On the afternoon and night of the 10th, the army marched up past the abandoned outworks, and took position about one thousand yards from the fort. On the afternoon of the same day the three iron-clads advanced to within 300 or 400 yards of the fort and opened with their heavy guns. When they had become hotly engaged, Porter moved up the Black Hawk and the Lexington, together with the light-draughts, which threw in a destructive fire of shrapnel and rifle-shells. When the guns on the river-side had been partly silenced, Lieutenant-Commander Smith in the Rattler was ordered to pass the fort and enfilade it, which he did in a very gallant and handsome manner. The Rattler suffered somewhat, being raked by a heavy shell, and having her cabin knocked to pieces. After passing the fort she was entangled in the snags above and obliged to return. As night came on and the troops were not yet in position, the vessels were withdrawn, and tied up to the bank below.
The next day at 1 o’clock the army was reported ready, and the fleet moved up to a second attack. The same disposition was made of the vessels. All of the casemate-guns were silenced, No. 3, which was in the casemate assigned to the Cincinnati, being reduced to a complete wreck. At the same time the troops gradually advanced, and were just preparing for a final assault, when white flags were run up all along the works. Lieutenant Dunnington surrendered to Porter, and General Churchill to McClernand.
On the 30th of January Grant assumed command of the army before Vicksburg. The enemy’s right flank rested on the Yazoo Valley, a vast tract of partly overflowed country, oval in shape, two hundred miles long, and intersected by innumerable streams and bayous. This oval valley was bounded by the Mississippi on the west, and on the north, east, and south by what was in reality one long stream, known in its successive parts as the Coldwater, Tallahatchie, and Yazoo rivers. The bounding streams made the valley almost an island, the only break in their continuity being at the northern end of the valley, at Yazoo Pass, a bayou which had formerly connected the Coldwater with the Mississippi, but which had been closed by the erection of a levee several years before. The greater part of the valley was impassable for troops, and the streams were deemed impassable for vessels. The district was a rich storehouse of Confederate supplies, which were carried in small vessels through obscure passages and channels to Yazoo City, and thence to Vicksburg. At Yazoo City also, protected from assault by torpedoes and by the forts at Haynes’s Bluff, was a large navy-yard, where several gun-boats were in course of erection.
Porter’s plan was to cut the levee at Yazoo Pass, thus restoring the entrance and raising the water in the rivers, and by this means to get in the rear of Yazoo City before the enemy could prepare his defenses. Involving, as it did, a circuit of some two hundred miles through the tributary streams in the enemy’s country, it was an audacious and original conception, but still a sagacious piece of naval strategy.
General Grant adopted the plan, and on the 2d of February the work of cutting the levee was begun by Colonel James Harrison Wilson of the Engineers. On the evening of the 3d a mine was exploded in the remaining portion of the embankment, and the waters of the Mississippi rushed through in a torrent, cutting a passage forty yards wide, and sweeping everything before them. The difference in the levels was eight or nine feet, and some days elapsed before the new entrance was practicable for vessels. The first reconnoissance developed the fact that the Confederates had already been vigilant enough to block the way to the Coldwater by felling trees on the banks of the Pass. The removal of these occasioned a further delay of two weeks, when time was of great importance.
The naval expedition, which was commanded by Lieutenant-Commander Watson Smith, was composed of two iron-clads, the Chillicothe, Lieutenant-Commander James P. Foster, and the DeKalb, Lieutenant-Commander John G. Walker, and the tin-clads Rattler, Forest Rose, Romeo, Marmora, Signal, and Petrel. To these were added two vessels of the ram fleet, the Fulton and Lioness. The only troops at first ordered to accompany the vessels were four thousand men comprising the division under Brigadier-General L. F. Ross, which, being delayed by the want of boats, only left Helena on the 23d, arriving a week later at the Coldwater. Meantime, as the feasibility of the project became more apparent, Grant enlarged his plan, and McPherson’s corps, about 30,000 men, was ordered up, but, owing to delays, only a small part of this force under Brigadier-General I. F. Quinby took part in the movement.
