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Running the Gauntlet at Vicksburg by Don Stivers.
What was to be a quick, overland movement of merely 40 miles along the west bank of the Mississippi River, had bogged down in swamps and bayous, rain flooded roads and shallow canals. General U.S. Grants objective was to effect a landing on the east bank of the river, then move inland. But to do that he must first get his army below the fortress city - and building roads and cutting his way through the mire of the west bank was slowing the army to a crawl. His new plan called for a combined operation: part of Grants army would continue to work its way overland while Admiral David Porter would run the gauntlet of batteries at Vicksburg with the other part of the army and supplies. It was a bold but hazardous wager, this combined operation of army and navy. Most of General U.S. Grants subordinates remonstrated: by sending part of his army cross-country and part down the Mississippi on transports, he was cutting himself off from his supplies and communications; he was splitting his army in the face of a foe nearly double his strength; and the batteries at Vicksburg were powerful enough to destroy anything on the river. Even General William Tecumseh Sherman thought the plan rash. But whatever side of the Mississippi you were on, the spectacle after dark on the night of April 16, 1863 was grandly, horrifyingly magnificent. As the great, black hulks of Admiral David Porters gunboats and transports slid silently into range of the Confederate batteries, Southerners in picket boats set fire to buildings on the west bank, illuminating the river in a weirdly spectral glow. Shells flew through the night, hundreds of burning fuses arching towards the ships to explode in a fiery rain of fragments. Smoke clung close to the water. In the words of an observer, It was as if hell itself were loose that night on the Mississippi... Just below Vicksburg, from his flagship the Benton, Porter sees a small craft being rowed out to him. In the flickering light of a burning transport - the only ship he would lose that night - the Admiral recognizes General Sherman who will greet each vessel as it arrives, assuring them that they will soon meet up with the rest of the army. Beacon fires on the river die through the drifting smoke, and silence again rules the river. the link-up will soon be complete. but something had changed with this passage, and with the armys belief in U.S. Grants military prowess. It wouldn't end now until the great river ran unvexed to the sea.
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