The next phase of the campaign would involve a great deal more marching, steaming, chopping, ditching, and dredging than fighting. Indeed, Grant thought it might be possible to solve the initial Vicksburg problem–getting on dry ground east of the city–without a fight at all. Directly in front of Vicksburg, the river made a tight loop, creating a peninsula pointed at the city. If a canal could be dug across the base of this long finger of land, the batteries on Vicksburg's bluffs were a moot point. Boat traffic would simply bypass the city. Sherman's men went to work ditching and dredging and eventually cut a canal. But the big river, then as now, seemed to have a will of its own, and in the end not enough water flowed into the channel to carry shipping. Grant's next thought was a roundabout route. Fifty miles upriver on the west bank was a broad backwater of the river known as Lake Providence. A network of streams flowed south from that body of water eventually emptying into the Red River. If Grant could open a channel from the river to the backwater, then dredge and deepen the streams that flowed south, his steamers might reach the Red River and follow it down to the Mississippi again 150 miles below Vicksburg. It was a long way 'round, to be sure, but the route would put him at last on the east bank south of Vicksburg. There was a catch of course, and after two months of labor Grant could see that he could never dredge those streams deep enough.
        Grant's next effort took him even farther from Vicksburg. More than three hundred miles upriver was a deep bayou east of the river known as Yazoo Pass. It was now cut off from the river by a stout levee that kept the river from flooding cottonfields with every rise. Before the levee had been built, though, shipping had steamed from the river east across Yazoo Pass into the Coldwater River. That river in turn flowed south into the Tallahatchie. Where the Yalobusha joined the Tallahatchie a little farther down, the Yazoo River was formed, and the Yazoo of course flowed into the Mississippi just above Vicksburg. It was a tortuous enough route, but it could put Grant's army on the south bank of the Yazoo in position to take in flank those fortified bluffs that had turned back Sherman's frontal assault so easily in December. The levee was mined and blown in a perfectly wonderful explosion. With Yazoo Pass open, a small Federal flotilla steamed across it to the Coldwater regardless of obstacles. It got as far as the confluence of the Tallahatchie and the Yalobusha, and there ran into Fort Pemberton. This fort was neither particularly strong nor well-armed, but the approach to it was a narrow, straight stretch of river. Moreover, it was commanded by Brigadier General Lloyd Tilghman, who had already surrendered one fort to Grant, Henry on the Tennessee, and did not mean to yield a second. The Federal gunboats made two efforts, and, with no room to maneuver and exert their collective firepower, were pounded and driven back the way they came.
        Grant was going to make one more effort to conquer the geography of the upper Mississippi Valley. The plan was Porter's, and it was another complicated design to get on the south bank of the Yazoo. Five miles above its mouth, the waters of Steele Bayou flowed into the Yazoo. Forty miles up the bayou, it connected eastward to Deer Creek, and Deer Creek in turn connected eastward to the Sunflower River. The Sunflower flowed south into the Yazoo–above the fortified bluffs north of Vicksburg and far below Fort Pemberton. Porter convinced Grant that, with the levee at Yazoo Pass gone, the water would be deep enough to navigate gunboats and transports up the bayou, over the creek, and back down the Sunflower into the Yazoo. Sherman's men put down their picks and shovels, took up their rifles, and slogged for the transports. With the gunboats ahead they all commenced to steam slowly into a sailor's nightmare. The creeks and bayous were narrow–barely the width of a boat–twisted, and choked with willow. Confederates felled trees to bar the way. When the boats steamed into and under trees, sailors and soldiers got an unpleasant shower of rats, raccoons, snakes, even panthers from the limbs above. In the end, Porter's gunboats finally just stuck in the willow tangles of Deer Creek. For a time the ironclads were even in danger of being overtaken and boarded by Rebel infantry, but Sherman's men waded waist-deep to their rescue. "The game was up," Porter later admitted, "and we bumped on homeward."
