Grierson, which passed nearly through the entire state.” The raid fascinated Port Hudson commander Franklin Gardner. When his bastion surrendered on July 9, Gardner wanted to meet Grierson to ask him about the details of the operation, and he later wrote of the “extraordinary march from Summit to Baton Rouge.” Colonel Wirt Adams praised the logistics employed during the operation by noting that, “during the last twenty-four hours of their march in this State, they traveled at a sweeping gallop, the numerous stolen horses previously collected furnishing them fresh relays.”19

  Other Confederates made similar observations. Colonel (and future general) Robert V. Richardson admitted that Grierson “has made a most successful raid through the length of the State of Mississippi and a part of Louisiana, one which will exhilarate for a short time the fainting spirits of the Northern war party.” George Gantt of the 9th Tennessee Cavalry Battalion, who had done his best to catch the Federal raiders, praised Grierson’s ability to trick civilians and others as he made his way to Louisiana. The officer, he wrote, “managed so as to completely deceive citizens and our scouts as to his purpose, and by a march of almost unprecedented rapidity moved off by the Greensburg road to Baton Rouge.” Lieutenant Colonel W. A. Rorer of the 20th Mississippi described it as “the celebrated raid through our State.”20

  Such praise would never flow from the lips or the pen of John Pemberton. Instead, the Vicksburg commander who had turned his eyes away from Grant’s river crossing in an effort to stop Grierson, simply noted in his official correspondence that the Federals “has studiously avoided meeting our infantry.” His official report includes a laundry list of things he did to stop Grierson, which was nothing more than an attempt to justify his actions and provide his version of events. In the end, he blamed a lack of cavalry while giving little praise to the “celebrated raid.”21

  While those who had chased Grierson through the southwestern portion of Mississippi expressed their admiration, many turned to the inevitable issue of who was to blame for letting such a thing occur. “The highest accomplishment which graces the Yankee is his skill in stealing,” sneered an editorial in the Jackson Daily Mississippian. The Federals, it continued, “pushed their way with quite ease and patience, stopping wherever they pleased to feed their horses from cribs, and their soldiers from the larders of Mississippi planters.” The editor could not fathom how the raid could have accomplished all it did. “Fifteen hundred Yankees leisurely traversed the hitherto proud State of Mississippi, insulting and destroying as they went without having a gun fired at them!” he exaggerated. “We deserve to bow our heads in lasting shame if we do not wipe out this stinging blot upon our fair escutcheon.”22

  Most of the blame for the disaster settled onto Confederate officers. “Governor,” fumed one citizen, “I have great reason to believe that in the recent raid through the state our Genl Officers on this road [Mobile and Ohio] are greatly to blame for the want of information at head quarters as to the movements of the Federals. Mississippi,” he added, “has been outraged by this raid and the citizens charge its success to the willful inattention or gross inability of the officers sent here to protect them.” A diarist in Jackson agreed, noting that “nothing proves more fully the incompetency of our generals than the miserable disposition of the forces appointed to defend the State.” One Vicksburg artillerist went so far as to ask, “Where are our authorities? ‘Asleep?’”23

  The Columbus (Mississippi) Republic mocked the military: “We do not know where the responsibility rests, but wherever it is, if it is not a fit and proper subject for court martial, we are afraid there are none.” The editor confessed, “We have always doubted the ability of Gen. Pemberton to command this department,” but then argued on the general’s behalf by claiming he could not handle situations beyond his “eye.” There was also some interarmy rivalry among the branches. W. A. Rorer complained about the cavalry, saying that his mounted infantry had done “more fighting in six weeks than most of the cavalry in this state have done since the war commenced.”24

  Out of the raid came a call for better defense of the interior. The Natchez Daily Courier decried the march and rightly called upon citizens to organize companies for defense, but then the newspaper demonstrated its own ineptitude by claiming “two hundred men, with shotguns, sand in their gizzards, taking advantage of position, could have arrested Grierson’s march, and saved us this humiliation, and the disasters that may follow.” In reality, those who had attempted to mount a defense had failed rather spectacularly. Still, the Jackson Mississippian lauded the people of Garlandville for their initial defense and called on others to take a stand, arguing “the raid is waking up its people.”25


