Grand Gulf

On April 29, 1863, Union and Confederate forces clashed at Grand Gulf, Mississippi, in an engagement tied to the larger struggle for Vicksburg. Major General Ulysses S. Grant, leading Union troops, had already made multiple unsuccessful attempts to get around or seize the Confederate stronghold of Vicksburg during his campaign against that city. Frustrated by these setbacks, Grant settled on a new plan: march his army below Vicksburg, get his men across the Mississippi River, and then push toward the city from that direction.

Anticipating such a move, Confederate Brigadier General John S. Bowen had positioned a division at Grand Gulf and built two fortifications, Fort Wade and Fort Cobun, to guard the river south of Vicksburg. In an effort to open a path for the Union army's crossing, seven ironclads belonging to Admiral David Dixon Porter's Mississippi Squadron shelled these Confederate works on April 29. The naval guns managed to knock out Fort Wade and claimed the life of its commanding officer, yet Bowen's defenders otherwise kept their ground. Faced with this stubborn resistance, Grant abandoned the idea of forcing a passage at Grand Gulf and looked for another spot to get his troops across.

That opportunity came the following day, when Union soldiers made their crossing at Bruinsburg, Mississippi. Their foothold was made secure by a victory at the Battle of Port Gibson on May 1, a success that also compelled the Confederates to give up their position at Grand Gulf altogether; the site subsequently became a supply depot for Grant's army. From there, Union forces pressed farther into Mississippi, and following their triumph at the Battle of Champion Hill on May 16, they launched the Siege of Vicksburg just two days afterward. Vicksburg's surrender came on July 4, delivering a severe blow to the Confederacy and marking one of the war's decisive turning points.

Today the ground where the fighting at Grand Gulf took place is protected within Grand Gulf Military State Park, a site added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1972.

Background

When the Civil War had just begun, Union commanders devised what became known as the Anaconda Plan, a broad strategy aimed at crushing the Confederacy. Seizing control of the Mississippi River formed a key piece of this design, since doing so would cut the western Confederate states off from the rest. By early 1862, after New Orleans, Louisiana fell and several land battles were won, the Union had gained dominance over much of the Mississippi Valley. Vicksburg, Mississippi remained a Confederate stronghold, however, its position on the bluffs giving it command of the river and blocking any Union effort to sever the eastern and western Confederacy. That May, Union naval forces steamed up from New Orleans in a bid to seize the city, but the effort came to nothing. Late June brought a renewed push, this time a combined army and navy operation aimed once more at Vicksburg. Navy commanders concluded, though, that capturing the city would require additional foot soldiers that simply were not available. Engineers also tried digging Williams's Canal through a bend in the river during June and July as a way of getting around Vicksburg altogether, but this too came to nothing.

As November drew to a close, roughly 40,000 Union infantrymen under Major General Ulysses S. Grant set out from Tennessee, pushing southward toward Vicksburg. That advance stalled, however, when Confederate raiders wrecked a Union supply depot and severed part of Grant's supply line, first through the Holly Springs Raid on December 20 and then through Forrest's West Tennessee Raid, prompting Grant to order a retreat. On that same December 20, a separate column under Major General William T. Sherman had set out from Memphis, Tennessee, heading down the Mississippi. Sherman's force turned up the Yazoo River and soon found itself trading fire with Confederate troops entren

Prelude

Confederate artillery stationed along the Mississippi River south of Vicksburg had repeatedly fired on Union Navy vessels from Grand Gulf, Mississippi, during the middle months of 1862. In response, Union troops set much of the town ablaze in an effort to silence the guns. The following year, in early March 1863, Confederate commanders resolved to rebuild the fortifications there, transferring Brigadier General John S. Bowen's brigade to oversee the effort. Within two weeks, Bowen's soldiers, aided by enslaved laborers, were busy constructing fresh defenses and reinforcing older ones. Heavier artillery was on its way to the site, but before it arrived, fighting broke out on March 19 between the defenders and two Union warships, the sloop USS Hartford and the schooner USS Albatross. The clash was brief and cost the Confederates nothing, though eight Union sailors aboard Hartford were killed or wounded. Not long after, five large guns reached Grand Gulf: two 8-inch pieces and three 32-pounder rifles.