On the 28th of February Smith’s flotilla reached the Coldwater. Notwithstanding the work which had been done by the army pioneers in removing obstructions, the progress of the flotilla had been excessively slow,—hardly more than three miles a day. The tortuous windings of the stream, which imposed the utmost caution on the vessels navigating them in a swift current, and the overhanging branches of the dense growth of trees lining the banks, which damaged the smoke-stacks and light upper works, made the passage slow and difficult, and caused a number of mishaps. There appears to be little doubt, however, that if the gun-boats had been pushed they might have got on considerably faster, perhaps with a saving of three or four days. In the Coldwater they made better time, though still moving slowly, and they only reached the Tallahatchie on the 6th of March. After four days more of rather dilatory navigation, they arrived at the junction of the Tallahatchie and the Yazoo. The transports were close behind them.
THE “BLACKHAWK,” ADMIRAL PORTER’S FLAG-SHIP, VICKSBURG, 1863.
The Confederates had put to the fullest use the time given them by Smith’s dilatory advance. A hastily constructed work of earth and cotton bales, called Fort Pemberton, was thrown up at the junction of the Tallahatchie and Yazoo, and though barely completed when the gun-boats arrived, it was armed and garrisoned, and in condition to receive them. The old Star of the West, of Fort Sumter fame, was sunk in the river as an obstruction. The Chillicothe and DeKalb attacked the fort on three different days, but their guns alone were not enough to reduce it, and the troops under Ross could find no firm ground for a landing. The Chillicothe was badly racked by the enemy’s fire, showing plainly her defective construction. Smith, who had started on the expedition in failing health, was now sent back in the Rattler (he died shortly after), and the command of the vessels fell to Foster of the Chillicothe. Finding that nothing more could be accomplished, Foster decided to return. On the way back he met General Quinby’s troops descending the Tallahatchie, and at that officer’s request steamed down again to Fort Pemberton. On the 5th of April the expedition withdrew, and on the 10th arrived in the Mississippi, about two months after it had started.
About the middle of March, before the Yazoo Pass expedition returned, Porter decided to try another route, through a series of narrow streams and bayous which made a circuitous connection between the Mississippi and the Sunflower, a tributary of the Yazoo River. Steele’s Bayou was a sluggish stream which entered the Mississippi a few miles above the mouth of the Yazoo. Black Bayou, which was little better than a narrow ditch, connected Steele’s Bayou with Deer Creek, a tortuous river with a difficult and shallow channel. A second lateral bayou, called Rolling Fork, connected Deer Creek with the Sunflower. From Rolling Fork the way was easy, but the difficulties of reaching that point were such that no commander with less than Porter’s indefatigable energy and audacious readiness to take risks that promised a bare chance of success, would have ventured on the expedition.
The flotilla, consisting of the remaining five Eads gun-boats, the Carondelet, Cincinnati, Louisville, Mound City, and Pittsburgh, started on the 14th of March, Porter commanding in person, while a coöperating detachment of troops under Sherman marched through the swamps. After overcoming obstacles that would have been insurmountable to almost any other commander, it arrived early at Rolling Fork. Here Porter was attacked by a small force, which was evidently only the advance-guard of a large army on its way up from Vicksburg. Sherman could not come to his assistance, being himself entangled in the swamp. At the same time Porter learned that detached parties of the enemy were felling trees in his rear, which would shortly render the bayous impassable,
and place his five iron-clads in a position from which they could not be extricated. Under these circumstances, he wisely abandoned all thought of farther advance, and after dropping down Deer Creek until he fell in with the army, he succeeded, notwithstanding the additional obstructions which had been placed in the rivers, in retracing his course; and on the 24th of March, after almost incredible difficulties, his iron-clads arrived safe in the Mississippi.
