It was the second year of the US Civil War, and so far, things had seldom gone well for Union cavalrymen. Time after time in the war’s early years, the Northern horsemen were bested and embarrassed by their Confederate counterparts. On April 17th, 1863, Union Colonel Benjamin Grierson led a cavalry brigade of 1700 men out of La Grange, Tennessee. He took them southward to raid deep into Mississippi. The raiders sought to ride down the length of that state, and reemerge at the other side and the safety of Union lines in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Below are some interesting facts about that fascinating adventure.
A Cavalry Commander Who Feared and Hated Horses
Benjamin Grierson (1826 – 1911) was an unlikely leader of what was destined to become one of history’s greatest cavalry raids: he hated horses. A former music teacher, he was born and raised in western Pennsylvania. When he was eight, he was kicked and almost killed by a horse, so he feared and hated them for the rest of his life. Although his negative feelings about horses never changed, he kept them in check, and did not let them stop him from becoming an outstanding cavalry commander.
When they rode out of La Grange in the spring of 1863, Grierson and his men aimed to do the most their utmost to discomfit the enemy and disrupt his communications. They would tear up railroad tracks, destroy bridges, wreck Confederate installations and facilities, and otherwise wreak havoc and sow confusion throughout Mississippi. In addition to the damage inflicted, both physical and to Southern morale, the raid was to be the opening salvo of the Vicksburg Campaign. Its strategic aim was to act as a diversion from General Ulysses S. Grant’s planned attack against Vicksburg, Mississippi.
Showing What the Union Cavalry Could Do
Grierson’s raid was also intended to boost morale. In the Civil War’s early years, Confederate cavalry had been markedly superior to that of the Union, and often rode literal circles around the federal horsemen. Grierson’s raid would demonstrate what Union cavalry could do, with a daring exploit of their own to match the headline-grabbing ones of Southern cavalrymen like J.E.B. Stuart and Nathan Bedford Forrest. Grierson’s men travelled light. They packed only five days’ worth of rations for what planners envisioned would be a ten-day mission, forty rounds of ammunition, and oats for their mounts.
Preceded by scouts disguised in enemy uniforms, the raiders rode for six hundred miles through the heart of enemy territory that had never before seen enemy soldiers, nor felt the touch of war. Mississippi felt it now, and panicked. Union horsemen burned storehouses, tore up railroads and twisted the rails atop burning crossties, freed slaves, wrecked bridges, destroyed trains, and put commissaries to the torch. To add to the Confederates’ confusion and panic, Grierson peeled off detachments and sent them on feints to baffle the enemy about his actual whereabouts, intentions, and direction of march.
A Raid With Far-Reaching Consequences
Grierson’s raid was a smashing success, literally and figuratively. His men ran riot deep in the heart of Confederate territory, and inflicted significant damage upon enemy property and enemy morale. Although vigorously pursued by the Confederates, Grierson and his men eluded their pursuers, even as they continued to cause mayhem in the enemy’s heartland. After a fifteen day rampage during which they lost only three killed, seven wounded, and nine missing, the federal cavalrymen crossed into the safety of Union lines near Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
The raid’s ramifications went far beyond its immediate physical and psychological impact. Grierson and his men had demonstrated that Union soldiers could live off the land within Confederate territory. That started the gears turning in the mind of Union General William Tecumseh Sherman. He began to mull the vulnerability of the Confederacy’s interior, which he eventually came to compare to soft innards surrounded by a brittle shell. A year and a half later, those turning gears led to Sherman’s March Through Georgia, and the even more devastating March Through the Carolinas that sealed the Confederacy’s doom.
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Some Sources & Further Reading
Brown, Dee – Grierson’s Raid (1954)
History Halls – Sherman Made Georgia Howl, but Not as Loudly as He Made South Carolina Scream
Lardas, Mark – Roughshod Through Dixie: Grierson’s Raid, 1863 (2012)
