General Joseph E. Johnston, Narrative of Military Operations During the Civil War

In a letter from the War Department, dated the 6th, the temporary rebuilding of the railroad-bridge at Jackson was suggested to me — the work to be under the direction of the engineer-officers of the army; its object, the bringing off the rolling-stock and a part of the iron of the Mississippi Central Railroad. A part of that rolling-stock, not in daily use, was then at Grenada, where the principal officers of the railroad company had placed it for safety. As the measures already taken seemed to me more proper as well as better than this one, no change was made. If, however, there had been no impediment to the removal of the engines and cars at Grenada, I should not have advocated the measure, for they could not have been carried beyond the Mobile & Ohio Railroad, on which, near Mobile, there was then a very large collection of that kind of property; and I think that it would not have been judicious to collect all the spare engines and cars of the department at one point.

On the 15th it was ascertained that a body of eight or nine hundred Federal cavalry was moving from Yazoo City, by Lexington, toward Grenada; and another, of equal strength, advancing from the vicinity of Grand Junction, as if to meet it.