While the two expeditions were at work in the Yazoo Valley, a series of detached operations had been going on below Vicksburg. The portion of the river that was virtually held by the enemy, from Vicksburg to Port Hudson, included the outlet of the Red River, by which provisions and stores from Louisiana and Texas, arms and ammunition from the Rio Grande, and detachments of men, were forwarded through the trans-Mississippi country. On the 2d of February Porter sent the Queen of the West, under Colonel Charles R. Ellet, to the Red River. Her passage of the Vicksburg batteries alone and by daylight—for her start had been delayed for necessary repairs—was made in the true Ellet fashion. She was struck thrice before she got abreast of the town. At this point she turned and delivered a ram-thrust at the enemy’s steamer Vicksburg, which lay at one of the wharves, and damaged her badly; a second attempt to ram was prevented by a conflagration in the cotton bales which Ellet had placed around his deck. These were quickly pitched overboard, the ram dashed past the lower batteries, and though struck a dozen times by the enemy’s shot, in an hour or two she was ready for active operations and started down the river.
For once the Confederates were fairly taken by surprise, and before they knew of his approach, Ellet had run down one hundred miles to the Red River and pounced upon three heavily laden store-ships. These were burned, and the Queen, ascending again until near Vicksburg, coaled from a barge which Porter had set adrift the night before, and which had passed the batteries without mishap. A tender was also found in the De Soto, a little ferry-boat captured by the army. With her the Queen started on February 10th on a second raid, burning and destroying as occasion offered. Without meeting any serious opposition, this novel expedition proceeded down the Mississippi, up the Red River, down the Atchafalaya, and back again, then farther up the Red River. The Confederate ram Webb, which was regarded as its most dangerous antagonist, was nowhere to be seen. But the catastrophe was coming. On the 14th, some fifty miles from the river-mouth, Ellet captured a transport, the Era No. 5. Leaving her at this point, the Queen hastened up again, followed by the De Soto, but in rounding a bend of the river she ran aground under a 4-gun battery, whose fire made havoc with her, finally cutting her steam-pipe. Part of the crew made for the De Soto in a boat, and the remainder, Ellet among them, jumped overboard on cotton bales, and drifted down the stream. Upon reaching the Era, the De Soto, which had lost her rudder, was burned, the floating contingent was picked up, and the prize, now manned by the crews of the abandoned vessels, made her way to the Mississippi.
Shortly before this Porter had sent down the iron-clad Indianola, under Lieutenant-Commander George Brown, to support Ellet in his isolated position. She had passed Vicksburg and Warrenton at night without a scratch, and descending the river met the Era coming up. Both vessels continued on their way, the Era to Vicksburg, and the Indianola to the mouth of Red River, where she lay for three days. She then moved up toward Vicksburg, the two coal barges which she had brought with her being lashed alongside. While she was working slowly up, the Confederates, who had meantime repaired the Queen, fitted out an expedition composed of their prize, together with the Webb and two cotton-clad steamers. These followed the Indianola and overtook her a short distance below Warrenton. Engaging her at night, which gave them peculiar advantages, they succeeded in ramming her seven times, disabling her steering gear, and opening at last one great hole in her side. The Union vessel, reduced to a sinking condition, was then run ashore and surrendered.
A day or two later, Porter, whose buoyancy of spirit never deserted him, set adrift from his anchorage a dummy-monitor, constructed out of a coal-barge surmounted by barrels. The incident was in the nature of a stupendous joke, but it had very practical results. The dummy passed the Vicksburg batteries under a terrific fire. When the Queen of the West, acting as a picket to the grounded Indianola, saw this new antagonist coming she only stopped to give the alarm, and fled down the river. The supposed monitor stuck fast a mile or two above the Indianola, but the Confederate officer in charge of the work on board the latter did not wait for an attack, but set fire to the recent prize, which was in great part destroyed.
Less than three weeks after, on the 14th of March, Farragut ran the batteries at Port Hudson.3 Most of his fleet, including the Richmond, Monongahela, Genesee, and Kineo, failed to get through, and the Mississippi was burnt;4 but the Hartford and Albatross made the passage, and, coming up to Vicksburg, communicated with the vessels above. At Farragut’s request, General Ellet sent two of his rams, the Lancaster and Switzerland, to join the Hartford. The Lancaster was sunk in passing the batteries, but the Switzerland managed to get through. From this time the Union forces retained control of the mouth of the Red River and the adjacent waters of the Mississippi.
