- 15 Apr 2021 13:50
#15166865
April 16, Thursday
For General Grant’s troops, the roads remain as wet as ever. The transfer of the army down the west bank of the Mississippi is progressing at a snail’s pace. If Grant hopes to launch his offensive quickly, at least some of the troops and the bulk of the supplies will have to be ferried down the Mississippi past the dangerous Vicksburg batteries. It falls to Admiral Porter’s gunboats to escort the first shipment past the guns to New Carthage, and Porter chooses this night for the run. Darkness cloaks the river as Grant, accompanied by his visiting wife and two sons, watches tensely from his headquarters steamer, anchored upstream out of range of the Confederate batteries. Sherman awaits the outcome aboard a boat below the town. The twelve vessels of the convoy start quietly downstream, their exhausts vented into the paddle-wheel housings to muffle the noise. Porter has even ordered his crews to leave ashore all pets, along with the poultry carried by some boats’ crews to provide fresh food. The captains of the convoy are told to steer a little off to one side of the vessel ahead, so that if a craft is hit, the vessel behind it can pass without slowing down. To afford some protections from shot and shell, many crews have stacked cotton and hay bales, grain sacks and logs on deck; others have lashed coal barges to the sides of their vessels. Belowdecks, teams of men stand ready to plug any shell holes below the waterline.
This night many of the people of Vicksburg, as well as General Pemberton’s senior officers, are attending a grand ball. Porter, made aware of the gala event by informants, hopes that the party will so preoccupy the enemy that they won’t notice the passage of his little fleet. But the Confederate pickets, patrolling the river in skiffs, are alert. They spot the spectral shadows in the Mississippi almost immediately and sound the alarm. The ball comes to a hasty end and soldiers hurry to their posts. From atop the bluffs the batteries open up. In an act of great courage, some of the Confederate pickets row their skiffs across the river under fire from both sides, land in Union-held De Soto, and set ablaze several buildings to light up the night. Meanwhile, the defenders of Vicksburg are igniting barrels of pitch on the east bank. Suddenly the whole river is illuminated and the Federal vessels are clearly visible in midstream. The people in the streets of the town are running and gesticulating as if all are mad. The men at the batteries load and fire and yell as if every shot sinks a steamboat. The sky is black, lit only by sparks from the burning houses. Down on the river it is a sheet of flame. One of the steamers and a few of the barges catch fire and are burning up, the men escaping in lifeboats and by swimming to the western shore. The passage of the fleet is agonizingly slow: From first to last it takes two and a half hours. But when it is over, only those few vessels that caught fire have been lost. Grant’s plan is successfully launched. Pemberton has been effectively disabused of the notion that the Federals are moving upriver, but he is still uncertain where the next blow will fall.
At New Carthage, Sherman greets each boat as it arrives. When Porter’s flagship appears, Sherman goes aboard and says cheerfully to the admiral, “You are more at home here than you were in the ditches grounding on willow trees.” After the fleet arrives at New Carthage, Sherman returns to Milliken’s Bend, where his XV Corps remains on watch, ready to strike at Vicksburg’s upriver defenses if Pemberton leaves them unguarded. Grant’s other two corps are now assembling at New Carthage to prepare for the landing.
Other fighting includes a skirmish at Newtown, Louisiana; an affair on the Pamunkey River near West Point, Virginia; and skirmishes at Eagleville, Tennessee, and Paris, Kentucky. Action continues in the New Berne area of North Carolina, with affairs at Hill’s and Rodman’s Points and a Federal expedition from New Berne toward Kinston, April 16-21.
President Davis approves acts of the Confederate Congress to allow minors to hold army commissions and to prevent absence of soldiers and officers without leave.
For General Grant’s troops, the roads remain as wet as ever. The transfer of the army down the west bank of the Mississippi is progressing at a snail’s pace. If Grant hopes to launch his offensive quickly, at least some of the troops and the bulk of the supplies will have to be ferried down the Mississippi past the dangerous Vicksburg batteries. It falls to Admiral Porter’s gunboats to escort the first shipment past the guns to New Carthage, and Porter chooses this night for the run. Darkness cloaks the river as Grant, accompanied by his visiting wife and two sons, watches tensely from his headquarters steamer, anchored upstream out of range of the Confederate batteries. Sherman awaits the outcome aboard a boat below the town. The twelve vessels of the convoy start quietly downstream, their exhausts vented into the paddle-wheel housings to muffle the noise. Porter has even ordered his crews to leave ashore all pets, along with the poultry carried by some boats’ crews to provide fresh food. The captains of the convoy are told to steer a little off to one side of the vessel ahead, so that if a craft is hit, the vessel behind it can pass without slowing down. To afford some protections from shot and shell, many crews have stacked cotton and hay bales, grain sacks and logs on deck; others have lashed coal barges to the sides of their vessels. Belowdecks, teams of men stand ready to plug any shell holes below the waterline.
This night many of the people of Vicksburg, as well as General Pemberton’s senior officers, are attending a grand ball. Porter, made aware of the gala event by informants, hopes that the party will so preoccupy the enemy that they won’t notice the passage of his little fleet. But the Confederate pickets, patrolling the river in skiffs, are alert. They spot the spectral shadows in the Mississippi almost immediately and sound the alarm. The ball comes to a hasty end and soldiers hurry to their posts. From atop the bluffs the batteries open up. In an act of great courage, some of the Confederate pickets row their skiffs across the river under fire from both sides, land in Union-held De Soto, and set ablaze several buildings to light up the night. Meanwhile, the defenders of Vicksburg are igniting barrels of pitch on the east bank. Suddenly the whole river is illuminated and the Federal vessels are clearly visible in midstream. The people in the streets of the town are running and gesticulating as if all are mad. The men at the batteries load and fire and yell as if every shot sinks a steamboat. The sky is black, lit only by sparks from the burning houses. Down on the river it is a sheet of flame. One of the steamers and a few of the barges catch fire and are burning up, the men escaping in lifeboats and by swimming to the western shore. The passage of the fleet is agonizingly slow: From first to last it takes two and a half hours. But when it is over, only those few vessels that caught fire have been lost. Grant’s plan is successfully launched. Pemberton has been effectively disabused of the notion that the Federals are moving upriver, but he is still uncertain where the next blow will fall.
At New Carthage, Sherman greets each boat as it arrives. When Porter’s flagship appears, Sherman goes aboard and says cheerfully to the admiral, “You are more at home here than you were in the ditches grounding on willow trees.” After the fleet arrives at New Carthage, Sherman returns to Milliken’s Bend, where his XV Corps remains on watch, ready to strike at Vicksburg’s upriver defenses if Pemberton leaves them unguarded. Grant’s other two corps are now assembling at New Carthage to prepare for the landing.
Other fighting includes a skirmish at Newtown, Louisiana; an affair on the Pamunkey River near West Point, Virginia; and skirmishes at Eagleville, Tennessee, and Paris, Kentucky. Action continues in the New Berne area of North Carolina, with affairs at Hill’s and Rodman’s Points and a Federal expedition from New Berne toward Kinston, April 16-21.
President Davis approves acts of the Confederate Congress to allow minors to hold army commissions and to prevent absence of soldiers and officers without leave.
Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without.
—Edmund Burke
—Edmund Burke