Raymond

Near Raymond, Mississippi, on May 12, 1863, Union and Confederate forces clashed in what became known as the Battle of Raymond, an engagement within the broader Vicksburg campaign of the Civil War. Earlier Union efforts to seize Vicksburg, a city of great strategic value on the Mississippi River, had come to nothing. That changed when Major General Ulysses S. Grant launched a fresh Union offensive starting in late April 1863. His forces crossed the river into Mississippi and secured a victory at Port Gibson, after which Grant pushed eastward, planning eventually to swing back west toward Vicksburg itself. As part of this movement, Major General James B. McPherson directed his XVII Corps, numbering somewhere between 10,000 and 12,000 soldiers, on a northeastern course toward Raymond. Meanwhile, Lieutenant General John C. Pemberton, who held command of Vicksburg's defense, dispatched Brigadier General John Gregg with a brigade of 3,000 to 4,000 men from Jackson toward the same town.

On May 12, Gregg's troops encountered the advance elements of McPherson's corps. Both commanders misjudged the size of the force facing them. Believing his opponent weaker than it truly was, Gregg pressed forward with confidence, expecting an easy victory. McPherson, by contrast, assumed the Confederates outnumbered his men more than they did and proceeded with caution. During the opening phase of fighting, two brigades from Major General John A. Logan's division squared off against Gregg's Confederates in a contest that remained fairly balanced. The tide shifted once McPherson committed additional troops, Brigadier General John D. Stevenson's brigade along with Marcellus M. Crocker's division. As Union numerical superiority took hold, cracks appeared in the Confederate line, prompting Gregg to pull his men back. McPherson's forces, however, did not press their advantage with an immediate chase.

This clash at Raymond prompted Grant to reconsider his approach to the Vicksburg campaign. Rather than moving directly against Vicksburg, he chose to first eliminate the Confederate threat at Jackson. Once Jackson fell, Grant redirected his army westward, pushing Pemberton's troops back into Vicksburg's fortifications and eventually compelling their surrender on July 4, which brought the Siege of Vicksburg to its conclusion. Recognition of the Raymond battlefield's historical significance came in 1972, when it earned a place on the National Register of Historic Places. Today, the Friends of Raymond oversee educational efforts at part of

Background

In the war's opening phase, Union commanders drew up the Anaconda Plan, a broad strategy aimed at crushing the Confederacy, and seizing the Mississippi River stood as one of its central goals. By early 1862, New Orleans, Louisiana had fallen along with a series of land victories, bringing most of the Mississippi Valley under federal control. Vicksburg, Mississippi remained the notable exception, its guns commanding the river from high ground while its position also joined the two halves of the Confederacy together, making it a target of real strategic weight. That May, naval forces pushed upriver from New Orleans in a bid to seize the city, but the effort came to nothing. Late June brought a second try, this time a combined operation involving both army and navy units. Naval commanders concluded, however, that Vicksburg could not fall without a larger body of infantry, and such reinforcements never materialized. A parallel effort to cut a canal through a bend in the river, sidestepping the city's defenses entirely, likewise came to nothing.

By late November, Major General Ulysses S. Grant had roughly 40,000 infantrymen marching south out of Tennessee toward Vicksburg. That advance stalled when Confederate raiders struck a Union supply depot and severed part of his supply line during the Holly Springs Raid and Forrest's West Tennessee Raid, prompting Grant to pull his men back. At the same time, a separate column under Major General William T. Sherman had set out from Memphis, Tennessee, departing the very day of the Holly Springs Raid, and made its way down the Mississippi. Turning up the Yazoo River, Sherman's troops soon found themselves trading fire with Confederate defenders posted along high ground above Chickasaw Bayou. When Union forces attacked on December 29, they suffered a clear defeat in what became known as the Battle of Chickasaw Bayou, and Sherman ordered his men to fall back on January 1, 1863.

Prelude

By early 1863, Grant was weighing several new approaches for taking Vicksburg. Among the ideas under consideration were reviving the canal effort attempted in 1862, digging a fresh channel into the Mississippi near Lake Providence, Louisiana, and threading a path through the bayous to slip past the city entirely. Scouting parties sent along the Yazoo River and through Steele's Bayou turned up no usable route. With these options exhausted, Grant abandoned them by March 29 and faced three remaining choices: strike Vicksburg head on from across the river, withdraw to Memphis and come down overland from the north, or march his troops south along the Louisiana side and cross the river below the city. A direct assault risked heavy losses, while retreating to Memphis carried the danger of looking like a retreat with damaging political consequences. Grant settled on the southern route instead. On April 29, Union naval vessels shelled the Confederate guns at Grand Gulf to clear the way for a crossing, though the position held firm. The following day, Grant instead ferried his troops across further downstream, at Bruinsburg, Mississippi.

