Battle of Champion’s Hill

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Well after dark on May 15, 1863, the tired foot soldiers of Confederate Colonel Francis Marion Cockrell’s Missouri brigade slumped gratefully to the side of the Ratliff plantation road, southwest of Edward’s Station, Mississippi. They’d gotten as far as they had by way of a winding route from the station, after a day fraught with delays and back luck. The hillsides east of the Missourians were dotted with campfires, hundreds of them, none of them friendly.

Two weeks earlier, Union Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant had ferried two army corps across the Mississippi in an amphibious campaign that would not be surpassed until World War II. Having fought and won a battle at Port Gibson, Grant’s army occupied the evacuated Confederate river batteries at Grand Gulf, south of Vicksburg. From there, Grant sent word to Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman to bring up his XV Corps from the Federal winter camp at Milliken’s Bend, La. Wrote Grant, ‘The road to Vicksburg is open; all we want now are men, ammunition, and hard bread.’ That road would prove to be a rough one, but this Union commander was no stranger to adversity.

Without question, Grant was on shaky ground when he began his spring campaign for Vicksburg. Five months earlier, he’d been forced into retreat by Brig. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest when he tried to take the river city from the north. Sherman led an army downriver in December 1862, only to expend himself bloodily and uselessly against the formidable Confederate works on Chickasaw Bluffs, just north of Vicksburg.

There followed four separate attempts to cut a passage through the marshes and bayous of Mississippi and Louisiana that would allow the Federal armies and gunboat fleets to bypass Vicksburg. None was successful.

With these failures, the chorus of demands for Grant’s replacement reached a peak. In a blistering editorial, the New York Times wrote that ‘Grant remains stuck in the mud of northern Mississippi, his army no use to him, or anybody else.’ Rumors of Grant’s drunkenness resurfaced, and neither Union General-in-Chief Henry Halleck nor Secretary of War Edwin Stanton had much confidence in the general.

But Grant was anything but’stuck in the mud.’ Actually, he’d held out little hope for the expeditions of early 1863, allowing them largely to keep his troops busy and to occupy the attention of his critics. By early April, he’d come up with a plan he thought workable to capture the vital Confederate city.

Grant began with a series of raids in eastern and northern Mississippi to distract the Confederates while he got his army across the Mississippi. Once safely on the east bank, Grant envisioned striking the Southern Railroad of Mississippi east of Vicksburg, between Edward’s Station and Bolton Station, severing the city’s supply artery. The Union army, about 32,000 strong, began to move northeastward on May 12. There was little opposition until Maj. Gen. James Birdseye McPherson’s XVII Corps ran up against a brigade of Confederates at Raymond. The resulting battle was sharp enough, even though the grayclads were driven back to Jackson, to convince Grant that he could not turn westward to Vicksburg without first securing Jackson.

Accordingly, he attacked on the 14th, driving out the 6,000 men led by General Joseph E. Johnston, commander of the Western theater of operations for the Confederacy, who had just arrived in the city. Sherman set his men to destroying the military facilities and stores in Jackson. They were so zealous in their work that most of the city was burned, earning Mississippi’s capital the unwanted sobriquet of ‘Chimneyville.’

That night, Grant learned that Lt. Gen. John C. Pemberton had marched from Vicksburg with 25,000 men and was encamped at Edward’s Station. Grant decided to attack before Pemberton could join forces with Johnston. By first light on the 15th, Maj. Gen. John McClernand and McPherson were moving west.

If Grant was confident, Pemberton was not. He had found it increasingly difficult to resolve the conflicting orders he was receiving. Confederate President Jefferson Davis had admonished him to hold Vicksburg at all costs, while Johnston was just as insistent that Pemberton leave the river city and attack the Union forces, beginning with a Federal division at Clinton.