  Civilians all over the state began forming home defense companies to ward off another crisis. Residents, particularly those left in Grierson’s wake, formed militia companies, explained a Palo Alto man to Governor Pettus, “to resist in future any other raids of the Yankees in our midst.” He continued: “We want no pay. We will furnish ourselves with every thing we need—We only ask the privilege of fighting the enemy in our own way.” The civilian also asked Pettus for commissions for the volunteer officers to protect them in case of capture, thus throwing “the protecting Mantle of the State over us, so we could claim all the privileges of prisoners of war.”26

  In the end, most of the blame fell on the top tier of Confederate commanders, including Pemberton and to a lesser degree theater commander Johnston. Pemberton had no real answer for why the Federal raiders had been able to accomplish what they did, while at the same time passing along some of the blame to his superior: “I confess I did not expect them to penetrate the department to its southern limits, nor, I presume, did you.” In truth, Grierson’s pluck rather than Confederate blame explains the success of the surprise raid. The enemy, concluded the Federal commander,

  became so excited, bewildered, and amazed that they could not judge what was best to do, being so mixed [up] and perplexed by the apparently reliable but false and contradictory reports received by them that they went blundering along in a haphazard sort of fashion, without gaining any satisfactory advantage or results. We were reported at so many different places at the same time, and our forces so greatly overestimated, that really but little correct information reached the enemy at all in regard to us until it was too late to be of any service.27

  ***

  Opinions mattered much less than the actual results. “During the expedition,” wrote Grierson in his report just three days after reaching Baton Rouge, “we killed and wounded about 100 of the enemy, captured and paroled over 500 prisoners, many of them officers, destroyed between 50 and 60 miles of railroad and telegraph, captured and destroyed over 3,000 stand of arms, and other army stores and Government property to an immense amount.” Grierson added, “We also captured 1,000 horses and mules. Our loss during the entire journey was three killed, seven wounded, five left on the route sick; the sergeant-major and surgeon . . . left with Lieutenant Colonel Blackburn, and nine men missing, supposed to have straggled. We marched over 600 miles in less than 16 days. The last 28 hours we marched 76 miles, had four engagements with the enemy, and forded the Comite River, which was deep enough to swim many of the horses. During this time the men and horses were without food or rest.” Later, he explained why he was able to do so much: “by the capture of their couriers, dispatches, and mails, and the invaluable aid of my scouts, we were always able by rapid marches to evade the enemy when they were too strong and whip them when not too large.”28

  The significance of the raid was much greater than Grierson imagined just a few days after safely reaching Louisiana. His report took a narrow view of its importance and focused on the destruction his troops had inflicted across Mississippi. The damage to the railroads in general, and especially to the bridges and trestles, was indeed significant. One newspaper reported that several bridges near Newton Station, 250 feet long each, suffered at the hands of the raiders, as did “seven culverts and one cattle gap.” The damage to the Southern Railroad, however, was not as serious as initially believed. The newspaper declared that the culverts would be easily fixed and that the bridges would be repaired and the road running “in four days or less.” Fixing the telegraph was more problematic. Although the poles had not been damaged, the wire had been “cut in pieces,” and in some cases rolled up and thrown into ditches. Despite the best efforts of the Federal troopers, it, too, was soon repaired and operable.29

  As the days and weeks passed, Confederate authorities breathed a collective sigh of relief when the realization sunk in that there was not as much damage as had been feared, especially to the all-important Southern Railroad. The line opened in early May, with one newspaper happily reporting on May 5 that the “superintendent of the Southern Express Company . . . came over the road.” Numerous trains carrying the state government’s archives, treasury, and officials made their way eastward in mid-May when the Mississippi state government fled Jackson in front of Grant’s invading army. Arthur Fremantle, a member of the British army visiting the Confederate states, took a perilous journey along the line on May 23 and 24 and recorded his impressions in his memoir, Three Months in the Southern Confederacy. There were breaks in the railroad around Jackson, and at one point the engine derailed, forcing the men on the train to push the cars for a while. The line around Newton and the Chunkey River bridges damaged by Grierson, however, were intact. Ironically, the injury to the New Orleans, Jackson, and Great Northern Railroad, a line Grierson’s troops had spent much time damaging, was more extensive than the target railroad at Newton Station. It would not be fully repaired until after the war.30

