This text is part of:
[260]
Not knowing yet whether these movements indicated an attack in force, or simply an armed reconnoissance, and, indeed, utterly ignorant that Grant's entire army was in this neighborhood,1 Pemberton at first continued his backward movement; but, the demonstrations soon becoming serious, he directed his division commanders to form a line of battle on the cross-road from the Clinton to the Raymond road, with Loring on the right, Bowen in the centre, and Stevenson on the left.
This was the line with which Grant had to contend in the battle of Champion's hill.
Pemberton declared in his official report that it included only seventeen thousand five hundred men.2 Grant estimated it at least as high as twenty-five thousand.
McClernand had notified McPherson of the movements of his command; and McPherson, anticipating Grant's directions, at once ordered Logan to follow Hovey, and Crocker, who was in column further back, to come up as rapidly as possible with his division.
After proceeding about five miles, Hovey sent
When General Johnston, on the 13th of May, informed me that Sherman was at Clinton, and ordered me to attack him in the rear, neither he nor I knew that Sherman was in the act of advancing on Jackson, which place he entered at twelve o'clock on the next day; that a corps of the enemy was at Raymond, following Sherman's march upon Jackson; and that another corps was near Dillon's, probably moving in the same direction; and, consequently, that the orders to attack Sherman could not be executed. Nor was I myself aware until several hours after I had received and promised to obey the order, that it could not be obeyed without the destruction of my army; but on my arrival at Edward's depot, two hours after I received the order, I found a large force of the enemy at Dillon's, on my right flank, and ready to attack me in the flank or rear if I moved on Clinton. Pemberton's additional Report.
2 I shall take occasion, further on, to dispute this assertion of Pemberton. See page 399.
New York Appleton 1885.
Tufts University provided support for entering this text.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.