        Grant had begun this campaign back in November; it was now April in Mississippi and all of his energy and ingenuity had come to nothing thus far. Back east Peace Democrats and Radical Republicans alike were writing him off as a failure, suggesting openly that he was a drunkard to boot. Only Lincoln and Grant's own confidence in his ultimate success sustained him. Now he proposed a bold plan, risking all to win all. He would march his army out of Milliken's Bend down the low Louisiana shore. While he marched, Porter's gunboats and transports would steam past the Vicksburg batteries in the night and downstream to ferry Grant's men over the river. Once on the east bank, he would march northeast toward Jackson and across Pemberton's line of communications.
        Pemberton would have to come out in the open and give battle to defend his communications and his capital. Grant believed he could drive him back into Vicksburg and bag the lot. The risks loomed large, however. Once Porter's gunboats were below Vicksburg, there was no going back for them. They could not successfully steam past the batteries against the current. As for Grant, once over the river, he would be outnumbered initially and at the end of a long, tenuous line of supply. His men, Grant resolved, would carry "what rations of hard bread, coffee and salt we can and make the country furnish the rest." As spring came to Virginia, Robert E. Lee would soon show Joe Hooker why men called him Audacity in a clearing near Chancellorsville. Now in Mississippi Ulysses S. Grant would show that the Union had at least one commander willing to take the gambler's chance.
        It was a chance that disturbed as tough a fighter as Sherman. He wrote Grant at length, arguing against the plan and urging Grant to return to Memphis and try again the overland route down the Mississippi Central railroad. Porter, who would have to run the batteries, didn't much like the plan either. But Grant had determined to drive his head through the brick wall of Vicksburg, and was about to do it. The first step was to march his army downriver to New Carthage on the west bank. That was no mean feat in itself because the Louisiana shore was all bog and bayou. But Grant's men were sturdy, self-reliant westerners, who, if they needed a bridge or a road in a bad spot, built it themselves–and in a hurry. Before the middle of April Grant's lead corps–McClernand's–reached New Carthage to await Porter's arrival. On the night of April 16, under a clear, moonless sky, black-bearded David Porter got his little flotilla under steam: seven iron-clad gunboats, three transports loaded with supplies, and a steam ram. At 10:30 they steamed in single file past Young's Point and headed for that hairpin loop of river below the bluffs.
        Porter's ships burned no lamps and steamed at low speed in an attempt to slip silently by, but that was not to be. Sentries posted in skiffs on the river gave the alarm as soon as Porter's lead ship entered the loop. Some rowed to the west bank to light piles of pitch-soaked wood, a fiery backdrop for the Confederate gunners now taking aim. It was thunder and lightning on the river now, as the Vicksburg batteries sent more than five hundred shells down and the gunboats' port-side guns answered back. Then there was darkness and silence again as the flotilla slipped below the city. It took two and a half hours for the last of Porter's ships to make it. A little while later, the ships again exchanged fire with batteries posted at Warrenton, the east-bank town just below Vicksburg. They had run the gauntlet. They anchored opposite New Carthage, considerably shot-up but still seaworthy. Porter had lost but one transport–the Henry Clay, named for the Great Compromiser. A week later Grant sent a second run of transports past the batteries. He was getting ready at last to cross his army to the Vicksburg side of the river.
        Grant did not underestimate the danger in this crossing. Indeed, it is easy to see why Sherman thought this move "one of the most hazardous and desperate moves of this or any other war." Grant had to cross a mile-wide river deep in enemy territory. The country was defended by a numerically superior foe in a position to reinforce on interior lines against him. Grant would be virtually cut off from his own line of supply, and his own reinforcements were far distant. The possibility of Pemberton falling on Grant with his whole force was precisely the source of Sherman's anxiety. To keep Pemberton guessing and dispersed, Grant would practice three different diversions. One of these was already complete. Early in April he had had Sherman ship one division a hundred miles upriver to Greenville on the east bank. These men simply did a great deal of marching and foraging in the interior as if in preparation for a drive south. It was enough to disgust and terrify the citizenry and make Pemberton look well to trouble coming from that direction. Closer to Vicksburg itself, Sherman made a second stroke. On the last day of April and the first of May, his corps made a busy, noisy, persuasive demonstration against Haines Bluff on the Yazoo. The third and boldest stroke would be a cavalry raid in the heart of Mississippi. After the Battle of Perryville, Henry Halleck in exasperation had asked Don Carlos Buell why he could not march as the enemy marches and fight as he fights. Grant, taking a page from the book of Forrest and Morgan, now wondered why the Federals could not ride as they rode. Accordingly, he sent a former Illinois music teacher turned cavalryman, Colonel Benjamin Grierson, riding out of southern Tennessee and into central Mississippi, tearing up railroads and keeping Pemberton busy in a futile effort to run him to ground. Grierson's 1,700 troopers didn't stop until they loped into the Union lines at Baton Rouge on May 2nd.