  Damage to outlying areas, such as the many road bridges Grierson burned in his wake, proved more difficult to repair. They were less significant in terms of military and supply transportation, and in some cases it was months—and even years—before they received any real attention. One Mississippian wrote about riding from Garlandville to Newton Station in January 1864 and the need to go “out of our way to cross a creek called Jarlow, the Grierson raid having burnt the bridge last spring.”31

  Yet the damage Grierson managed to inflict was mostly irrelevant when compared to the real repercussion of the deep cavalry raid: diverting attention away from Grant’s crossing of the Mississippi River. It is abundantly clear that Grant intended for Grierson’s and the other raids and diversions to help mask his own major operation, even if fully coordinating them was out of the question, given geographical and communication constraints. But the raid was not a lucky shot in the dark launched at exactly the right time and place. One veteran decades later railed against the notion that “our raid was simply a lucky incident—that Gen Hurlbut happened to send us down through Mississippi just at this opportune time.”32

  Grierson’s raid was a coordinated effort, and it succeeded beyond anyone’s highest hopes. The correspondence among the Confederate high command clearly related the impact of the operation. Pemberton was acutely aware of Grant’s movements to the south in Louisiana, and he was watching the effort when it reached New Carthage and concentrated toward Grand Gulf. The passing of the Vicksburg batteries by the Federal navy (twice) also indicated a significant movement was underway, and intelligence received by Confederate troops stationed across the river south of New Carthage indicated the same thing. In fact, there was some concern that Grant would move farther below Grand Gulf; Pemberton warned of enemy efforts as far south as Bayou Pierre (something that was, in fact, undertaken at a later date) as late as April 21.33

  Pemberton was keeping his eye on Grant even while Grierson was making his way south in the days after April 17. The Vicksburg commander believed his subordinates in northern Mississippi were in the best position to take care of the raiding threat, and he believed Grierson had turned back just as General Ruggles had informed him. Pemberton’s false sense of security vanished when the Federals appeared without warning at Newton Station and broke his one connection to the outside world. Naturally enough, he swiveled his attention to the east for the next five days, until Grant and Porter attacked Grand Gulf on April 29, in an effort to trap and destroy Grierson. That event swung his attention back west to Grant.34

  Pemberton’s correspondence in the Official Records between April 24 and 28 includes a heavy concentration of communications regarding Grierson’s raid. Sixty-four of the 69 messages during that brief period dealt with Grierson. One of the five non-Grierson messages referred to the Yazoo River defenses, while another dealt with the Vicksburg river defenses. Only three messages demonstrated any concern for Grant near Grand Gulf, and two of those, one to Jefferson Davis and the other to Joseph E. Johnston, contained warnings that the enemy was activ
e at Hard Times across the river and might be massing to attack Grand Gulf. Significantly, however, both messages ended with some variation of “the approaches to Northern Mississippi are almost unprotected, and it is impossible to prevent these raids with infantry.” Only one message during those April days solely discussed the threat that Grant and the Army of the Tennessee posed across the river. On April 28, Pemberton wrote to division commander Carter Stevenson at Vicksburg with orders to prepare to send reinforcements to John Bowen at Grand Gulf. Other messages during this time were sent to Bowen directly, each of them an attempt to warn him of Grierson’s threat to his rear and to activate Wirt Adams’s cavalry and send it after the raiding Federals. Based on this evidence, Pemberton almost completely ignored Grant for five full days, but the sudden jolt of news that Grant had crossed the river at Bruinsburg shook Pemberton from his obsession with Grierson. Only then did he turn his attention back to Grant. By that time it was too late.35

  The bulk of the Confederate forces in the Vicksburg and Jackson areas were also focused on Grierson’s raid. The operation kept Loring’s brigades occupied in east Mississippi, and once the Federals reached the area south of Jackson, Pemberton sent almost all the cavalry, together with infantry he ordered mounted, to chase the raiders. This included the commands watching the Mississippi River crossings for Bowen south of Grand Gulf, most notably Wirt Adams’s Mississippi Cavalry. The result, explained Grierson’s adjutant Samuel Woodward, was that the Confederate cavalry “were drawn into wild goose chases and scattered to the four winds in futile attempts to circumvent and capture Grierson.” More than four decades after the event, Union infantryman F. T. Demingway recalled the reaction of the soldiers of the Army of the Tennessee to news of Grierson’s raid: “We who marched with Grant to the rear of Vicksburg (I was in the 72nd Ill. Infty.), realized as never before the help your raid was in keeping the enemy away from us.”36