As April began, Bowen learned that Grant was maneuvering along the western bank of the Mississippi, prompting him to dispatch Francis Cockrell's men across the river on April 4 to counter this movement. He passed word of Grant's advance to Pemberton, who chose to ignore it. Meanwhile, David Dixon Porter's Mississippi Squadron, cooperating with Grant's army, held position north of Vicksburg, but circumstances called for some vessels to head south, both to support operations near Port Hudson, Louisiana, and to shield the transports that would carry Grant's troops across the river. Two hours after dark on April 16, Porter guided a number of ships past the Vicksburg batteries, losing only one transport and a barge in the process. This maneuver alerted Pemberton to the unfolding situation, giving him a clearer sense of the actual threat. Grand Gulf received reinforcement in the form of Brigadier General Martin E. Green's brigade, prompting Pemberton to raise the garrison to divisional strength under Bowen. With the further addition of an 800-man mixed command and a four-gun battery from Jackson, Mississippi, the Confederate force at Grand Gulf swelled to roughly 4,200 men.

On the night of April 22, additional transports slipped past Vicksburg under cover of darkness. One transport and several barges were destroyed, and every surviving vessel sustained damage. Porter intended to shell Grand Gulf on April 23, with McClernand's infantry set to land afterward, but a false claim that the Confederates had massed 12,000 troops there led him to abandon the plan. McClernand himself inspected Grand Gulf later that day, and Grant did the same the following day; both concluded the defenses were weaker than had been described. The Union army then pushed further south along the river, establishing a new base at Hard Times Landing. By April 28, most of McClernand's men were aboard transports, ready for the crossing. Seeking to draw Confederate attention elsewhere, Grant proposed a diversionary move up the Yazoo River, to be carried out by Sherman. Grant harbored some doubt about the wisdom of this feint, fearing that news of it could be mistaken by the public for another defeat like the one at Chickasaw Bayou, yet Sherman proceeded regardless. The resulting action, known as the Battle of Snyder's Bluff, involved Union gunboats and troop-laden transports advancing up the Yazoo on April 29 and skirmishing with Confederate defenders over the next two days. As a diversion, it achieved little.

Only on April 28 did Pemberton grasp the true scale of the Union concentration near Grand Gulf. He directed Carter L. Stevenson to prepare 5,000 men for deployment there at Bowen's discretion, though Stevenson remained convinced that the southern movement was merely a ruse meant to mask a direct strike on Vicksburg. Bowen, lacking cavalry for reconnaissance since his mounted units had been sent off in pursuit of Grierson's Raid, could not easily verify Union intentions. By this point, the defenses at Grand Gulf were far more formidable than they had been at the start of March. Two forts anchored the position: the more powerful, Fort Cobun, and the smaller, Fort Wade.

Fort Cobun stood atop a bluff called Point of Rock, rising 40 fe

Battle

On the morning of April 29, at seven o'clock, Porter guided seven Union Navy ironclads away from Hard Times Landing and toward the Confederate defenses at Grand Gulf. Nearly 30,000 Union foot soldiers waited in the vicinity of the landing, with close to 10,000 already aboard transport vessels. Those transports had already pushed off from shore and taken cover behind a strip of land called Point Coffee, awaiting the moment when the Confederate guns would be silenced so troops could cross and seize Grand Gulf. Porter warned his commanders to steer clear of shallow spots where their vessels might run aground. Detachments drawn from the 58th Ohio Infantry Regiment and the 29th Illinois Infantry Regiment rode aboard the gunboats, ready to act as marines or, if needed, as a landing party.