        Meanwhile, Grant with 33,000 men was at Hard Times Landing, still on the west bank just below Grand Gulf on the east where he hoped to cross. For one thing, taking Grand Gulf would put him directly on a good road eastward to Jackson; for another, it was important that he not leave its garrison in strength in his rear when he moved on into the interior. The plan was for Porter's iron-clads to steam up and blast the batteries into submission; then, under cover of the gunboats, transports would carry an attack force over to storm the place. Although privately Porter had grave doubts about the success of this effort, on the morning of April 29 he took seven gunboats down to close with the batteries on the bluffs. Porter's gunners boomed away from eight o'clock until sometime after noon, but they got worse than they gave and withdrew beaten. Or rather, not beaten but checked. If Grand Gulf could not be taken in front, then it must be taken in flank. That night Grant sent Porter's flotilla downriver again, hugging the west bank and slipping past the Grand Gulf batteries in the darkness. At the same time he ordered McClernand's corps to make a night march down to DeShroon's, a plantation landing four miles south. There the soldiers joined the sailors and boarded transports. With the invasion force aboard, Grant steamed south again, this time four miles downriver. On April 30, the soldiers disembarked at Bruinsburg, at last, at long last, on the east bank of the Mississippi River. "When this was effected," Grant remembered, "I felt a degree of relief scarcely ever equalled since. I was now in the enemy's country, with a vast river and the stronghold of Vicksburg between me and my base of supplies. But I was on dry ground on the same side of the river with the enemy."
        At this point Pennsylvania-born John Pemberton, a West Pointer who had cast his lot with the South, had good reason to feel hard-pressed. The same day that Grant got McClernand's corps across the river, Sherman's men were busy fifty miles north, banging away at Haines Bluffs on the Yazoo. In the heartland Grierson's troopers were tearing up the place and headed who knew where. Well to the south Yankees under Nathaniel Banks continued to threaten Port Hudson. One thing was certain: Grant must be stopped somehow. But Grant's army, having spent months ditching and dredging, was ready for hard marching and hot fighting. Grant had started down the railroad for Jackson back in November when Confederate cavalry in his rear forced him to return to Memphis; now he would thrust at Jackson from the west, putting his column on the road from Bruinsburg to Port Gibson, just east of the river and just south of Bayou Pierre. Closest to hand to block this advance were the 5,500 men of the Grand Gulf garrison under Brigadier General John Bowen. Bowen got his men out of the Grand Gulf works and hurried south to form a line on wooded ground four miles west of Port Gibson. In the first light of May Day McClernand's four divisions went forward against them. McClernand didn't manage his end of the fight particularly well, and Bowen's men fought stubbornly, but when the first of James McPherson's divisions came up in support, Bowen was flanked and forced to withdraw at nightfall. It had been an all-day fight that killed and wounded about eight hundred on both sides.
        Bowen was a highly capable soldier and got his command out secretly and skillfully in the dark to fall back behind Bayou Pierre, destroying three bridges over it behind him as he went. But it was difficult to slow these blue-coated Westerners much. Over the south fork of the bayou they built a nearly 200-foot span over the bayou and were again on the march headed for Grindstone Ford on the bayou proper eight miles northeast. They found the suspension bridge there torn up as well, but by May 3rd it was repaired and the Yanks across. With Yankees in strength upstream on his flank (another of McPherson's divisions had come up as well), there was nothing for Bowen to do but fall back again, this time behind the Big Black River, and hope to bar the way north to Vicksburg. Grant, however, was not going to Vicksburg, at least not just at the moment. With Grand Gulf in his rear evacuated on May 2nd (the next day Porter had the pleasure of steaming up to the town and not being shot at), Grant would press on toward Jackson, foraging off the countryside as he went just as he had seen Winfield Scott do in Mexico.
