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| The passage of the Big Black River.1 |
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of the Twenty-first, Twenty-second, and Twenty-third Iowa, and Eleventh Wisconsin, sprang forward with cheers, and drove the foe to his intrenchments; not, however, without suffering fearfully from an enfilading fire from a curtain of the Confederate breast-works, which prostrated one hundred and fifty of their number.
Undismayed, they waded the bayou, pressed forward, delivered and received heavy volleys of bullets, and rushed upon the foe with fixed bayonets before the latter had time to reload.
Meanwhile many of the Confederates within the intrenchments fled to the other side of the river, and communicated to the troops there their own irrepressible panic.
They expected the Nationals would immediately cross the river and assail them, and so they burned the two bridges, cut off the retreat of their comrades who were yet fighting, and fled pell-mell toward the safer region of the defenses around Vicksburg, making the inhabitants of that city pale with affright, and forebodings of the greatest calamities impending.
Pemberton and his staff, it is said, tried to prevent the incendiarism and stop the flight.
but in vain.
The assailed garrison, about fifteen hundred strong, were captured, with seventeen guns (a part of them taken from Grant the day before), several thousand stand of arms, and a large quantity of commissary stores, and losing, besides, twenty killed and two hundred and forty-two wounded. Thus ended the battle of the Big Black River, in which Osterhaus was wounded, when his command devolved temporarily upon Brigadier-General A. L. Lee.
McClernand could not immediately follow the fugitives toward Vicksburg.
Their retreat was covered by the batteries and sharp-shooters on the high western bank of the river, who for hours kept the Nationals from constructing floating bridges.
Grant's only pontoon train was with Sherman, who, under his chief's orders, and while the events we have just been considering were occurring, had been making his way from Jackson to Bridgeport, on the Big Black, a few miles above the railway bridge.
He arrived there
1 this was the appearance at the passage of the railway travel between Jackson and Vicksburg, over the Big Black River, as it appeared to the writer when he made the sketch, in April, 1866, from the eastern side of the stream, while on his way from Vicksburg to Jackson. The passengers had crossed the River on the pontoon bridge seen in the sketch, and while waiting for the cars to start, the drawing was made. On the left are seen the piers of the railroad bridge destroyed by the Confederates, and beyond the stream are the high banks, with the forest near, on which the Confederate batteries were planted.
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