After conferring with his officers at Edward’s Station on May 14, Pemberton decided instead to move on a Union supply train reported to be encamped at Dillon’s plantation, west of Raymond. If this train could be captured, Pemberton reasoned, Grant’s army would be stranded in hostile country. Unaware that Jackson had fallen, Pemberton sent a courier to inform Johnston that he would march on the 15th.

After a frustrating, morning-long wait for supplies to be brought up from Vicksburg, the Confederates marched out of Edward’s Station along the Raymond Road, only to be halted a few miles later when they found that the bridge across Baker’s Creek had been carried away during a thunderstorm. The Confederates had to detour along the creek bank north to the Jackson Road, where they crossed an intact bridge and then turned south again on the Ratliff plantation road, a little used country lane that returned them to the Raymond Road just over a mile beyond the washed-out Baker’s Creek bridge.

It was well after dark by the time the lead division, Maj. Gen. William W. Loring’s, halted at the Ellison plantation, where the column was to turn south for Dillon’s. Pemberton established a roadblock on the Raymond Road and ordered his other two divisions to bivouac where they had halted. These were Brig. Gen. John S. Bowen’s 3rd Division at the lower end of the plantation road and Maj. Gen. Carter Stevenson’s 2nd Division from Bowen’s rear back to the crossroads–an intersection of the Jackson Road, the plantation road, and the Middle Road, which led southeastward to Raymond.

As the sun rose on the 16th, Col. Wirt Adams’ 1st Mississippi Cavalry encountered Union pickets near the roadblock. With a sharp firefight breaking out, Adams galloped back up the road to warn Pemberton. He rode into the front yard of the Ellison house just as a Federal battery opened fire on the roadblock.

While Pemberton talked with Adams, another rider drew up with a dispatch from Johnston, who was furious that Pemberton had not obeyed his earlier orders. Now, with the enemy force of unknown size in his front, Pemberton tardily elected to comply with Johnston’s instructions. He ordered Loring to delay the Federals while the rest of his army reversed its course.

Two miles away, as the rumble of artillery fire rolled across the countryside, Stephen D. Lee, at the left of Stevenson’s division, began to worry about the still-quite Jackson Road. Lee gathered a squad of videttes (mounted sentries) and sent them up the road to a plantation house owned by one of Pemberton’s officers, Col. Sid Champion. While his pickets moved out, Lee marched his brigade up the face of a 75-foot-high bald-crested hill about 800 yards southwest of the Champion house. This, Champion’s Hill, was the highest prominence in the area and commanded the surrounding terrain for miles.

Lee had barely gained the hilltop when a picket rushed up with word that a Federal column of at least division strength was approaching. Lee stepped to a spot where he could see the Jackson Road. When he raised his binoculars, he saw Union troops deploying in the fields on either side of the Champion house.

Lee sent a courier to warn Stevenson and shifted his brigade to the left along a ridge that jutted out from the hilltop to the northwest. He placed Captain James Waddell’s Alabama Battery on his right, just north of the crossroads, backstopped by four companies from Brig. Gen. Alfred Cumming’s Georgia brigade. The rest of Cumming’s men followed Lee’s Alabamians up the hill. Bowen dug in along the crest of a ridge running north from the Raymond Road. His artillery unlimbered atop a rise commanding Jackson’s Creek, which ran through a ravine about 600 yards to the division’s front. Loring, meanwhile, had deployed along the creek bank.

The blocking force soon came back to the line at a run. Right behind it was Brig. Gen. A.J. Smith’s lead brigade, commanded by Brig. Gen. Stephen G. Burbridge. The Federals made a hasty attempt on Loring’s line, only to be driven back when Bowen’s artillery opened a raking fire on them.

With the blocking force safe, Loring pulled back to the ridge occupied by Bowen’s division. The 1st Division dug in around the Coker house, a stately Greek Revival home with a line of towering cedars running from its broad front porch to the Raymond Road. Loring’s surgeons hastily converted the home into a field hospital.

