The Battle of Grand Gulf was fought on April 29, 1863, during the American Civil War. Union Army forces commanded by Major General Ulysses S. Grant had failed several times to bypass or capture the Confederate-held city of Vicksburg, Mississippi, during the Vicksburg campaign. Grant decided to move his army south of Vicksburg, cross the Mississippi River, and then advance on the city. A Confederate Army division under Brigadier General John S. Bowen prepared defenses—Forts Wade and Cobun—at Grand Gulf, Mississippi, south of Vicksburg. To clear the way for a Union crossing, seven Union Navy ironclad warships from the Mississippi Squadron commanded by Admiral David Dixon Porter bombarded the Confederate defenses at Grand Gulf on April 29. Union fire silenced Fort Wade and killed its commander, but the overall Confederate position held. Grant decided to cross the river elsewhere.
The next day, Union forces crossed the river at Bruinsburg, Mississippi. A Union victory in the Battle of Port Gibson on May 1 secured the beachhead and forced the abandonment of the position at Grand Gulf, which became a Union supply point. Grant's command moved inland, and after defeating Confederate forces in the Battle of Champion Hill on May 16, began the Siege of Vicksburg two days later. Vicksburg surrendered on July 4, marking a major Confederate defeat and a turning point in the war. The Grand Gulf battlefield is preserved in Grand Gulf Military State Park, which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972.
Background
Early in the American Civil War, the Union military leadership developed the Anaconda Plan, which was a strategy to defeat the Confederate States of America. A significant component of this strategy was controlling the Mississippi River, thus isolating the western Confederacy from the remainder. Much of the Mississippi Valley fell under Union control in early 1862 after the capture of New Orleans, Louisiana, and several land victories. The strategically important city of Vicksburg, Mississippi was still in Confederate hands, serving as a strong defensive position that commanded the river and prevented the Union from separating the two parts of the Confederacy. Union Navy elements were sent upriver from New Orleans in May to try to take the city, a move that was unsuccessful. In late June, a joint army-navy expedition returned to make another campaign against Vicksburg. Union Navy leadership decided that the city could not be taken without more infantrymen, who were not forthcoming. An attempt to cut Williams's Canal across a meander of the river in June and July, bypassing Vicksburg, failed.
In late November, about 40,000 Union infantry commanded by Major General Ulysses S. Grant began moving south towards Vicksburg from a starting point in Tennessee. Grant ordered a retreat after a supply depot and part of his supply line were destroyed during the Holly Springs Raid on December 20 and Forrest's West Tennessee Raid. Meanwhile, another arm of the expedition under the command of Major General William T. Sherman left Memphis, Tennessee, on the same day as the Holly Springs Raid and traveled down the Mississippi River. After diverting up the Yazoo River, Sherman's men began skirmishing with Confederate soldiers defending a line of hills above the Chickasaw Bayou. A Union attack on December 29 was defeated decisively at the Battle of Chickasaw Bayou, and Sherman's men withdrew on January 1, 1863.
By late March, further attempts to bypass Vicksburg had failed. Grant then considered three plans: to withdraw to Memphis and retry the overland route through northern Mississippi; to move south along the west side of the Mississippi River, cross below Vicksburg, and then strike for the city; or to make an amphibious assault across the river directly against Vicksburg. An assault across the river risked heavy casualties, and a withdrawal to Memphis could be politically disastrous if the public perceived such a movement as a retreat. Grant then decided upon the downstream crossing. The advance along the west bank of the Mississippi began on March 29, and was spearheaded by Major General John A. McClernand's troops. The movement down the river was masked by decoy operations such as Steele's Greenville expedition, Streight's Raid, and Grierson's Raid. Confederate regional commander John C. Pemberton fell for the Union decoys (especially Grierson's Raid), and lost touch with the true tactical situation, believing Grant was withdrawing.
Prelude
On multiple occasions in mid-1862, Confederate field artillery harassed Union Navy vessels from Grand Gulf, Mississippi, which was located along the Mississippi River to the south of Vicksburg. The town was largely burned by Union troops attempting to suppress the Confederate guns. In early March 1863, the Confederates decided to rebuild fortifications at Grand Gulf, and the brigade of Brigadier General John S. Bowen was transferred there. By the middle of the month, Bowen's troops and several slaves were working on building new defenses and strengthening the existing ones. Heavy cannons were transferred to the position, but before those guns could arrive, a skirmish occurred on March 19, between the Confederate defenders and two Union Navy ships: the sloop-of-war USS Hartford and the schooner USS Albatross. The exchange was not protracted and the Confederates suffered no loss; the Union had eight men killed or wounded on Hartford. Soon afterwards, five heavy guns arrived at Grand Gulf: two 8-inch (203 mm) pieces and three 32-pounder rifled cannons.
In early April, Bowen became aware of Grant's movement down the west side of the Mississippi River, and sent part of his force under the command of Francis Cockrell across the river on April 4, to counter the Union movement. Bowen informed Pemberton of Grant's advance, but the latter officer disregarded the information. The Union Navy forces cooperating with Grant, which were commanded by David Dixon Porter and known as the Mississippi Squadron, were positioned north of Vicksburg, but there was a need for vessels to move south for operations near Port Hudson, Louisiana, as well as to provide a stronger protecting force for the transports that would ferry troops in Grant's planned crossing of the Mississippi River. Beginning two hours after nightfall on April 16, Porter ran several vessels past the batteries at Vicksburg, with the loss of only a transport and a barge. Pemberton learned of the passing of the batteries, and began to develop a clearer picture of the true strategic situation. Grand Gulf was reinforced by Brigadier General Martin E. Green's brigade; when this unit arrived Pemberton elevated the concentration at Grand Gulf to divisional status with Bowen in command. With the addition of a miscellaneous command of 800 men and a four-gun battery sent from Jackson, Mississippi, there were about 4,200 Confederate troops around Grand Gulf.