Pushing inland with 24,000 men, Grant's forces overcame an 8,000-strong Confederate blocking detachment at Port Gibson on May 1, and by the next day the guns at Grand Gulf had been left behind by their defenders. From there Grant weighed pressing straight toward Vicksburg or swinging east before turning west to strike the city from that direction. He chose the eastern route, judging it more likely to trap the Confederate garrison along with its commander, Lieutenant General John C. Pemberton. To carry this out, Sherman's XV Corps was sent across the Mississippi at the now-empty Grand Gulf and pushed toward Auburn. McClernand's XIII Corps screened the crossing of the Big Black River on Sherman's left, while McPherson's XVII Corps held the Union right. McPherson, new to commanding a large force on his own, was ordered to move on Raymond by way of Utica, meeting resistance from little more than local militia along the way. Federal cavalry struck the New Orleans, Jackson and Great Northern Railroad during this advance, tearing up close to 1.5 miles (2.4 km) of track. On May 11, Grant instructed McPherson to bring his men to Raymond and resupply there, all while keeping up the appearance that Jackson was his true target.

Pemberton, for his part, shifted his troops northward along the Big Black River, tracking the Union advance without ever crossing to the other bank. At the same time, Confederate reinforcements were being gathered from around the region and massed at Jackson. On May 10, General Joseph E. Johnston received orders to travel there and take charge of this growing force, which would swell to roughly 6,000 men. Among the units arriving was the brigade under Brigadier General John Gregg, dispatched to Jackson from Port Hudson, Louisiana. In the one bold move he made during this period, Pemberton wired Gregg to march his brigade to Raymond, hoping to catch a Union unit believed to be sitting at Utica. Both men assumed this enemy force was nothing more than a single brigade of about 1,500 soldiers. The truth was quite different: the troops at Utica belonged to McPherson's corps and numbered somewhere between 10,000 and 12,000. Convinced that the true Union thrust would fall on the Big Black River, Pemberton dismissed the movement toward Raymond and Jackson as a mere diversion. His instructions to Gregg were to retreat to Jackson should Federal troops break through at Raymond, but to strike the r

Battle

On the morning of May 12, advancing Union cavalrymen collided with skirmishers Granbury had posted forward, and both sides were startled to find resistance developing at roughly 100 yards (90 m). A scout told Gregg that the Union column numbered only 2,500 to 3,000 troops; since scouts often inflated enemy numbers, this estimate only reinforced Gregg's assumption that he faced nothing larger than a brigade. Bledsoe's guns began shelling the approaching Federals, and Union artillery answered in kind, though it remains unclear which side fired first. Thick smoke soon hung over the field, dulling the impact of artillery on both sides. By about 09:00, McPherson recognized that he was up against more than a skirmish line and started arranging his troops for combat, using cavalry to protect his flanks while pushing Brigadier General Elias Dennis's four-regiment brigade forward. The six guns of the 8th Michigan Light Artillery Battery moved up to answer Bledsoe's fire. Dennis's soldiers pushed the Confederates back and sent skirmishers across the creek. When the 3rd Ohio Battery reached the field, the Union artillery advantage grew to twelve guns against three. Brigadier General John E. Smith then brought his five regiments, part of Logan's 6,500-man division, into the assault, though only the 23rd Indiana Infantry Regiment managed to cross the creek while the rest of Smith's men stalled in the dense brush along its banks.

Because the Federals were bottled up on a single road, Gregg chose to draw his forces together and strike first. His plan called for the 7th Texas and 3rd Tennessee to advance in echelon while the 50th Tennessee and the consolidated 10th and 30th Tennessee peeled off the Gallatin Road to hit what Gregg believed was an unprotected Union flank. This flanking column totaled roughly 1,200 men, and Gregg hoped it might also seize McPherson's cannons before the Union's artillery edge silenced Bledsoe's battery for good. The Texans slammed into the 20th and 68th Ohio Infantry Regiments; the 20th held firm, but the 68th broke rearward, and only the intervention of division commander Major General John A. Logan kept the wavering Union line from collapsing. McPherson, still inexperienced, overrated the size of the Confederate force opposing him. The 3rd Tennessee then pushed the Indiana regiment back across the creek, where it reorganized alongside the 20th Ohio and 20th Illinois before the Tennesseans angled southeast toward the 45th Illinois. Gregg called up the 41st Tennessee from reserve without having scouted the Union position, leaving him unaware of its true strength, and smoke and dust further blinded him as the fight slipped from his control.

A third Union brigade under Brigadier General John D. Stevenson had lagged behind, choked by dust raised by Smith's advance. As combat intensified, Stevenson repositioned his men behind the 8th Michigan Battery, waiting until Confederate intentions grew clear before McPherson ordered him forward to reinforce Dennis and Smith. Stevenson split his four regiments, sending two to bolster Smith and Dennis while the remaining pair shored up the Union right, a move that unknowingly shielded the flank Gregg intended to strike. Surprise was lost when some men of the 50th Tennessee fired early, and though its commander tried to warn Gregg that the Federal force was far larger than believed, his messenger never located him. The 50th Tennessee pulled back defensively without alerting other Confederate units, while the 10th and 30th Tennessee waited under orders not to engage until the 50th had joined the fight. This left Gregg's flanking effort stalled, with one regiment out of action and the other waiting on it.

