Battle of Port Gibson

Battle of Port Gibson
	Part of the American Civil War
	; Almost all of the fighting on the Union side was done by Major General John A. McClernand's corps.
Date	May 1, 1863
Location	Claiborne County,; near Port Gibson, Mississippi
Result	Union victory
Belligerents
United States (Union)	CSA (Confederacy)
Commanders and leaders
Ulysses S. Grant	John S. Bowen
Units involved
Army of the Tennessee	4 brigades
Strength
23,000	8,000
Casualties and losses
861	787

The Battle of Port Gibson (May 1, 1863) was fought between a Union Army commanded by Major General Ulysses S. Grant and a reinforced Confederate States Army division led by Major General John S. Bowen. Though the outnumbered Confederate soldiers fought stubbornly, they were steadily pressed back during the day by Major General John A. McClernand's troops. Bowen eventually conceded the field by withdrawing north toward Vicksburg, Mississippi. The battle occurred near Port Gibson, Mississippi, during the Vicksburg Campaign of the American Civil War.

Starting in November 1862, Grant tried various strategies in order to attack Vicksburg, and in each case, his army was unsuccessful. Finally, Grant ordered his army to march through swampy terrain on the west bank of the Mississippi River in an attempt to get south of Vicksburg. The Union commander gambled that the Union Navy under Acting Rear Admiral David Dixon Porter could safely pass the Vicksburg batteries. The operation was successful and Porter's gunboats and river transports carried the first two army corps of Grant's army to the east bank. Meanwhile, Grant's third corps threatened Vicksburg from the northwest. The Confederate commander Lieutenant General John C. Pemberton was caught with his army scattered and could only oppose Grant with inferior forces at Port Gibson. This was the first of several Union victories in May 1863 that would result in the Siege of Vicksburg.

Background

Campaign

Grant assumed command of the Army of the Tennessee on October 25, 1862 and started the Vicksburg campaign a week later. Grant's first foray with 40,000 soldiers came to grief when Major General Earl Van Dorn's cavalry wrecked his supply base in the Holly Springs Raid on December 20. At the same time, a 32,000-man riverine expedition led by Major General William Tecumseh Sherman was repulsed at the Battle of Chickasaw Bayou on December 27–29.[1] When McClernand arrived to assume command, Sherman suggested a thrust up the Arkansas River.[2] The result was a Union victory at the Battle of Arkansas Post on January 11, 1863. For a Federal loss of 1,061 casualties, about 4,900 Confederates were captured. When Grant learned about the divergent expedition, he ordered the troops back to the Mississippi River.[3]

These events were followed by the unsuccessful Yazoo Pass and Steele's Bayou expeditions in March 1863. Grant also tried to dig several canals to create a water-borne route west of the Mississippi River that would avoid the Vicksburg batteries; all were eventually abandoned.[4] When the newspapers and others demanded Grant's removal from command, President Abraham Lincoln replied, "I can't spare this man, he fights".[5] Having tried every other approach, Grant determined to move his army down the west bank of the Mississippi River in order to attack Vicksburg from the south. However, in order for Grant's army to cross to the east bank of the river, it would need Porter's gunboats to run past the Vicksburg batteries.[6]

Forces

The Union XIII Corps was formed on October 24, 1862 and assigned to Grant. On December 18, the XIII Corps was split into four new formations: XIII Corps, XV Corps, XVI Corps, and XVII Corps. The commanders were McClernand for the XIII Corps, Sherman for the XV Corps, Major General Stephen A. Hurlbut for the XVI Corps, and Major General James B. McPherson for the XVII Corps. Hurlbut's XVI Corps guarded Memphis, Tennessee, until June 1863, leaving the other three corps as Grant's field army.[7]

Pemberton took command of the Department of Mississippi and East Louisiana on October 14, 1862.[8] Pemberton's command consisted of five infantry divisions. These were led by Bowen and Major Generals Martin Luther Smith, John Horace Forney, William Wing Loring, and Carter L. Stevenson. Bowen's division had 4,500 soldiers, Smith's had 3,500, Forney's had 5,500, Loring's had 7,800, and Stevenson's had 12,000. Pemberton also controlled a number of artillery batteries at Vicksburg under Colonel Edward Higgins.[9]

Operations

Grant launched his campaign against Vicksburg, Mississippi, in the spring of 1863, starting his army south from Milliken's Bend on the west side of the Mississippi River. He intended to storm Grand Gulf, while his subordinate Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman and the XV Corps deceived the main army in Vicksburg by feigning an assault on the Yazoo Bluffs. Grant would then detach Maj. Gen. John A. McClernand's XIII Corps to Maj. Gen. Nathaniel P. Banks at Port Hudson, Louisiana, while Sherman hurried to join Grant and James B. McPherson and the XVII Corps for an inland move against the railroad. The Union fleet, however, failed to silence the Confederate batteries at Grand Gulf. Grant then sailed farther south and began crossing at Bruinsburg, Mississippi, on April 30. Sherman's feint against the Yazoo Bluffs—the Battle of Snyder's Bluff—was a complete success, and only a single Confederate brigade was detached south.

The only Confederate cavalry in the area, Wirt Adams's regiment, had been ordered away to pursue Grierson's raiders, and Maj. Gen. John S. Bowen performed a reconnaissance in force to determine Grant's intentions. Bowen moved south from Grand Gulf with Brig. Gen. Martin E. Green's Brigade and took up a position astride the Rodney road just southwest of Port Gibson near Magnolia Church. A single brigade of reinforcements from Vicksburg under Brig. Gen. Edward D. Tracy arrived later and was posted across the Bruinsburg Road two miles north of Green's position. Brig. Gen. William E. Baldwin's Brigade arrived later and was positioned in support of Green's Brigade. One-hundred-foot-tall (30 m) hills separated by nearly vertical ravines choked with canebrakes and underbrush rendered Bowen's position tenable, despite the overwhelming Union force heading his way.