The navy was now called upon to coöperate with General Grant’s plan of attacking Vicksburg by the left and rear. Porter rapidly made his preparations to descend the river, and on the night of April 16th started with seven of his iron-clads, the Benton, Lafayette, and Tuscumbia, and the Eads gun-boats Carondelet, Louisville, Mound City, and Pittsburgh. The ram General Price and three transports laden with stores accompanied the fleet. The passage was one of the most brilliant and successful of the many dashes of this kind that were made on the river. Some of the vessels lost the coal-barges which they carried alongside, and all met with various mischances and damages, but the only casualty of importance was the sinking of one of the transports. About a week later six more transports ran the batteries. Of these also one was sunk.
From now on to the fall of Vicksburg, for over two months, Porter was in command of three detached fleets, acting from three distinct bases of operation—one the squadron which had remained above Vicksburg, and which was now to operate along the Yazoo River, the second that which had passed the batteries and was occupied with the river from Vicksburg 25 miles or more to Grand Gulf, and the third the vessels in Red River. Porter moved from one to the other as occasion required. His first duty lay at Grand Gulf, which was really the southern extremity of the Vicksburg forts. The batteries were well armed, and one hundred or more feet above the river. On the 29th of April the seven iron-clads of the lower fleet engaged them for four hours, silencing them, but not destroying the guns. As the elevation of the batteries made it impossible for the fleet to capture them, the army was landed lower down the river, which resulted in the evacuation of Grand Gulf on the 3d of May.5
As Grant advanced into the interior, Porter turned his attention to the Red River. For the last fortnight Farragut had been blockading the river with the Hartford and Albatross, a service of great importance in view of the active operations on foot along the river, and at the end of that time he was joined by a detached force of gun-boats which had been operating in the Teche, and which had reached Red River through the Atchafalaya. Banks was then moving against Alexandria, and a light squadron was formed to go up and coöperate with him. At this juncture Porter arrived with three iron-clads, and with these and a part of Farragut’s detached squadron he steamed up to Alexandria, where Banks arrived on May 7th. After clearing out the Red River and its tributary the Black, and destroying much property, the expedition returned, Banks going to Port Hudson and Porter returning to his old station above Vicksburg.
The Yazoo River now became for a short time the central point of Porter’s operations. Nothing had been done there since December except a demonstration during the attack of April 29–30 on Grand Gulf, which, though conducted with spirit and gallantry, was really only a feint to prevent the enemy from reënforcing his works below Vicksburg. In the fortnight that had
elapsed, however, Grant’s environment of the town on the east had cut off Haynes’s Bluff and the whole Yazoo Valley above it. Porter immediately sent up the De Kalb, Choctaw, and four light-draughts under Lieutenant-Commander K. R. Breese to open communication. Pushing on to Haynes’s Bluff, the De Kalb, Lieutenant-Commander John G. Walker, in advance, it was found that evacuation had already begun, and the small force left in the works hastily abandoned them. The fortifications were of great strength and covered a large area. On the 20th Walker with the De Kalb and Choctaw and three of the light-draughts, steamed up to Yazoo City. The work of destruction, begun by the retreating enemy, was completed by the gun-boats. The navy-yard, a large and well-equipped establishment, and the only one now remaining to the Confederates, with its mills and machine-shops and its stores of lumber, was burned, as were also three formidable vessels then in course of construction. A second expedition under Walker, a few days later, struck out into the tributary streams, the Sunflower, Rolling Fork, and the smaller bayous, burning the transports that had taken refuge there. Several steamers were sunk by the enemy on Walker’s approach, and three were captured and burnt by his vessels. Navigation in the Yazoo Valley was broken up, and the destruction of military supplies and provisions was enormous.
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