Pittsburgh led the flotilla, trailed by Louisville, Carondelet, and Mound City, while a second group made up of Benton, Tuscumbia, and Lafayette followed behind. Between them, these ships carried 81 cannons, dwarfing the 13 guns held by the Confederate forts. The Union navy also held an edge in gun size, since most Confederate pieces were 30-pounders or smaller while the typical Union weapon fired 42-pound shells. The ironclads opened their assault on Fort Cobun before Pittsburgh, Louisville, Carondelet, and Mound City shifted their attention to Fort Wade, leaving the remaining three vessels to keep pounding Fort Cobun. Once past Fort Cobun, the ships wheeled about so their bows faced upriver. The leading vessels began firing near 7:50 a.m., and Fort Cobun answered roughly twenty five minutes afterward. River currents seized several Union ships and spun them helplessly while Confederate gunners took advantage of the moment. Once the exchange began, the 12th Arkansas Sharpshooter Battalion left its reserve post and advanced into rifle pits close to Fort Cobun.

Even though Pittsburgh, Louisville, Carondelet, and Mound City each mounted thirteen guns, their arrangement meant only four could be trained on the Confederate works simultaneously, limiting the fleet's actual striking power. By ten in the morning, Fort Wade had been silenced. One of its heavy guns had burst apart, the earthworks lay badly torn up, and Colonel William F. Wade, who commanded the post, was killed by decapitation from Union fire. Dirt from the wrecked fortifications buried the surviving cannons there. Having neutralized Fort Wade, the four vessels responsible turned to join the fight against the remaining Confederate stronghold, which kept resisting. A Confederate round struck Benton and wrecked its steering wheel, while soldiers positioned in the rifle pits added their fire against the Union ships. Around one o'clock, Fort Cobun's fire slackened because its ammunition was running low. Even so, Porter and Grant chose not to attempt landing troops against Grand Gulf, judging the Confederate position too strong. Despite the damage they had suffered and their dwindling shells, the Confederate guns remained capable of driving back any attempt to land men from the transports. Porter himself was struck by a shell fragment in the back of the head during the fighting, an injury painful enough that he had to lean on his sword afterward like a cane. Altogether, the Union ships fired more than 2,300 rounds throughout the engagement.

The heaviest Confederate fire concentrated on Benton, Pittsburgh, and Tuscumbia, which absorbed 47, 35, and more than 80 hits respectively. Tuscumbia had been assembled poorly, with its iron plating held on by spikes lacking any nuts to secure them, and engine damage eventually forced it out of the battle. Accounts of the casualties differ among historians. Michael B. Ballard and Ed Bearss put Union losses at 18 killed and 57 wounded, for 75 total, whereas William L. Shea, Terrence J. Winschel, and Timothy B. Smith count 24 killed and 56 wounded, a tally that includes a handful of army men who had volunteered to serve on the gun

Aftermath

The failure of the naval bombardment to silence Confederate defenses at Grand Gulf forced the soldiers aboard the transports back onto solid ground. That same day, Porter's gunboats shielded the transports and barges as they slipped past the position and continued downriver. The passage went smoothly, costing Porter a single man while the Confederates suffered no losses at all. A handful of Union vessels took hits, though the damage proved minor. Grant's foot soldiers then marched down to Disharoon's plantation, the spot where the transports had gathered once they cleared Grand Gulf.

Grant weighed two possible crossing sites south of Grand Gulf: Rodney, Mississippi, and Bruinsburg, Mississippi. Bowen anticipated that Union forces would land at Rodney. However, conversations between Union scouts and a local African American man, thought perhaps to be named Bob, revealed a passable road connecting Bruinsburg to Port Gibson. This information tipped the decision toward Bruinsburg.

As April 29 drew to a close, Bowen, anticipating a river crossing, dispatched a detachment to secure Port Gibson, and by the following day he had also funneled reinforcements arriving from Vicksburg into that same location. The crossing at Bruinsburg commenced on the morning of April 30, sp