        On his way to Jackson to take charge of the small force there was Joe Johnston, recovered from the wounds he suffered at Fair Oaks and now the top Rebel commander in the West. It was an assignment accepted only with reluctance, for Bragg's army was much demoralized after Stones River and Pemberton's now much beleaguered. As for Grant, having made his decision to live off the land, he realized how urgent it was now to move fast–before his army starved or Joe Johnston's could be reinforced by way of the railroad at Jackson. With virtually his whole army at hand (one of Sherman's divisions was still on the way from Haines Bluff), he now raced for Jackson. McClernand's corps was to move along the south bank of the Big Black headed towards Edwards Station to the northeast. (Edwards was square on the rail line between Vicksburg and Jackson.) McPherson's corps was to move on the right advancing on Jackson by way of Utica, then Raymond. Sherman's corps was to follow in support of either wing. By May 12 the lead elements of McClernand's left-wing corps were across Fourteen Mile Creek south of Edwards Station, Sherman was in the center between Cayuga and Dillon, and McPherson's right wing just two miles from Raymond. At Raymond, however, Confederates were going to try to make a fight of it. A big brigade–4,000 men–under Brigadier General John Gregg, posted on wooded ground and supported by two batteries of artillery, barred the way to Raymond and Jackson beyond. McPherson sent John Logan's division forward only to see them driven back in sharp fighting. He threw his two remaining divisions in and the weight of a whole corps on one brigade was plenty. Still, Gregg withdrew in good order through Raymond, met Brigadier General W. H. T. Walker's command (1,000 men just up from South Carolina), and formed a new line five miles east of the town to await events. The next day they fell back on Jackson itself.
        Seven miles away at Dillon's Plantation on Fourteen Mile Creek, Grant could hear the sounds of McPherson's fight in front of Raymond die out in the afternoon. At 5:00 McPherson, having suffered about 450 casualties and inflicted slightly more than 500, went into Raymond for the night. Since this was the first time he had encountered Rebels in any force since McClernand's collision with Bowen's command back on May 1st, Grant decided to concentrate against them and drive his way into Jackson. Now he ordered McPherson to follow the railroad northeast to Clinton, then turn east toward Jackson. Sherman would march out of Dillon, through Raymond, and east to Jackson, swinging to his right to approach the city from the south. McClernand would for the time being forget about Edwards Station. Leaving a division behind to cover the crossings of the Big Black, he was to follow both corps in support. By the next afternoon McPherson was in Clinton nine miles west of Jackson and Sherman on his right just six miles from its gates. On the rainy morning of May 14, Sherman's column to the south and McPherson's to the north were making their final approaches to the capital of Mississippi. In the meantime, Grant had sent McClernand's men north to Bolton on the line to Vicksburg. They were to tear up the tracks westward and check any sudden thrust from that direction. By mid-morning Sherman was in position south of the city and McPherson to the northeast, ready to fight the decisive battle for Jackson. The Battle of Jackson–The Skirmish of Jackson might be more fitting–turned out to be a muddy anti-climax. In a grey drizzle McPherson's men went forward once against the Rebel works and were stalled. They reformed, went forward once more, and it was over. The Rebels were gone, leaving behind seven guns and a handful of gunners to cover the retreat. On Sherman's front it was the same story–only he could claim the capture of ten guns. At Stones River Rosecrans' 13,000 casualties had gained nothing in particular. Grant had taken the capital of Mississippi at a cost of 48 killed, 273 wounded, and 11 missing. Just as good for a man who liked to hurry, he had one corps of his army on the road to Bolton and ready to turn west toward the fortress city of Vicksburg.

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