Battle of Chickasaw Bluffs  "A Plan Comes Apart"  December 27-29, 1862

"Great God, Phil, eighty-one gunboats and transports have passed here tonight," read the Christmas Eve telegraph message that sped south to warn the Confederate defenders of Vicksburg, Miss., that Union troops were coming down the river. Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's plan to capture Vicksburg involved a thrust by a Union force, commanded by Grant himself, down the Mississippi Central Railroad east of and parallel to the Mississippi River and then a drive west to capture the fortress city of Vicksburg. At the same time, Union Gen. William T. Sherman's 32,000-man force would be transported down the Mississippi and seven miles up the Yazoo River. There they would debark and deliver a simultaneous surprise attack north of the city.

But the early warning allowed the commander of the Vicksburg defenses, Confederate Gen. Martin Luther Smith, to bring in reinforcements, which bolstered his command to about 14,000 men. These men he placed in strong defensive positions four miles from the Yazoo on a range of hills called Chickasaw Bluffs. As Sherman's men came ashore on the south bank of the Yazoo on December 26, they did not know the Confederate forces were already warned of their approach. Because of cut telegraph lines, Sherman also did not know that a slashing Rebel cavalry raid had destroyed Grant's supply base at Holly Springs and caused Grant to pull his force back to Tennessee and out of the plan to capture Vicksburg.

The Union troops moved slowly through a huge swamp, and on the morning of December 28 neared the foot of the bluffs, where they found their way blocked by a bayou. Only four narrow causeways and levees crossed the water barriers, and those approaches were swept by the Rebel cannon. Sherman ordered an attack by a division on his left. To the division commander he said, "We will lose 5,000 men before we take Vicksburg, and we may as well lose them here as anywhere else."

Fascinating Fact: While Confederate Gen. Earl Van Dorn destroyed the Union Holly Springs base, Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest demolished 50 miles of Union railroads and telegraph lines, cutting Grant's communications with Sherman.


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