Adam Badeau, Military history of Ulysses S. Grant from April 1861 to April 1865. Volume 1

[244] and their combined forces moved at daylight. The rain had fallen in torrents during the night, making the roads at first slippery, and then miry; but the troops marched in excellent order, without straggling, and in the best of spirits. At nine o'clock, the pickets of Crocker's division, which had the advance of Mc-Pherson's corps, engaged the enemy, about five miles out from Jackson. The rebel outposts were speedily driven in, and Crocker pushed on till within two and a half miles of the city, where the enemy was found in position, outside of the defences, and under the command of Johnston. This force was composed of the troops that had been driven from Raymond two days before, as well as the garrison of Jackson. Besides these, reenforcements from South Carolina and Georgia regiments arriving in the night, had been immediately marched out and put into position at the rebel front.¹ Reconnoissances were made at once, and artillery brought up to reply to the rebel guns, which had already opened on the national advance.

McPherson now had the left, on the Clinton road, and Sherman was deployed to the right, on the south and southwest of Jackson, where he met a small force of infantry and artillery at about the same distance from the city as the troops in McPherson's front. There was a gap of nearly two miles between the Fifteenth and Seventeenth corps, but Grant had estimated the rebel strength, and calculated that either part of his command was more than a match for Johnston's entire force, in case the enemy assumed the offensive; he made no effort, therefore, to connect the wings, thinking it more important to hold the