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Battle of Chickasaw Bayou

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The Battle of Chickasaw Bayou, also called the Battle of Chickasaw Bluffs, fought December 26 to December 29, 1862, was the opening engagement of the Vicksburg Campaign during the American Civil War. Confederate forces under Lt. Gen. John C. Pemberton repulsed an advance by Union Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman that intended to lead to the capture of Vicksburg, Mississippi.

Background

Starting in November 1862, Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, commanding Union forces in Mississippi, undertook a campaign to capture the city of Vicksburg, high on the bluffs of the Mississippi River. Grant split his 70,000-man army into two wings—one commanded by himself and one commanded by Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman. Grant planned to advance along the Mississippi Central Railroad in the northern part of the state and send Sherman and a combined army-navy force downriver against Vicksburg. Sherman's seven gunboats and fifty-nine troop transports arrived above Vicksburg on Christmas Eve. After advancing up the Yazoo River, the transports unloaded 32,000 Union troops north of the city. In front of the Federal advance stood a formidable maze of both natural and man-made defenses. First was a thick entanglement of trees, which was broken intermittently by swampland. Chickasaw Bayou also acted as a potential barrier to Sherman's men because it was parallel to the planned line of advance and could interrupt communication between units. Furthermore, the Confederates had formed a defensive barrier using felled trees.

The battle

Skirmishing took place throughout December 26 and December 27. On December 28, Sherman moved toward a general engagement when he attempted to turn the Confederate right flank. The narrow front and strong Confederate defenses doomed the Union assault to failure. On the morning of December 29, Sherman ordered a general artillery bombardment of the Confederate defenses to weaken them before a general Federal advance. For almost four hours, an artillery duel took place all along the line of battle. At 12 p.m., the duel ceased, and the infantry advance began. Two brigades in the Federal center carried the advance rifle pits on the weight of sheer numbers, but met stiff resistance when they came against the main Confederate line. As the Union assault ground to a halt and started to crumble, Confederate Brig. Gen. Stephen D. Lee ordered his men to make a counterattack, during which they captured over 300 Federal soldiers. Another Union assault, led by Maj. Gen. A.J. Smith and coming against the Confederate left-center, met with equally stiff resistance and could not carry the earthworks.

Aftermath

After the failures of December 29, Sherman did not re-initiate the offensive against Vicksburg. On New Year's Day, he withdrew his army. During this period, the overland half of Grant's offensive was also failing. His lines of communication were disrupted by raids by Maj. Gen. Earl Van Dorn and Brig. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, who destroyed his large supply depot at Holly Springs, Mississippi. Unable to subsist his army without these supplies, Grant abandoned his overland advance. Although Grant tried a number of operations, or "experiments", to reach Vicksburg over the winter, the Vicksburg Campaign did not begin again in earnest until April 1863.

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