Chickasaw Bayou was a Civil War engagement fought in Mississippi, 1862. It was a Confederate victory.
On December 26, 1862, three Union divisions, under Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman, disembarked at Johnson's Plantation on the Yazoo River to approach the Vicksburg defenses from the northeast while a fourth landed farther upstream on the 27th. On the 27th, the Federals pushed their lines forward through the swamps toward Walnut Hills, which were strongly defended. On the 28th, several futile attempts were made to get around these defenses. On December 29, Sherman ordered a frontal assault which was repulsed with heavy casualties. Sherman then withdrew. This Confederate victory frustrated Grant's attempts to take Vicksburg by direct approach.
Fought from December 26 through 29, 1862, the clash at Chickasaw Bayou, sometimes known as the Battle of Walnut Hills, marked the first major action of the Vicksburg Campaign in the Civil War. Union Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman led an offensive meant to open the way toward seizing Vicksburg, Mississippi, but Confederate troops commanded by Lt. Gen. John C. Pemberton drove his forces back.
The operation began on December 26, when three of Sherman's divisions came ashore at Johnson's Plantation along the Yazoo River, aiming to strike the Vicksburg defenses from the northeast. A fourth division landed upstream the following day. That same day, December 27, Federal troops advanced their lines through difficult swampland toward the well-fortified Walnut Hills. The next day brought a series of unsuccessful attempts to flank these Confederate positions. Finally, on December 29, Sherman committed his men to a direct assault, which met fierce resistance and cost his army heavy losses, forcing him to pull back. Coupled with the Confederate triumph over Grant's supply base at Holly Springs, this defeat thwarted Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's plan to seize Vicksburg through a straightforward advance.
On the twenty-sixth of December, Sherman sent forward the brigades of Col. John F. DeCourcy, along with those of Brig. Gens. David Stuart and Francis P. Blair Jr., tasking them with scouting the ground ahead and probing for gaps in the Confederate line. Progress was slow across the rough landscape, and the men traded fire with S.D. Lee's screening force, which had been posted near Mrs. Lake's plantation. Two days later, Steele's division attempted to swing around the Confederate right, only to be driven back by artillery as the troops pushed forward along a cramped front.
The following morning, December 29, Sherman called for his guns to pound the Confederate works ahead of a broader push by his infantry. The cannon fire continued for roughly four hours across the battlefield, yet accomplished little real damage. Around eleven o'clock the guns fell silent, and the foot soldiers formed into their attack lines. Aware of just how strong the Confederate earthworks were, Sherman observed that they would lose five thousand men before taking Vicksburg, and might as well lose them there as anywhere.
When noon arrived, the Federal soldiers surged forward with cheering ranks. Blair held the left of the advance, DeCourcy anchored the center, and Brig. Gen. John M. Thayer's brigade came up on the right. However, General George W. Morgan, through orders relayed by Steele (who held official command over Thayer), directed that none of Thayer's brigade follow him except the 4th Iowa Infantry. As a result, Thayer reached the Confederate lines not with the 3,500 troops he expected but with only 500. Colonel James A. Williamson, who led the 4th Iowa, would later receive the Medal of Honor for his conduct that day. The attacking troops pushed through water obstacles and abatis, overwhelming the forward rifle p
That night Sherman remarked that he felt "generally satisfied with the high spirit manifested" among his troops, even though their assaults had come to nothing against the formidable Confederate defenses positioned atop the bluffs. The engagement proved decidedly favorable to the Confederate side. On the Union side, 208 men died, 1,005 suffered wounds, and 563 were taken prisoner or went missing, with most of these losses falling on the 4th Iowa and the brigades commanded by Blair and De Courcy. The Confederates, by contrast, suffered only 57 dead, 120 wounded, and 10 missing. Meeting with Adm. Porter, whose ships had likewise failed to inflict any meaningful damage with their guns, Sherman agreed to renew the offensive the next day, and Porter dispatched a vessel to Memphis to replenish supplies of small arms ammunition.
When December 30 dawned, Sherman recognized that another assault on the same ground would accomplish nothing. Instead, he and Porter devised a combined army and navy strike against Drumgould's Bluff, situated to the northeast, gambling that its steep terrain might shield his soldiers during their advance. Keeping the plan concealed was essential, since any hint of it might prompt the Confederates to reposition their defenders. The operation got underway on December 31 but had to be abandoned amid dense fog on January 1, 1863.
Meanwhile, Grant's overland thrust was collapsing as well. Raids led by Brig. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest and Maj. Gen. Earl Van Dorn had cut his supply lines, and Van Dorn's destruction of a major depot during the Holly Springs Raid on December 20 left Grant without the means to keep his army supplied. He had no choice but to call off his overland campaign. Once Sherman understood that no reinforcements from Grant would be forthcoming, he withdrew his forces, arriving at the mouth of the Yazoo on January 2. Three days
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