Book Title: The Union Assaults at Vicksburg: Grant Attacks Pemberton, May 17–22, 1863 by Timothy B. Smith. University Press of Kansas, 2020. ISBN-10: 0700629068; ISBN-13: 978-0700629060. Photographs. Maps. Appendix. Pp. xviii, 483. $34.95.
Review Posted: On Point: The Journal of Army History
This worthy effort offers a highly detailed review of a short period in General Grant’s 1863 campaign against the Confederate stronghold of Vicksburg, Mississippi. It starts after the successful battles of Champion Hill and Big Black River Bridge and ends with the second assault against the city’s defenses on May 22nd. As this work mainly concerns two failed attacks by the Union army, the author clearly has the opportunity to criticize the judgments of the various commanders, and he is to be applauded for not exempting Ulysses S. Grant, William T. Sherman, or James B. McPherson from negative commentary.
Only a few brigades, mostly in Sherman’s corps, were in position to make the first assault, on May 19th and this premature attempt ended badly. The next two days were consumed with preparations and moving up more troops. The order for a “simultaneous attack” on May 22nd “required the columns to move by every road at 10 a. m.” Left unemphasized is the tactical ineffectiveness of attenuating the strength of these assaulting columns, compared to a more focused approach.
On May 22nd, McClernand commenced his portion of the assault earlier than the other two commanders. For some reason, long delays attended the advance of several of Sherman’s brigades. Achieving very limited gains, McClernand sent his superior the first of several optimistic messages, which went unheeded by Grant. Instead of visiting McClernand’s sector, the Union commander moved away from the only point of attack that promised at least a chance of success and went to Sherman’s front. McClernand had followed the orders to attack all along the line and didn’t have sufficient reserves for reinforcement.
Smith describes one episode of the May 22nd assaults in far more detail than is usually provided in Vicksburg’s battle histories. The day before, Grant gave instructions for William Hall’s brigade of McArthur’s division to embark on boats well below Vicksburg where it had been stationed, disembark on the opposite bank and march past the city (as the stream flowed), re-embark on different boats to go further upriver to the Yazoo and then up that channel to disembark at Hayne’s Bluff. Remaining there only “a few hours,” the brigade then backtracked all the way to the east bank south of Vicksburg and still “marched 4 miles on the road toward Vicksburg, and bivouacked for the night.” In his attack plans, Grant had ordered this one, isolated brigade—the nearest Federal troops were miles away—to “[m]ove cautiously, and be prepared to receive an attack at any moment. Penetrate as far into the city as you can. Should you find the city still in possession of the enemy, hold as advanced a position as you can secure yourself upon.” Smith implies that this represented a viable line of attack. Hall did not, however, even attempt to pierce the enemy defenses, merely skirmishing instead with light casualties. This minor engagement ended after McClernand again requested support and took up Grant’s ill-considered offer of Hall’s brigade as reinforcement.
The worst aspect of an otherwise commendable book is Smith’s literary mistreatment of John McClernand, which matched the prejudices of General Grant, both at the time and in his Memoirs. A search for “glory” in the text shows that McClernand was accused of being a gloryhound, who displayed “duplicity,” “ineptness,” and “selfish motives.” The highly partisan Charles A. Dana falsely contended that McClernand “‘had not the qualities necessary for commander even of a regiment,’” this after the so-called “political general” had put in a series of creditable performances starting as a brigade leader back in the Battle of Belmont. Smith, however, did accurately observe that, “[o]nce Grant made McClernand the scapegoat, it was a done deal and historians have mainly taken Grant’s side.”
The book excels most of all for its detail. Seemingly innumerable quotes from both sides of the campaign’s soldiers and officers pepper the text. Unsurprisingly, the lengthy bibliography includes an impressively long list of manuscript collections. The book contains fifteen maps and appendices for the Union and Confederate orders of battle.