Elsewhere along the line, the 20th Illinois pushed the 7th Texas backward. By now the opposing forces had realigned along the creek, Union troops holding 125 yards (114 m) east of the bridge and firing northward, Confederates controlling 100 yards (91 m) beyond a bend and firing south. The 3rd Tennessee kept advancing, trusting the

Assessment

Historians have judged McPherson's performance harshly. Bearss calls it "not a success" and "far too cautious or, perhaps worse, timid," pointing to how he sent his men into action piecemeal and failed to make full use of his artillery superiority. Miller agrees that McPherson bungled the engagement and argues that choosing not to press the retreating enemy was an error. Ballard goes further, arguing that no coherent overall plan ever existed on McPherson's part; rather, he simply pushed units into the fray and left the tactical choices to his subordinates. In Ballard's view, it was sheer weight of numbers, not skillful command, that secured the Union win. Smith likewise finds little to praise in how McPherson ran his corps, faulting him for surrendering tactical initiative to the Confederates for most of the fight and for poor coordination among his forces. Smith adds that McPherson ought to have arranged for a follow-up pursuit.

On the Confederate side, Bearss faults Gregg for excessive aggression and for not taking care to learn the true size of the force opposing him. Smith takes the opposite stance, holding that Gregg showed genuine skill through his planning, sound judgment, and ability to motivate his soldiers. Kevin Dougherty offers yet another interpretation, placing the blame for the Confederate loss on Gregg's inability to accurately gauge both McPherson's numbers and the broader tactical picture on the field.

Aftermath

Historians disagree on the exact scale of Union losses at Raymond, with figures ranging from 442 to 446 men. Shea and Winschel favored the higher count, dividing it into 68 dead, 341 wounded, and 37 missing, a tally that Donald L. Miller and Timothy B. Smith also accepted. Michael B. Ballard instead cited the lower figure. Ed Bearss, in one of his works, listed 442 casualties (66 killed, 339 wounded, and 37 missing), though elsewhere he too endorsed the 446 total. On the Confederate side, losses were placed at either 514 (72 killed, 252 wounded, 190 missing) or 515, the difference being a single additional death. McPherson offered yet another accounting, claiming his men had taken 720 Confederate prisoners and discovered 103 more dead on the field. Smith traced the 515 figure back to Gregg's account written after the engagement, noting that the numbers saw minor revisions afterward, and he concluded that the true casualty count from the battle may never be established with certainty. The 3rd Tennessee and 7th Texas bore the brunt of Confederate losses. Beyond the human toll, the Confederates also lost one of Bledsoe's cannons when it burst during the fighting. The wounded on the Union side received treatment in makeshift hospitals set up inside local churches, while the Confederates converted the Hinds County courthouse into their own field hospital. McPherson's force suffered losses amounting to roughly three percent of its strength, whereas Gregg's command lost close to sixteen percent of his.

The engagement at Raymond revealed to Grant that Confederate strength around Jackson exceeded his earlier estimates, convincing him that the threat there needed to be eliminated before he could move against Vicksburg without risking encirclement by two separate Confederate forces. Judging McPherson's corps alone unequal to capturing Jackson, Grant chose to commit his entire army to the effort, scrapping an earlier plan to swing west and cross the Big Black River near Edwards and Bolton. That original route now seemed too dangerous with Johnston and his Jackson garrison positioned behind the Union lines, particularly since McClernand's troops had run into elements of Pemberton's army elsewhere around the same time as the fighting at Raymond. Grant directed McClernand toward Raymond, sent McPherson northeast to Clinton before turning on Jackson, and had Sherman approach from the southwest. Success at Jackson promised to strip the city of its usefulness as a Confederate staging point and clear Confederate forces from the surrounding region. Pemberton, for his part, recognized that a Union strike on Jackson threatened to cut the vital rail links supplying Vicksburg. This meant the Confederates would have to challenge Grant in the open rather than wait behind Vicksburg's fortifications, and Pemberton accordingly marched his army eastward. Johnston had ordered Pemberton to unite with him near Clinton, but Union control of the surrounding territory made that junction unachievable.

The Union assault on Jackson came on May 14. Johnston pulled his troops out of the city, leaving Gregg to cover the withdrawal. Grant then redirected his army westward, where it found Pemberton's men attempting to hold ground east of Vicksburg. This confrontation produced a Confederate defeat at Champion Hill on May 16, and after another setback in a rearguard clash at Big Black River Bridge the following day, Pemberton's forces retreated inside the defenses surrounding Vicksburg. Two Union attempts to storm the city outright, on May 19 and again on May 22, both failed, prompting Grant to settle into a siege instead. As provisions inside Vicksburg dwindled and any chance of relief vanished, Pemberton yielded the city and his entire army to Grant on July 4, bringing the siege to a close. The fall of Vicksburg marked a decisive turning point in the war.