Big Black River Bridge

Fought on May 17, 1863, the clash at Big Black River Bridge formed part of the larger Vicksburg Campaign during the American Civil War. Vicksburg, Mississippi, held great strategic value at the time because of its position on the Mississippi River. Beginning April 30, 1863, Major General Ulysses S. Grant led Union forces across to the river's east side, launching operations aimed at capturing the city. A string of victories in earlier engagements paved the way for Grant's decisive triumph over Lieutenant General John C. Pemberton's Confederate troops at Champion Hill on May 16. As Pemberton's forces pulled back from that battlefield, a division under Major General William W. Loring became separated from the main body. Uncertain of Loring's whereabouts as he moved his army west toward Vicksburg, Pemberton established a defensive position on the eastern bank of the Big Black River, hoping to protect Loring's expected crossing on the morning of May 17.

Command of the Confederate troops stationed east of the river fell to Brigadier General John S. Bowen, whose force included his division's two brigades along with Brigadier General John C. Vaughn's brigade and a single extra regiment. Bowen's men had already suffered significant losses at Champion Hill, and many in Vaughn's ranks were conscripts whose commitment to the cause remained doubtful. When Major General John A. McClernand's Union XIII Corps arrived that morning, two full divisions plus a brigade drawn from a third moved into position opposite the Confederate line. On the battlefield's northern edge, Union Brigadier General Michael Kelly Lawler pushed his men forward into a meander scar ahead of the main Union formation. Using this protected ground as a launching point, Lawler's soldiers surged forward and struck the section of Confederate line defended by Vaughn's brigade.

The impact shattered Vaughn's command, sending his men fleeing or into surrender. Once this segment of the defense gave way, the remaining Confederate units had no choice but to pull back as well. What followed was a disorderly retreat that ended with the capture of 1,751 Confederate soldiers and 18 artillery pieces, the guns lost because their horse teams had mistakenly been stationed across the river. Union losses totaled fewer than 300 men. As they fell back, Confederate troops set fire to the railroad bridge spanning the Big Black River as well as a steamboat that had been functioning as a makeshift crossing. By this point Loring had abandoned any hope of reuniting his division with Pemberton's army, instead directing his men toward Jackson, Mississippi. The following day, May 18, Union forces made their crossing of the Big Black River. Those Confederate troops who remained with Pemberton withdrew into Vicksburg's defensive works, and the siege that would end in Confederate surrender on July 4, 1863, commenced the day after their arrival.

Background

In the war's opening phases, Union commanders drew up what became known as the Anaconda Plan, an approach aimed at strangling the Confederate States of America by seizing its coastline and its principal rivers. Gaining control of the Mississippi River stood as one of the most critical pieces of this design. By early 1862, following the fall of New Orleans, Louisiana, and a series of victories on land, the bulk of the Mississippi Valley had come under Union authority. Vicksburg, Mississippi, however, remained firmly in Confederate hands, its position offering a formidable defensive point that dominated the river and blocked any Union effort to sever the Confederacy into two parts. That May, Union naval forces steamed upriver from New Orleans hoping to seize the city, but the effort came to nothing. A combined army and navy expedition returned in late June to try again, only for naval commanders to conclude that capturing Vicksburg would require additional infantry support that simply was not available. Around this same time, engineers attempted to dig Williams's Canal through a bend in the river during June and July as a way of bypassing the city altogether, but this too ended in failure.

As November drew to a close, Major General Ulysses S. Grant set some 40,000 Union infantry marching south from Tennessee toward Vicksburg. That effort stalled after Confederate raiders struck a Union supply depot and cut a portion of Grant's supply line during the Holly Springs Raid and Forrest's West Tennessee Raid in December, prompting Grant to order his men to fall back. At the same time, a separate column under Major General William T. Sherman departed Memphis, Tennessee, that same day, moving down the Mississippi. Sherman's force turned up the Yazoo River and soon found itself trading fire with Confederate defenders positioned along a ridge overlooking Chickasaw Bayou. When Union troops attacked on December 29, they suffered a clear defeat at what became known as the Battle of Chickasaw Bayou, and Sherman pulled his men back on January 1, 1863.

