Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 21.djvu/202

 194 Southern Historical Society Papers.

destroyed them (December 2Oth), necessitating the falling back of Grant's army to Memphis for supplies.

SHERMAN APPEARS.

Sherman appeared in the Yazoo river on Christmas day, his trans- ports, guarded front, flank and rear by Porter's gunboat fleet, disem- barked his army on the banks of the Yazoo at the mouth of Chicka- saw Bayou, eight miles from Vicksburg. When he landed General Smith did not have 5,000 effective men in the city, including the troops manning the heavy batteries. The infantry brigade, 2,500 men, protecting the batteries, was at once pushed out of the city to confront Sherman's army of 33,000 men and sixty guns, covering a line of thirteen miles, between the city and Snyder's Bluff, on the Yazoo river, where not a spade full of dirt had been thrown, nor were there fortifications of any kind, except at Snyder's Bluff.

By the morning of the 27th, three infantry brigades had arrived to assist in defending the city, and were moved out to cover the ground from the race course to Chickasaw Bayou. No others arrived till December 29th. The bayous and low lands where Sherman was operating presented great obstacles to his progress, but on December 2Qth he attacked the Confederates, the main attack being delivered at Chickasaw Bayou, six miles from Vicksburg, by two of his divisions numbering 20,000 men. This attack was signally repulsed by one Confederate brigade and eight light guns, with a loss to Sherman of 1,439 killed, wounded and missing, and seven stands of colors. This single trial decided the second attempt, as Sherman imagined he saw the bluff's fortifications, where none existed, but really only a few rifle pits hurriedly thrown up by the troops after arrival on the ground.

He re-embarked his army on his transports, and disappeared from before Vicksburg about the 3d of January, 1863. His loss in the several days' fighting was 2,200 men killed, wounded and missing, and a loss to the Confederates of less than 200.

The third and successful attempt to take the city was at once in- augurated by General Grant himself, who, early in January, 1863, moved part of his army which had been in the vicinity of Oxford (but had fallen back from Oxford to Memphis), down the Mississippi river, and uniting with Sherman's army, landed at Young's Point on the Louisiana side, not far above Vicksburg. These two united armies numbered 50,491 effective men, as shown by the returns, and