Champion Hill

On May 16, 1863, forces clashed at Champion Hill in what would prove the decisive engagement of the Vicksburg campaign during the American Civil War (1861-1865). This fight is also remembered under two other names, the Battle of Champion's Hill and the Battle of Baker's Creek. Major General Ulysses S. Grant, leading the Union Army of the Tennessee, chased down Lieutenant General John C. Pemberton's retreating Confederate forces and crushed them some twenty miles east of Vicksburg, Mississippi. That defeat set in motion an unavoidable chain of events culminating in the Siege of Vicksburg and the city's eventual surrender.

The hill itself took its name from Sidney S. Champion, a man born in 1824 in Guilford County, North Carolina, who later moved to Mississippi and established himself on a sizable stretch of land situated between Bolton and Edwards. By the time fighting broke out at the site bearing his name, Champion already held the rank of captain and had years of Confederate service behind him. On the evening of May 15, he found himself close to where the battle would soon unfold, fulfilling his role as an important staff officer under General Pemberton.

Background

After Union troops took Jackson, Mississippi on May 14, commanders on both sides began mapping out their next moves. Joseph E. Johnston, who led all Confederate forces in the state, pulled the bulk of his army back along the Canton Road. Still, he directed Lieutenant General John C. Pemberton, whose three divisions numbered roughly 23,000 troops, to abandon Edwards Station and strike Union forces stationed at Clinton. Pemberton and his officers doubted this course would end well, so instead they chose to target the Union supply trains headed from Grand Gulf toward Raymond. Then on May 16, a fresh dispatch arrived from Johnston reiterating the original command. By that point Pemberton was already in motion toward the wagons, positioned along the Raymond-Edwards Road with his rear guard stationed at a crossroads a third of a mile south of Champion Hill's summit. Complying with the renewed order meant reversing course, and in doing so, what had been his rear, the supply wagons included, now found itself leading the advance.

Battle

Fighting erupted that morning of May 16 near seven o'clock as Union troops made contact with Pemberton's Confederates, opening what would become known as the fight at Champion Hill. Pemberton had arranged his men along a ridge crest above Jackson Creek, stretching roughly three miles from southwest to northeast in a defensive arrangement. Grant later reflected in his memoirs on the strength of this ground, noting that whether by chance or careful planning, Pemberton had picked one of the tallest points nearby, a spot that gave him command of the surrounding terrain.

What Pemberton failed to grasp was that a Union column was advancing along the Jackson Road straight toward his exposed left, unguarded atop Champion Hill itself. To watch the crossroads for any approaching enemy troops, he had stationed Brigadier General Stephen D. Lee's brigade of Alabama soldiers on the hill. Before long, Lee caught sight of the Federal soldiers, and they spotted him in turn. Allowing that force to pass unchecked risked severing the Confederate army from its supply base at Vicksburg. Once alerted to the danger on his flank, Pemberton dispatched reinforcements to shore up his left. Meanwhile, Union soldiers positioned near the Champion House sprang into motion, their cannon opening fire.

Grant himself reached the scene around ten in the morning and gave the order to press forward. On the Federal left, John A. McClernand's corps advanced with little energy, while James B. McPherson pushed hard on the right. Far behind them, William T. Sherman's corps was still marching away from Jackson, well removed from the action. By half past eleven, Union soldiers had closed on the main Confederate defenses, and within another ninety minutes they had seized the ridge's summit, sending Carter L. Stevenson's division fleeing in disarray. McPherson's men surged ahead, seizing the vital crossroads and sealing off the Jackson Road as an avenue of retreat. John S. Bowen's division then struck back to support Stevenson, driving Federal soldiers past the hill's crest before the momentum of the counterattack finally gave out, the numbers proving insufficient to reclaim the position permanently.

Seeking reinforcements, Pemberton ordered William W. Loring to pull troops from the southern portion of the line, an area facing only halfhearted pressure from McClernand, and send them north to the hill. Loring, however, balked, insisting that heavy Union forces stood before him and refusing to move.

At this point Grant unleashed a fresh assault, throwing in troops that had just arrived after marching from Clinton via Bolton. The Confederate line buckled under the pressure, forcing Pemberton to order a withdrawal across the sole remaining escape path, the crossing of Bakers Creek along the Raymond Road. Loring, by then finally complying with his commander's earlier order, was working his way toward the battle by a roundabout path that kept his men from ever joining the fight. Covering the retreat fell to Brigadier General Lloyd Tilghman's brigade, which held its ground at heavy cost, Tilghman himself dying under artillery fire. As afternoon turned to evening, Grant's forces took control of the Bakers Creek Bridge, and Union troops held Edwards by the stroke of midnight. Pemberton's battered army withdrew to fortify a line along the Big Black River just outside Vicksburg. The engagement fought there the following day, at Big Black River Bridge, would offer Pemberton his last opportunity to break free.

Aftermath

Champion Hill ended in a costly and clearly decisive triumph for Union forces. Grant later reflected on the experience in his Personal Memoirs, describing how the fury of combat allowed a commander to watch enemy soldiers fall by the thousands with a strange calm, yet once the fighting ended, the sight of the wounded and dead became painful to witness, stirring an instinct to care for former foes as though they were comrades.

Grant found fault with McClernand, a man who competed with him for command of Union forces, faulting him for failing to destroy or capture Pemberton's army entirely and accusing him of showing little combative energy during the engagement. Losses on McClernand's southern position, the Union left, remained comparatively minor. It was McPherson's troops on the opposite flank who bore the heaviest toll, suffering roughly 2,500 of the Union total. Confederate losses reached approximately 3,800 men.

William Eddington, who kept a diary of the campaign, noted that so many Confederate horses lay dead on the field that Union troops found it difficult to reach the deserted artillery batteries at all. Only once the fighting at Big Black River Bridge had concluded did Union forces dispatch horses back to haul the guns away.

Among the Confederate setbacks was the effective removal of most of Loring's division from the fight, since it had struck out independently toward Jackson to link up with Joseph E. Johnston rather than remain with the main force.