Several more attempts to route around Vicksburg collapsed by late March. Grant weighed three possible courses of action: pulling back to Memphis and trying once more to advance overland through northern Mississippi, marching south along the Mississippi's western bank before crossing below Vicksburg to approach the city from that direction, or launching a direct amphibious strike across the river at Vicksburg itself. The prospect of a frontal river assault carried the danger of severe losses, while retreating toward Memphis threatened political fallout if it appeared to the public as an outright withdrawal. Weighing these options, Grant settled on the plan to cross downstream. On March 29, Major General John A. McClernand's XIII Corps led the advance along the Mississippi's west bank. To conceal this movement, Union forces staged a series of diversions, including Steele's Greenville expedition, Streight's Raid, and Grierson's Raid. Confederate commander John C. Pemberton, responsible for the region, was taken in by these decoys, particularly Grierson's Raid, and as a result lost his grasp of the actual military situation, coming to believe that Grant's army was pulling out altogether.

Prelude

On April 29, Porter's Mississippi Squadron opened fire on the Confederate works guarding Grand Gulf, Mississippi, yet the engagement that followed, known as the Battle of Grand Gulf, failed to dislodge the defenders. Since the position remained in Confederate hands, Grant opted to move his crossing point further down the river. Starting on the morning of April 30, McClernand's corps, leading Grant's advance, began ferrying troops over at Bruinsburg, Mississippi. Confederate Brigadier General John S. Bowen, who held Grand Gulf, faced the prospect of being outflanked should Grant push across Bayou Pierre. In response, Bowen sent part of his command to Port Gibson hoping to slow the Federal advance, though he lacked sufficient numbers to eliminate Grant's foothold and instead needed to hold on until help arrived. Combat erupted between the two sides on May 1 in what became the Battle of Port Gibson. By day's end the Confederates had been beaten, and they gave up Grand Gulf on May 3.

Following the fight at Port Gibson, Grant redirected his troops toward the northeast. His formation spread across three fronts:

Aftermath and preservation

After falling back, the Confederate forces regrouped inside the fortifications at Vicksburg. Pemberton directed that several forward positions be pulled back into the main defensive line, and work began to strengthen the city's defenses further. Anger toward Pemberton spread widely through the Confederate ranks, fueled by frustration over how the recent marches and engagements had unfolded. On the morning of May 17, Loring spotted smoke rising from fires in Edwards, by then held by Union troops, and finding his route cut off, he led his men toward Jackson instead, where they linked up with Johnston's command on May 19.

The following morning, May 18, McClernand's men finished constructing a new bridge across the Big Black River, while the corps under McPherson and Sherman made their crossings at separate locations nearby. Sherman dispatched a cavalry unit toward Snyder's Bluff and discovered that the Confederate works there had already been deserted. This allowed Grant's army to reestablish contact with Union naval forces stationed on the Yazoo River. By late in the day, Sherman's troops had reached the outer Confederate defenses around Vicksburg, with McClernand's and McPherson's commands arriving shortly afterward. What followed was the beginning of the prolonged siege of Vicksburg.

Convinced that the city's defenders could be overcome quickly, Grant ordered large scale assaults on May 19 and again on May 22. Both efforts ended in costly failure, forcing him to abandon direct attacks in favor of a sustained siege. As Confederate supplies dwindled, Pemberton ultimately capitulated on July 4. The surrender of Vicksburg stands as one of the war's pivotal turning points.

The ground where the fighting occurred earned a place on the National Register of Historic Places in 1971, recognized as the Big Black River Battlefield. Even today, as of 2023, remnants of the piers from the wartime railroad bridge can still be seen where it once spanned the Big Black River. Visitors can walk a trail that follows the riverbank, and a historical marker stands near the old battle site, though the land itself remains in private hands.