Grierson’s Raid During the Vicksburg Campaign

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All was to no avail. It was swift-footed cavalry against slow, plodding infantry. It was impossible for the Confederates to effectively close in on Grierson’s men.

Leaving Starkville, Grierson moved south toward Louisville, Miss. His Illinoisans pushed through a swamp–’a dismal swamp nearly belly-deep in mud,’ as Grierson later described it–and swam their horses across streams. He detached a battalion to destroy a large tannery and shoe factory. The battalion succeeded, doing an estimated $50,000 in damage.

They pressed on, still moving, with no road visible, through the swamp and water of the Nuxubee River bottom, arriving at Louisville after sunset on the 22nd. Grierson threw out two battalions as pickets, bottling up the citizens to prevent any information about his route from getting out. Still, he showed real concern that Southern civilians and their property be protected, as the orders to the pickets included instructions to ‘drive out stragglers, preserve order, and quiet the fears of the people.’ Considering the behavior of many Union soldiers regarding the South during the war, such concerns were not unfounded. Grierson, though, could later write with justifiable pride that ‘they [the Southerners] were protected in their persons and their property.’ His men passed through Louisville without incident.

They soon struck another swamp and lost several horses to drowning. By midnight, they had reached a plantation 10 miles south of town, halting there until daybreak. They moved past Philadelphia, resting again until 10 o’clock that night. Two battalions of the 7th Illinois then moved on, ordered to pass through Decatur and hit the Southern Railroad at Newton Station, a major supply junction due east of Vicksburg. Grierson followed with the main column an hour later.

Preceding everyone, including the two point battalions, were nine men clad in Confederate uniforms. These volunteer Illinoisans, under the command of Sergeant Richard Surby, had been designated the ‘Butternut Guerrillas’ and were to prove their value as scouts again and again during the raid. This day they seized a telegraph station, preventing a warning of Grierson’s approach.

Grierson arrived at Newton Station around 6 a.m. The advance battalions seized the hamlet and captured two trains. The main column soon joined them. Here was property of legitimate military value, and Grierson had no qualms about laying waste. Two locomotives, 25 freight cars filled with commissary stores and ammunition (including artillery shells intended for the garrison at Vicksburg), were burned, along with additional stores and 500 muskets found in town.

A battalion from the 6th Illinois rode east, destroying bridges, trestleworks and telegraph wire. Seventy-five prisoners were taken, but were soon paroled. Several men found–and inevitably helped themselves to–a supply of whiskey, but all were ready to move out by 2 p.m.

The Federals continued south, soon reaching Garlandville. Here they were met by shotgun-wielding civilians, ‘many of them,’ wrote Grierson, ‘venerable with age.’ The Illinoisans were fired upon and one man was wounded. A quick charge broke up the untrained Southerners, capturing several.

According to Grierson, the prisoners were apologetic, ‘acknowledging their mistake, and declared that they had been grossly deceived as to our real character. One volunteered his services as a guide and upon leaving us declared that hereafter his prayers should be for the Union Army.’ Grierson used this as a sample of the attitudes he encountered among civilians during the raid, describing the ‘hundreds who are skulking and hiding out to avoid conscription, only to await the presence of our arms to sustain them, when they will rise up and declare their principles; and thousands who have been deceived upon vindication of our cause would immediately return to loyalty.’

Tags: 19th Century, America's Civil War, American Civil War, Historical Conflicts

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