By this time, Union Brig. Gen. Alvin P. Hovey’s 12th Division, XIII Corps, had reached the Champion house, only to discover Confederates on the big hill ahead. The opposing forces were separated by intimidating terrain. Champion’s Hill rose precipitously to the northwest of the Jackson Road, its steep slopes covered with tangled, dense undergrowth. The hillside gave way abruptly to thickly forested ridges and brier-choked ravines.

Brigadier General George F. McGinnis put his 1st Brigade into line of battle and sent skirmishers forward. No sooner had they moved into the trees than an intense firefight broke out. McGinnis, satisfied as to the strength of the grayclads, pulled his men back to await further orders.

Unknown to Pemberton, a third Union column was also near, moving along the Middle Road. Brig. Gen. Peter J. Osterhaus’ 9th Division spearheaded this column. Its advance had been uneventful until Osterhaus’ vanguard came under fire from the 20th Mississippi Mounted Infantry. Osterhaus reacted at once, sending forward two regiments that quickly and painfully discovered Cumming’s and Waddell’s roadblock.

At that moment, as the battle-tested Westerners of Maj. Gen. John A. ‘Black Jack’ Logan’s division reached the Champion house, Lee realized he would have to extend his line still farther to the left to protect his flank. He shifted his brigade into a stand of trees behind a rail fence that bordered a large open field. To Lee’s right, Cumming organized his men into an angular front. A section of the Boutetort Virginia Artillery was positioned at the point of the angle, along with two of Waddell’s guns.

Grant arrived at the Champion house and assessed the situation. He immediately decided to assault the Confederate position on Champion’s Hill. McGinnis’ brigade was still in double line of battle astride the Jackson Road. Hovey’s 2nd Brigade, commanded by Col. James R. Slack, deployed in a field of rye on McGinnis’ left. Logan arrayed three brigades on Hovey’s right and unlimbered his artillery in the rear of the infantry.

At 10:30 a.m., the blue line swept forward into the deep ravines. As he watched the attack unfold, Logan noticed that Lee’s left appeared to be hanging in the air. He quickly brought forward Brig. Gen. John D. Stevenson’s 3rd Brigade. Logan ordered Stevenson to strike this weak point.

Confederate Maj. Gen. Carter Stevenson fathomed the Federal intentions quickly enough. He sent a courier to bring up Brig. Gen. Seth Barton’s 1st Brigade, then on the right of the division, just southeast of the crossroads. The Georgians double-quicked the mile and a half to the left, barely arriving in time. The Cherokee Georgia Artillery’s four 10-pounder Parrotts unlimbered in Barton’s rear, along with four guns of the 1st Mississippi Light Artillery, commanded by Captain Samuel J. Ridley.

The assault then began in earnest. The cannon behind Cumming’s salient waited until the Union line drew to within 300 yards before opening with double canister. The blast staggered the blue line, and might have shattered it had not the Federals discovered a ravine that afforded them some cover less than 75 yards from the Confederate salient.

Here, McGinnis came up with an interesting plan. His brigade was to charge, and then drop when he signaled. The men came boiling up out of the ravine. They’d taken but a few steps when McGinnis slashed his saber to the earth. The Federals dropped as one, just as the Confederate infantry fired. Before Cumming’s men could reload, the Yankees were up and among them. The fist and the musket butt were used freely and the Georgians began to give way, exposing the Alabama brigade’s flank. Lee, realizing he was about to be overrun himself, pulled his men back off the hilltop to the Jackson Road.

Slack’s Federals doggedly clawed their way through the tangled ravines until they sighted Waddell’s remaining four cannons across a cornfield. The Iowans fixed bayonets and stepped forward. The Southerners were caught completely by surprise. Waddell ordered his cannoneers to limber up, but Union sharpshooters killed or wounded most of the horses. Waddell’s men gamely tried to pull the cannons away by hand, but the Iowans were upon them too fast. The gunners fled, leaving four cannon in the hands of Slack’s men.

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