Grant's Operations against Vicksburg

Confederate

Union

The absence of any Confederate cavalry would have a major impact on the campaign. If Bowen had known that Grant's men were landing at Bruinsburg and not Rodney, he would have taken a position on the bluffs above Bruinsburg, denying Grant's army a bridgehead into the area. Federal efforts to push rapidly inland were slowed because McClernand had forgotten to issue rations to the men. Despite the resulting delay, however, the Army of the Tennessee moved onto the river bluffs unopposed and pushed rapidly towards Port Gibson. Shortly after midnight on May 1, advanced elements of the 14th Division under Brig. Gen. Eugene A. Carr engaged Confederate pickets near the Shaifer House. Sporadic skirmishing and artillery fire continued until 3 a.m. Wary of Tracy's Brigade to the north, McClernand posted Brig. Gen. Peter J. Osterhaus's 9th Division facing that direction. Having developed each other's positions, the opposing forces sat down and waited for daylight.

Battle

Map of Port Gibson Battlefield core and study areas by the American Battlefield Protection Program

General Carr scouted the ground before him and realized that a frontal assault through the canebrakes would be fruitless. He devised a turning movement in which one brigade would move slowly forward through the canebrake, while the second brigade would descend into the Widow's Creek bottoms and strike for the Confederates' left flank. Brig. Gen. Alvin P. Hovey's 12th Division arrived and surged forward just as Carr's men were storming the Confederate position. Both flanks were turned, and Green's men broke and ran. McClernand stopped to reorganize, then launched into a series of grandiose speeches until Grant pointed out that the Confederates had simply withdrawn to a more defendable position. Reinforced by Brig. Gen. A. J. Smith's 10th Division and Stevenson's Brigade of McPherson's XVII Corps, McClernand resumed the pursuit. With 20,000 men crowded into a 1.5-mile (2.4 km) front, McClernand's plan appeared to be to force his way past the Confederate line. A flanking assault by Col. Francis Cockrell's Missouri brigade crumpled the Federal right flank and gave McClernand pause. Sundown found the two sides settling into a stalemate along a broad front on the Rodney Road several miles from Port Gibson.

On the Bruinsburg Road front, Osterhaus had been content to pressure Tracy's command with Federal sharpshooters and artillery, occasionally launching an unsupported regiment against the Confederate line. Maj. Gen. James B. McPherson showed up late in the afternoon with Brig. Gen. John Eugene Smith's brigade. Donning a cloak to disguise his rank, he reviewed the front lines and quickly devised a turning movement that would render untenable the entire Confederate right flank. Twenty minutes after the troops had been staged for the assault, the Confederates were retreating into the Bayou Pierre bottoms, having left behind several hundred prisoners. The road to his rear now threatened, Bowen commenced retreating through Port Gibson to the north shore of Bayou Pierre.

Aftermath

On May 2, Grant quickly maneuvered Bowen out of position by sending McPherson to cross the Bayou Pierre at a ford several miles upstream. Struck with the realization that McPherson could cut him off from the bridge over the Big Black River, Bowen ordered the formidable defenses at Grand Gulf abandoned, the magazine exploded, and the heavy artillery destroyed. Union gunboats, investigating the nature of the explosion, arrived and took Grand Gulf without a shot. Grant understood the nature of the explosion and rode to Grand Gulf with a small escort, enjoying his first bath in weeks, and celebrating the capture of what would become his central supply depot as he moved inland. As he relaxed, he caught up on correspondence, including a message from Banks that he was nowhere near Port Hudson. Grant's plan to detach McClernand to Banks would have to wait.

Too late to do anything more than affirm Bowen's decision, Maj. Gen. William W. Loring arrived and took command of the Confederates. Heavy rear-guard activity took place as the Confederates scrambled to remove their force across the narrow bridge. Advanced elements of the XVII Corps arrived in time to save the bridge from destruction. The ragtag army that had fought so well at Port Gibson would not rest until they had entered the Warrenton fortifications nearly ten miles away. Here they began improving the fortifications along the roads to Vicksburg, expecting that Grant would be close behind. Grant, however, would have other plans; the roads on the west bank of the Big Black River were open all the way to the Mississippi state capital and the critical rail link to Vicksburg. Against this target, Grant poised his army to strike.

Battlefield preservation

Although most of the Port Gibson battlefield is still privately owned, the Civil War Trust (a division of the American Battlefield Trust) and its partners have acquired and preserved 644 acres (2.61 km²) of the Port Gibson battlefield.[10]

Notes

Boatner 1959, p. 871.
Winters 1987, p. 173.
Boatner 1959, pp. 24–25.
Boatner 1959, pp. 871–873.
Smith 2004, p. 27.
Smith 2004, pp. 13–14.
Boatner 1959, pp. 194–197.
Winters 1987, p. 171.
Smith 2004, pp. 21–25.
"Saved Land". American Battlefield Trust. Retrieved June 9, 2021.

References

Boatner, Mark M. III (1959). The Civil War Dictionary. New York, N.Y.: David McKay Company Inc. ISBN 0-679-50013-8.
NPS (2018). "Battle of Port Gibson (May 1, 1863)". National Park Service. Retrieved May 16, 2023.
Smith, Timothy B. (2004). Champion Hill: Decisive Battle for Vicksburg. New York, N.Y.: Savas Beatie LLC. ISBN 1-932714-00-6.
Winters, John D. (1987) [1963]. The Civil War in Louisiana. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press. ISBN 0-8071-0834-0.