After dark on April 22, more transports were run down the river past Vicksburg: one transport and several barges were lost, and all of the surviving transports were damaged. Porter had been prepared to bombard Grand Gulf on April 23, with McClernand providing an infantry force to land there afterwards, but believing a false report of the Confederates having 12,000 men at Grand Gulf, called off the attack. McClernand observed Grand Gulf later that day, as did Grant the next day. Both determined the Confederate position was not as strong as had been reported. Union forces moved further downriver, and opened a base of operations at Hard Times Landing. By April 28, most of McClernand's men had been loaded onto transports in preparation for the river crossing. Hoping to further distract the Confederates, Grant suggested another feint: this one to be made by Sherman up the Yazoo River. Grant had some hesitations about such a feint, believing that reports of it might be misconstrued by the Union public as another Chickasaw Bayou-style defeat, but Sherman continued with the operation. Sherman's movement resulted in the Battle of Snyder's Bluff, which saw Union warships and transports loaded with infantry move up the Yazoo River on April 29, and skirmish with Confederate forces during the next two days. Overall, it was not particularly effective as a distraction.
On April 28, Pemberton finally realized the importance of the Union buildup near Grand Gulf. He ordered Carter L. Stevenson to prepare a 5,000-man force to be sent to Grand Gulf at Bowen's discretion, but Stevenson still regarded the Union move south as a feint in preparation for an assault directly against Vicksburg. Bowen lacked a cavalry force for scouting, as the cavalry at Grand Gulf had been sent elsewhere to chase down Grierson's Raid. The work on the defenses at Grand Gulf had resulted in a much stronger position than had been there at the beginning of March. Two forts were the strongpoints of the fortification. The stronger was known as Fort Cobun, and the other as Fort Wade.
Fort Cobun was positioned on a 40-foot (12 m) tall bluff known as Point of Rock and had a parapet that was about 40 feet (12 m) in width. It mounted four cannons – two 32-pounder guns, an 8-inch Dahlgren gun, and a 30-pounder Parrott rifle – which were crewed by Battery A, 1st Louisiana Heavy Artillery. Fort Wade was located 0.75 miles (1 km) downriver, on a point 20 feet (6.1 m) above the level of the river and 0.25 miles (0.4 km) away from it. This fort mounted a 100-pounder Blakely rifle, another 8-inch Dahlgren piece, and two more 32-pounders. These pieces were worked by Wade's Missouri Battery and Guibor's Missouri Battery. In between the two forts were two rows of rifle pits and a covered passageway. The 3rd Missouri Infantry Regiment held this position. A secondary line of rifle pits to the rear on a ridge was defended by five smaller Parrott rifles and the 6th Missouri Infantry Regiment. Two more cannons and the 1st Confederate Battalion were positioned on a bluff to guard the mouth of the Big Black River, with some sharpshooters from Arkansas, Dawson's Missouri Battery, and a dismounted cavalry unit positioned further up the Big Black River. Porter believed the Confederates were too well-prepared for an attack against Grand Gulf to be worthwhile, and instead suggested that the army march further south, accompanied by the navy's ironclad warships to cover the movement of its transports. Grant had the area north of Grand Gulf assessed for suitable crossing points, but none could be found. Grant believed that the position would not be difficult to take, so the assault against Grand Gulf would occur as planned.
Battle
At 7:00 a.m. on April 29, seven Union Navy ironclads led by Porter moved down the river from Hard Times Landing towards the positions at Grand Gulf. Roughly 30,000 Union infantry were in the Hard Times Landing area, of whom about 10,000 were on transports. The men on the transports, which had pulled away from the landing and were sheltered behind a spit of land named Point Coffee, were intended to cross the river and occupy Grand Gulf once the Confederate batteries were subdued. Porter instructed his ironclad commanders to take care to avoiding running aground in shallow water. Men from detachments of the 58th Ohio Infantry Regiment and the 29th Illinois Infantry Regiment were stationed on board the ironclads to serve as marines and, if necessary, as a landing force. Of Porter's ironclads, USS Pittsburgh was in the lead, followed by USS Louisville, USS Carondelet, and USS Mound City. A second wave composed of USS Benton, USS Tuscumbia, and USS Lafayette followed. A total of 81 cannons were carried by these vessels, compared to 13 in the Confederate positions. The naval forces also had the advantage in size of artillery: the majority of the Confederate guns were 30-pounders or smaller, as opposed to the median Union piece being a 42-pounder. The ironclads first targeted Fort Cobun, then Pittsburgh, Louisville, Carondelet, and Mound City moved to focus on Fort Wade; the other three remained focused on Fort Cobun. After passing Fort Cobun, the ships turned so that their bows pointed upstream. The lead Union vessels opened fire at about 7:50 a.m., and Fort Cobun responded about 25 minutes later. Currents in the river caught some of the Union vessels, forcing them to spin in circles while the Confederate fired upon them. After the shooting started, the 12th Arkansas Sharpshooter Battalion was moved forward from a reserve position into rifle pits near Fort Cobun.